A recent decision by the Virginia Supreme Court means residents are being given a second chance to make their case against a Wegmans distribution center — even though construction on the 1.7 million-square-foot facility located in Ashland is nearing completion.

“The blue sky kind of hope would be that [Wegmans] don’t get their certificate of occupancy and they have to return the land back to what it was,” said Henrico resident Renada Harris in a recent phone interview. She grew up in the Brown Grove community where her parents and sister still live, and is a member of the Brown Grove Preservation Group.

“It was my sister Bonnica Cotman who founded the Brown Grove Preservation Group in 2020 to fight the Wegmans development that was going to be 50 feet from our backyard,” Ms. Harris said. “I say ‘ours’ because I go there every week. My sister and my parents live right next door to each other.”

A number of Brown Grove residents, community group Protect Hanover and the Hanover NAACP filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality arguing that the project’s environmental impacts to health and quality of life in the majority Black community were not adequately assessed. They cited not only loss of wetlands located on the 217-acre mostly wooded development site, but also contended that both the construction and operation of the proposed facility would result in noise and light pollution, increased flooding risk, diminished water quality and a significant increase to daily trips by cars and trucks that would cause traffic congestion and air pollution.

While this suit remains active, it is a second suit that was filed against the Hanover County Board of Supervisors that came before the state Supreme Court.

That lawsuit, Morgan v. Hanover County Board of Supervisors, is based on the contention that county officials violated multiple state laws and local ordinances by granting a special exemption and making modifications to the site’s zoning designation in May 2020. The plaintiffs were denied the right to make that case when the Hanover Circuit Court declared they lacked standing because they had failed to meet a requirement to demonstrate “particularized harm.”

This past February, the state Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court after finding that “the allegations of particularized harm made by the homeowners are fairly traceable to the Board’s 2020 decision.” Last month the court refused a request from Wegmans to reconsider the decision.

Chris French is a member of Protect Hanover who “lives about a mile as the crow flies away from the Wegmans facility” in Mechanicsville. He believes this decision is an important one.

“It does a lot. The state Supreme Court does not pick up any case willy nilly. They only pick up cases that have impact across the entire state of Virginia,” he said by telephone. “The citizens of the Commonwealth now have greater access to the courts when it comes to land use decisions.”

That’s important, especially for minority communities that have often been particularly harmed by patterns of locating industrial and public infrastructure projects in their backyards.

The Brown Grove community was founded about 150 years ago and many living there now are descendants of Caroline Dobson Morris, a midwife nicknamed the “mother of Brown Grove,” who settled there after being freed from enslavement. These residents saw the Wegmans deal as just one more that would be detrimental to their health and their quality of life, pointing to past decisions such as the routing of Interstate 95 through Brown Grove in the 1950s and 1960s, which split the community in half. Since then a landfill, a concrete plant, an airport and a truck stop off the nearby highway have also been built.

Ms. Harris says issues of dust, traffic congestion, road accidents and pollution the community already faces would be exacerbated further by Wegmans distribution center.

“Our history in Brown Grove is a history of dispossession of our land, dismissal of our opinions, defeat and oppression,” she added.

But now residents are hopeful of a different outcome. When reached by phone for comment, the plaintiffs’ attorney Brian Buniva said “it was a glorious day” when the court ruled in favor of his clients and he is confident about their chances going forward.

“What is likely to happen is that the court will have no choice but to declare the rezoning was unlawful on at least two of the eight counts we have brought. That would mean starting over with the Board of Supervisors to obtain approval.”

Mr. Buniva added that several things could impact the chances of a different result should that happen, including recent elections, the death of the board’s longest serving member Aubrey M. “Bucky” Stanley, Jr. in December 2021, and the fact that Brown Grove has since been recognized as a rural historic district by the state and designated a National Historic Landmark.

Ms. Harris said one of the reasons Brown Grove fought for this historic designation is because “what Wegmans’ lawyers and Hanover County were saying is, ‘No, that’s not a Black community, it’s a white community so there’s no environmental justice protections in that area.

“We’re hopeful now that we have national recognition,” she added. “We’re telling the truth about how Hanover County has treated the community and it may be uncomfortable for them, but now we do have their attention. Now the Hanover officials are engaging with the community as a partner in their plans for the community. We hope that we continue to head in the right direction.”

As for whether or not Wegmans will be able to open on schedule, it is unclear. An email request for comment from the grocery giant was not returned. But Mr. French said should the residents be successful as they hope, Wegmans bears the responsibility for the decision to build while there were legal challenges ongoing.

“They chose to ignore everybody. They chose to go at it on their own with the viewpoint that they would be victorious,” he said. “If they lose, they made a very risky business decision and they have to pay the consequence of that decision.”