Jackson Free Press

Jackson City Council members agonized over how to classify newly annexed city property during a lengthy zoning meeting yesterday.

Several zoning issues stymied zoning committee Council members, including a request by city business owners to retain an industrial-zoning classification for the territory around a south Jackson insulation manufacturing company. The debate helped extend the traditionally short meeting well beyond the 4 p.m. start time for the Monday work session.

A majority of the committee refused to preserve the industrial-zone classification for the area around Mechanical Systems Insulation, on Mississippi Highway 18, after Council members discussed whether or not the classification would permit strip clubs into the area.

Ward 1 Councilman Quentin Whitwell and Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba were the only Council members who favored maintaining the industrial zone classification on that portion of Mississippi 18.

Legally, the pre-existing factories must be grandfathered in, meaning the council cannot change the zone classification of the factory-owned property. But Mechanical Systems Insulation owners Virgil and Jean Campbell cannot expand their factory into the newly designated mixed-use territory around them. Nobody will buy their factory as long as it sits in the middle of a mixed-use zone, they claim.

"The folks had a very good case in that their life savings and their nest egg is in that piece of property, and that by rezoning that area we essentially ruined their retirement plan," Whitwell said. "That's very tragic in my opinion."

On a second vote, a majority of the committee--this time including Lumumba--also refused to maintain an industrial zone for a recently annexed portion of property containing industrial factories on Clay Street, between U.S. Highway 49 and Interstate 220.

Clay Street has been an industrial zone for decades. Ratliff Fabricating owner Spincer Harrell said his company generates almost $2 million in annual revenue and pays the city more than $20,000 in annual property taxes.

City spokesman Chris Mims said earlier this month that city planners want to prepare the area for mixed-use development in hopes of encouraging the growth of a combination of residential neighborhood and service-related businesses in the area. City department of Planning and Development Director Corinne Fox did not immediately return calls on whether a developer or multiple developers were already considering building in the area.

Harrell said the zone change around his property, similar to the Mechanical Systems Insulation issue, will mean his company will have no room for growth.
"It's like the city treats me as some kind of enemy," Harrell said. "We're successful. We make money. I don't understand why they want to kill what I consider to be a golden goose."

Lumumba, who presides over the ward containing Harrell's business, said he voted to change the zone from industrial to mixed-use for the benefit of the factory's residential neighbors.

"I don't want any business to take a hit, but at the same time, it's going to hurt a little bit," Lumumba said. "I talked to people in Ashley Circle, who live nearby, and they were concerned about expanding industrial use in that area. The homes are nice, with good people. It's a real solid neighborhood, but they don't want the kind of dust and noise that comes with expanded industrial use."

Lumumba remained confident that the zone changes would not run Ratliff Fabricating out of business.

Whitwell, however, was not so confident: "What happened yesterday is tragic. We're not a suburb. We're a city that has a history of certain businesses operating in areas with residents, and as a result they sometime grow to abut one another, but they tend to coexist," Whitwell said. "We do not need to be doing anything that is unfriendly to a business."