Friday afternoon, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) filed a lawsuit against the City of Birmingham and companies involved in the new Nebius data center.
"This lawsuit asks one simple question: Were the laws followed?" Allison Black Cornelius, the CEO of GBHS, said in a video statement posted to the group's social media.
The 300-megawatt hyperscale AI factory has been proposed approximately 1,200 feet from GBHS's future animal healing campus in Oxmoor Valley, which was purchased in 2021. A site they were attracted to "based on the natural beauty of the location and its mixed corporate and residential character," according to the lawsuit.
"Today, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society filed a lawsuit against the City of Birmingham and the developers of the proposed AI Factory planned beside the campus we have spent years building for this community's animals," Cornelius explained in her social media post.
"We did not make this decision lightly. For more than 140 years, GBHS has stood for those who cannot speak for themselves. We will not allow the animals in our care, our donors' trust, or the future of animal welfare in Birmingham to be put at risk without a fight," she continued.
A little over a month ago, GBHS started a Change.Com petition that has 11,632 signatures to date.
"GBHS has spent years planning and building a first-of-its-kind medical-model animal care campus designed to serve injured, abused, neglected, and homeless animals from across our community. It was created to be a place of healing, safety, recovery, and lifesaving care," the petition reads. "A facility of this size raises serious questions about noise, heat, water demand, electrical infrastructure, light pollution, traffic, and long-term impacts on the surrounding community."
The new lawsuit seeks to halt the project, stating:
GBHS prays this Honorable Court will make definitive rulings that:
(a) The proposed AI Factory cannot proceed without special exceptions required for a substation and switching station under the City’s zoning ordinance;
(b) A memorandum of the City Attorney (the “City Attorney Memorandum”) and decision of the City’s Director of the Department of Planning, Engineering, and Permitting (the “Planning Director”) allowing the Nebius Entities to proceed without the special exceptions represents an incorrect application of the law;
(c) The City Attorney and Planning Director have no legal authority to overturn decisions rendered by the Board of Zoning Adjustment of the City of Birmingham (the “ZBA”);
(d) GBHS’s appeal of the aforementioned acts was not heard by the City in violation of Alabama law;
(e) The City Attorney Memo and decision of the Planning Director de facto rezoned the AI Factory property to an industrial use;
(f) Under the rules of strict construction proposed in the City Attorney Memo the AI Factory would not be allowed under the City zoning ordinance before it was amended to allow for hyperscale data centers;
(g) The Nebius Entities are not in compliance with the conceptual plans or development plan approved and administered by the Oxmoor Steering Committee;
(h) The Nebius Entities never had “vested rights” and what they now claim as “vested rights” were manufactured by the Nebius Entities in coordination with the City;
(i) The Court may examine the above issues by writ of certiorari as necessary and appropriate;
(j) GBHS’s procedural due process rights under the Alabama Constitution have been violated by this scheme and require intervention by this Court; and
(k) If any of the aforementioned legal questions in (a) through (h) are decided in favor of GBHS the City’s ultra vires acts will render all permits approved after those acts and upon those grounds void until lawfully corrected.
Among the details in the filing are that the company and city have acted in bad faith.
"On May 11, 2026, the Nebius Entities cut virtually every tree where the AI Factory and switching station are proposed to be constructed, in spite of the fact the Nebius Entities represented to the Oxmoor Steering Committee that certain old growth trees would be preserved," the filing says.
It also notes the speed of the process for approving the data center.
"The four-month review for building permits allowing more than $2 billion in construction for the Nebius Entities moved at lightning speed relative to the eighteen-month review for GBHS's $67 million proposed construction," the filing explains.
"We believe that question deserves an answer. We have been threatened. We have been told to back down. We will not. The animals cannot ask you to stand with them. So we are," Cornelius said in closing.
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