Jackson Free Press

Ratliff Fabricating Co. owner Spincer Harrell says his business may not fare well under a proposed zone change slated for North Jackson's Clay Street.

Clay Street, which sits between U.S. Highway 49 and Interstate 220, has carried an industrial zone designation for decades and contains a host of heavy money-makers for the city. Harrell said Ratliff Fabricating--a business that has been onsite since the 1960s and is one of the few manufacturing companies in the state that have not fled offshore--generates almost $2 million in annual revenue and pays the city more than $20,000 in annual property taxes.

But a zone change will mean no room for growth if Harrell ever decides to sally forth into surrounding territory. "Any expansion we want to do in the area, we might be denied the expansion in a mixed zone," Harrell said.

City spokesman Chris Mims said the city wants to prepare the area for mixed-use development in hopes of encouraging a combination of residential neighborhood growth and service-related businesses in the area. The mayor's office put the matter before the council yesterday, but the council declined to vote on the ordinance change out of concern for the current businesses in the area.

"On one hand, I think that we all want to support the city's efforts to have some uniformity," said Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba, whose ward contains Ratliff Fabricating and the rest of Clay Street. "Of course, the problem is that we really haven't been given the total fabric of the area, so we've had to take it on faith that the zone change would make it more uniform ... and that's one of the reasons we took the delay, so we could look at it. We don't want our businesses to suffer."

Mims said the city will "grandfather in" the companies that are already there, which includes an asphalt manufacturer. But Harrell said it's not their current property that is the point of contention, but future expansion.

"I have doubled the size of my property in 10 years after buying Capital Wholesale property. I'm in their old building now," Harrell said. "With the new zone, that kind of growth might not happen."

Lumumba said he wasn't sure how serious the issue of future growth really was considering the lack of growth in the manufacturing industry over the last four or five years.

"From my brief observation, it doesn't look like those businesses have been doing a lot of expanding," he said. He added that some of the residential neighbors, whose homes have been encroaching upon the industrial zone over the last few years, have their own misgivings about their comparatively massive neighbors.

"I had an opportunity to talk to some people in the nearby area, and they're concerned that they get too much interference from industrial waste and noise and things of that nature," Lumumba said.

But Harrell said his industry is an asset to the city, especially in the days of waning manufacturing.

"We work for forestry suppliers, Eaton Aerospace, Siemens, Groen, Howard Computer and others. Our products go all over the world. We have employees who make over $50,000 in income. We've got one or two (employees) who make more than $75,000," Harrell said. "Frankly, I think we're more valuable than a manufacturing company in China that pays no property taxes or Social Security."

Lumumba said the council will likely discuss the issue at the next zoning meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for May 16.