Spartanburg County passes data center moratorium as SELC sues over Valara project
Spartanburg County Council voted unanimously to impose a one-year moratorium on data center applications. The SELC is already in court over the nearly $3 billion Valara Holdings project under construction on South Pine Street.
Spartanburg County Council voted unanimously to impose a one-year moratorium on new data center applications, invoking the pending ordinance doctrine to freeze new projects immediately after first reading without waiting for a second or third vote. The moratorium does not stop projects already under construction, which means the Valara Holdings data center at the former Kohler plant on South Pine Street keeps building.
That carve-out is exactly where the legal fight is now concentrated. The South Carolina Environmental Law Center filed suit against both Spartanburg County and Valara Holdings on behalf of Concerned Citizens of Spartanburg County, arguing the nearly $3 billion project was improperly classified as a minor land development, a designation that skipped the full public planning commission process. Public records show Valara submitted two separate applications totaling well over a million square feet under that minor classification, both approved by the county. A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for July 30 in Columbia. Separately, the SELC has also petitioned the South Carolina Public Service Commission over Valara’s plans for a roughly 450-megawatt on-site natural gas plant, which the petition says began construction without the required Commission review.
Valara is a subsidiary of NorthMark Strategies. NorthMark’s position is that the project was phased from the start and that state and local officials were informed throughout. Spartanburg County declined to comment because the matter is in litigation.
This is the home beat. The moratorium buys time but does nothing about what’s already going up. The SELC’s two-front legal strategy, one in circuit court over land development classification and one before the Public Service Commission over the gas plant, is the sharper pressure. Whether the county reverses course before a judge tells it to is the question worth watching.