Neighbors United for Responsible Planning & Zoning has retained an attorney for its efforts to keep a proposed convenience store and any other commercial development from being built at Lake Caroline in Madison County.
The nonprofit organization, which was formed to keep residents of Madison County informed and aware of zoning and rezoning issues affecting neighborhoods, hired William Drinkwater of Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes as its lawyer in the rezoning fight.
Drinkwater, who spoke during the “concerned citizens” segment of the Madison County Board of Aldermen meeting on Jan. 18, told the supervisors that the rezoning requirements for the convenience store have not been met.
“In order to rezone property in Mississippi, you have to have someone submit an application for rezoning, you have to post and publish a notice of a public hearing, you have to conduct a public hearing, then there has to be an ordinance or resolution passed approving the rezoning,” he said.
Drinkwater said Bill Hardin, a Lake Caroline resident and a former director of planning and zoning for the city of Jackson, has reviewed the county records and is unable to determine that the requirements for rezoning have been met.
“There’s a very serious question as to whether this property is zoned for the use that is proposed,” he said.
A gas station and convenience store are not consistent with the character of the neighborhood and are inappropriate for the neighborhood, he said.
Drinkwater indicated he planned to submit a public records request for records related to the zoning matter.
“I would encourage and ask the board not to take any action with respect to any commercial development at Lake Caroline until the county has responded to that request and we’ve had an opportunity to review it and get to the bottom of it,” he said. “Give us time to research this issue and avoid this thing winding up in litigation and everyone spending thousands of dollars and not having a resolution for several years.”
Andy Clark, attorney for the Madison County Planning and Zoning Commission, planned to meet with Drinkwater and provide the documentation he requested.
The commission is waiting to receive from the developer a legal description for the 55 acres proposed to be rezoned before it sets a date for a public hearing and posts and publishes a public notice about it, Clark said.
Judith Fouladi, a Lake Caroline resident who opposes the rezoning effort for the proposed Stribling Market, believes “there’s a long way to go yet. The zoning has not even begun to have been addressed.”
Mark Jordan’s Lake Caroline Inc. presented a site plan to the Madison County Planning and Zoning Commission on June 8, 2023 seeking approval to build a convenience store at the corner of Stribling Road and Caroline Boulevard.
Hardin appeared before the board of supervisors on Nov. 9, 2023 and challenged the interpretation of the zoning designation for the site.
“A colored map shows the property as C-2, but the map was never introduced as an exhibit to the supervisors and was not stamped and signed off by the Madison County chancery clerk,” he said.
The board rescinded the approval of the site plan.
“The board of supervisors had four possible master development plans in front of them, varying from 1989 until 2008,” he said. “At that meeting they selected the 2003 master development plan as the 2008 plan.
“It shows the residential designations, the golf course and the property where Stribling Market would be as commercial development consistent with PUD zoning.”
Hardin said one of the conceptual masterplans referenced at that meeting included this verbiage, “future commercial development in accord with PUD zoning.”
The Madison County zoning ordinance clearly states that if a commercial designation is desired in a planned unit development such as Lake Caroline the rezoning process must be carried out, Hardin said.
“I made the point that the zoning ordinance is clear and says that if you want commercial in a PUD (Planned Unit Development) you have to go through the rezoning process,” he said.
Hardin contends Lake Caroline Inc. should start the zoning procedure anew because the board of supervisors rescinded the site plan.
“If they want to build a gas station/convenience store, they need to file a rezoning petition application, send out notices and appear before the planning and zoning commission and not bypass that and go before the board of supervisors,” he said. “If they don’t do that, they’re bypassing the proper procedures.”
At the Jan. 2 meeting of the supervisors, the question of what prompted the traffic study that the board authorized last fall became a focus of the supervisors’ meeting.
Gerald Steen, who represents District Three and serves as board president, said at that meeting that the study the supervisors approved in September 2023 at a cost of $22,500 was about more than just the area where the proposed Stribling Market convenience store that many residents of Lake Caroline oppose would be located.
“I don’t consider this study a Lake Caroline study but a study of the entire road (Stribling Road), because that’s where the issue is,” he said.
Steen asked Tim Bryan, county engineer, to clarify the reason for the study.
“Stribling Road is not considered a part of Lake Caroline. Stribling Road is a collector road outside the (Lake Caroline) development. It currently has a need for additional capacity,” Bryan said at the January meeting. “If you sit there in the mornings, you understand there is a need for additional capacity on the road. You sit there forever.
“This study was designed to help alleviate traffic on that road. Does it help Lake Caroline? Absolutely. But it is a collector road outside of Lake Caroline and that is what we were looking at.”
Fouladi called Steen’s suggestion that the traffic study was not related to Lake Caroline and a proposed convenience store “a clever maneuver.”
“There is no doubt about it,” she said. “The Kiser Traffic and Engineering study that is dated Oct. 24, 2023 is entitled ‘Traffic Analysis for the Proposed Lake Caroline development in Madison County, Mississippi,’” she said.
“The direction given by the board of supervisors on June 3 (2023) to conduct a traffic study was understood by Kiser as related to the planned development at Lake Caroline.”
Casey Brannon, who represents District One, asked that information about the Lake Caroline commercial zoning that was referenced in the study be removed and that action on the study be tabled.
The supervisors acknowledged at their Jan. 18 meeting the amended Stribling Road traffic report.
At the Jan. 2 meeting, Fouladi reminded the supervisors of a 2008 opinion from the Mississippi Ethics Commission and said that Karl M. Banks, who represents District 4, should recuse himself of anything related to the Lake Caroline development because he lives there.
Before leaving the Jan. 2 meeting, Banks said, “I was not trying to do a traffic study to justify a convenience store or any other commercial development. I was trying to do a traffic study to move traffic. The other issue in terms of the zoning is totally separate from the traffic. The traffic is the problem.”
Banks did not leave the board room during the Jan. 18 meeting when the supervisors acknowledged the Stribling Road traffic report.
Fouladi said it is incumbent upon a board president to keep proceedings honest and above board.
“I’m of the opinion Board president Steen dropped the ball yet again in this regard,” she said.
Fouladi said she plans to notify the state attorney general should Banks not recuse himself when the Lake Caroline rezoning matter comes up again during a board meeting. “Any such participation would furthermore constitute an automatic ground for appeal,” she said.
