Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth v. City of Joliet: Illinois Court Rejects Due Process and Statutory Challenges to $20 Billion Data Center Project but Leaves Door Open to Zoning Challenges

On October 19, Will County Circuit Judge Victoria Breslan issued the first significant Illinois trial-court decision resolving legal challenges to local hyperscale data center approvals. In Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth v. City of Joliet, Will Cty. Case No. 2026CH000108 (12th Judicial Circuit), a nonprofit citizens’ group (“JRRG”) and three of its members (collectively, the “Plaintiffs”) sued the City of Joliet (“Joliet”) and three developers (the “Developer Defendants” and, with Joliet, the “Defendants”) to reverse the project approvals and halt construction. Judge Breslan dismissed all four counts, three without leave to amend. It is too early to tell whether the decision will be a bellwether for similar suits pending across Illinois, but it offers practical guidance for data center stakeholders seeking to reduce litigation risk to project completion.

Key Takeaways

• Facially compliant notices hold up. Illinois law does not require a hearing notice to call a project a “data center” or to describe its nature and scale.
• Reconvened meetings can survive Open Meetings Act challenges. A properly announced continuation of a public hearing, held openly, withstood challenge.
• Parcel-specific harm may be a pathway past the pleading stage. Regional harms to water, power, infrastructure and traffic will not support a La Salle zoning challenge, but concrete injury to neighboring parcels may.

Case Background and the Allegations of the Complaint

Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth involves challenges to the Joliet City Council’s approval of the $20 billion Joliet Technology Center: a 24-building, roughly 6.9 million-square-foot campus on nearly 800 acres of farmland east of the Chicagoland Speedway, with projected power demand of 1.8 gigawatts.^[1] Expected benefits from the project include about $2.1 billion in revenue generated for local taxing bodies over 30 years, 7,000–10,000 construction jobs and about 700 permanent jobs.^[2] 

The Plan Commission conducted its first public hearing on March 5, 2026, during which the project developers presented information regarding the proposed project’s power connectivity, water usage, engineering, noise, traffic and anticipated economic impacts, and several community members submitted public comments. Then, on March 16, 2026, the Joliet City Council conducted a public hearing that included extensive public comment and presentations by the developers’ representatives and project consultants. At the end of the evening, the Joliet City Council recessed without voting, and next reconvened on March 19, 2026. Upon reconvening, the Joliet City Council voted 8–1 to approve ordinances annexing the site, rezoning it from agricultural to light industrial and granting a preliminary planned unit development.^[3] 

On May 18, 2026, JRRG and three of its members who live near the data center project’s boundary filed a Complaint asserting four claims against Joliet and Developer Defendants:

• Count I — Failure to Provide Statutorily Required Notice: The Plaintiffs alleged that the hearing notice issued by the City Plan Commission violated the Illinois Municipal Code because its identification of the subject project as the “Joliet Technology Center” did not disclose that the project was for a data center. Division 15.1 of the Illinois Municipal Code, which governs annexation agreements, requires that public officials give notice, through publication in at least one newspaper published in the city or with a general circulation within the annexing city “of the proposed annexation agreement or amendment not more than 30 nor less than 15 days before the date fixed for the hearing.”^[4] Division 13 of the Illinois Municipal Code, which governs zoning, contains a notice requirement regarding zoning regulation amendments.^[5] According to the Plaintiffs, failure to expressly identify the Joliet Technology Center as a “data center” deprived the public of true notice of the project.
• Count II — Violation of Illinois’ Open Meetings Act: The Plaintiffs also alleged that the meeting, which the Joliet City Council reconvened on March 19, violated the notice and agenda requirements of the Open Meetings Act, 5 ILCS 120/2 and 120/2.02. Under the Act, special, rescheduled and reconvened meetings are subject to notice and agenda requirements as well.^[6] The Plaintiffs alleged that because the Joliet City Council did not issue a new notice and agenda for the continued hearing, which reconvened on March 19, Joliet had violated the Open Meetings Act and the zoning decisions should be invalidated.
• Count III — Violation of Procedural Due Process: The Plaintiffs also alleged that Joliet had violated citizens’ constitutional procedural due process rights because not every resident who opposed the data center project was allowed to cross-examine the developers at the hearing on March 16, and there was not sufficient physical space for all opponents to the data center project to attend that hearing in person. In addition, the Plaintiffs alleged that because project documents were kept confidential under an NDA, it was not possible for a full and fair cross examination to occur.
• Count IV — Substantive La Salle Challenge to the Zoning Decision: Lastly, the Plaintiffs brought a La Salle challenge against the City of Joliet. The Plaintiffs alleged that Joliet’s rezoning decision was arbitrary, capricious and without substantial relation to public health, safety or welfare under La Salle National Bank v. County of Cook, 12 Ill. 2d 40 (1957). Specifically, the Plaintiffs alleged that rezoning from agricultural to light industrial zoning to accommodate the proposed data center development lacked a substantial relationship to public health, safety and welfare, given the project’s anticipated scale and potential impacts on electricity and water supply, noise, environmental conditions, and neighboring property values.

The Defendants’ Pleading Challenges

The Defendants moved to dismiss all counts. The Developer Defendants filed a hybrid motion to dismiss and for summary judgment, seeking summary judgment on Counts II and III, and dismissal of JRRG for improper standing, and the City of Joliet filed a separate motion to dismiss. The Defendants’ arguments for dismissal included:

• Count I — Failure to Provide Statutorily Required Notice: The Developer Defendants argued that Illinois law does not require a notice to describe an annexation’s substance, character or scale, and that the Plaintiffs failed to allege specific prejudice, relying instead on prejudice to unnamed members of the public. Joliet similarly argued that the notice complied with state law, because it was timely issued and included the time and place of the hearing, the common street address of the at-issue property, and the property index number(s) of all parcels. Joliet also asserted that dismissal was appropriate because the Plaintiffs did not allege prejudice.
• Count II — Violation of Illinois’ Open Meetings Act: The Developer Defendants sought summary judgment on Count II on the grounds that the March 19 meeting was a properly announced continuation of the March 16 meeting with the same agenda, and the Open Meetings Act does not require posting an agenda in advance of a reconvened meeting absent an agenda change from the initial meeting date. The Developer Defendants also asserted that JRRG’s social media posts about the March 16 meeting being reconvened on March 19 revealed that it had actual notice of the meeting and called into question the legitimacy of JRRG’s inconsistent claims of improper notice. Meanwhile, Joliet moved to dismiss on the grounds that nullifying an action taken at an open meeting is “too extreme a remedy” for an alleged notice defect. Joliet further argued that the Plaintiffs were not entitled to a declaration that approvals from the March 19 meeting were invalid because the March 19 meeting was open and public, and notice of the reconvened meeting was posted to Joliet’s official website on March 18.
• Count III — Violation of Procedural Due Process: The Developer Defendants moved for summary judgment on Count III, arguing that the Plaintiffs had no right to cross-examination because the challenged meeting involved a legislative decision but that, regardless, they were offered a cross examination opportunity, and also that the hearing was reasonably accessible because Joliet held the March 16 hearing open from 5:30 p.m. until midnight. In its motion to dismiss, Joliet repeated the same argument about the hearing being legislative in nature and also pointed out that video of the meeting confirms that more people spoke out against the project than for it.
• Count IV — Substantive La Salle Challenge to the Zoning Decision: Joliet moved to dismiss Count IV on the grounds that the Plaintiffs alleged only regional and public harms, not harm to specific parcels, as required by La Salle.^[7] In particular, Joliet argued that the alleged harms to water supply, grid reliability, regional infrastructure, and regional traffic were not parcel-specific.
• Challenge to JRRG’s Standing: Beyond challenging each Count of the Complaint, all of the Defendants argued that JRRG lacked standing because the complaint did not allege that any JRRG member missed the Plan Commission meeting due to the notice or was misled about the March 19 session.

The Court’s Order

The court’s October 19 Order ruled for the Defendants on every count, though it left the door open for the Plaintiffs to replead their zoning challenge — a favorable outcome for developers and municipalities at a time when media coverage of criticisms of data center projects has grown.

• Count I — Statutorily Required Notice Had Been Provided: The court dismissed Count I with prejudice, finding that the March 5 notice substantially complied with the notice requirements of the Municipal Code, and explained that the law does not require a pre-hearing notice to specifically identify a project as a “data center” or to describe its nature and scale. In so holding, the court stated that the notice issued by the Plan Commission sufficed because it disclosed the annexation, industrial classification, agreement, and named technology-center planned unit development.
• Count II — There Was No Violation of Illinois’ Open Meetings Act: The court granted summary judgment for the Defendants on Count II, finding that the reconvened March 19 meeting was open to the public and that the Plaintiffs raised no genuine issue of material fact.
• Count III — There Was No Violation of Procedural Due Process: The court granted summary judgment for the Defendants on Count III, finding no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the Plaintiffs were denied due process or that their participation rights at the hearing were violated.
• Count IV — Inadequately Pleaded Substantive La Salle Challenge to the Zoning Decision: The court dismissed Count IV without prejudice. It held that the alleged harms to regional water supply, grid reliability, public infrastructure, and traffic were public harms, not the parcel-specific, member-by-member injuries that La Salle requires. The court signaled, however, that neighbors who plead concrete injury to their own parcels may be able to survive the pleading stage in as-applied challenges to data center rezonings.
• JRRG Lacked Associational Standing: The court held that JRGG, which had alleged that its membership includes residents and property owners whose properties lie within one, two and three miles of the project, failed to establish standing. However, the court’s Order authorizes JRRG to file an amended pleading.

What This Means for Data Center Stakeholders

Before the October 19 ruling, no Illinois court had resolved a pleading challenge to data center-related claims, and that absence of guidance contributed to a growing number of suits against data centers across Illinois. Although not binding on other trial courts, the Will County Court’s Order begins to fill that gap and signals that procedural challenges to facially compliant notices and open-session votes face a steep climb. At the same time, the dismissal of the zoning count without prejudice suggests that well-pleaded, parcel-specific claims remain a real risk.

Absent statewide legislative directive on data centers, local approvals and the courts remain the primary venues for the fight over hyperscale data centers in Illinois. The plaintiffs’ bar may shift strategy as a result of the dismissal order in Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth and devote more effort to identifying plaintiffs who can plead individualized, parcel-specific harms. Additionally, plaintiffs attempting to halt data centers in Illinois may now pivot to asserting claims that have gained popularity in other states, including challenges under environmental statutes.^[8] Either way, data center project stakeholders should prepare for continued litigation in Illinois.

Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth is instructive for mitigating litigation risk in Illinois. Data center project stakeholders can take steps now to strengthen their position to defeat such claims at the pleading stage:

• Endeavor to ensure that the timing and content of annexation and zoning notices satisfy the Illinois Municipal Code.
• Announce any continuance on the record and promptly post notice of the reconvened meeting.
• Document public participation opportunities at hearings relating to data center projects, including hearing length, public comment and any cross-examination offered.
• Anticipate La Salle challenges and build a record addressing parcel-level impacts (noise, traffic and property values).
• Review environmental permitting strategy in light of challenges brought in other states.
• Engage knowledgeable counsel proficient in Illinois zoning decisions, Illinois municipal law and state court litigation early in the approval process to build that record.