Climate-controlled storage facilities, apartments, hotels and motels, liquor stores and bars in the metro area share a common denominator.
Each type of business has been the focus of a moratorium by one of the metro area’s municipal governments.
A moratorium is an option if a board of aldermen, a city council or a board of supervisors anticipates changing the zoning ordinance in a short amount of time but still has research to conduct and determine the change needed.
“A moratorium is intended to be a temporary measure to maintain the status quo until a specific event, which is anticipated in the near future happens. An example would be a change to the zoning ordinance,” said John Scanlon, who serves as the city attorney for the city of Ridgeland, the city of Gluckstadt and the city of Byram.
A moratorium is set for a limited time period such as 90 days, 180 days or six months and usually contains a provision where a hardship case can be considered, he said.
Cities will often set up a public hearing about a moratorium and invite comments before initiating change, he said.
Currently there are no moratoriums in place in Jackson, Ridgeland, Madison or Gluckstadt. City leaders in Gluckstadt discussed a 90-day moratorium on new nail salons in the city earlier this year but did not approve one.
Perhaps one of the longest moratoriums in the metro area has been the city of Jackson’s moratorium on water shut offs due to unpaid bills. In 2015, the city placed a moratorium on shutting water off to customers who weren’t behind on their bills before a new billing system went into effect.
In January, JXN Water, which is in charge of operating the city’s water and sewer systems, began advising customers to get caught up on their unpaid bills as it planned to send out disconnect notices to customers.
The city of Ridgeland extended a moratorium on new liquor stores earlier this year but it expired when a new law went into effect on July 1.
House Bill. 776, which was signed by the governor, provides municipalities the ability to amend their zoning laws to provide more limitations on where package stores can set up shop.
Municipalities have had limited control about where liquor stores could be located, with state law only prohibiting them from being within 400 feet of schools or churches. The new law lets cities limit new stores from being opened too close to existing ones.
In 2023, the city of Jackson extended a 2022 ordinance that created a 12-month moratorium on the establishment and expansion of bars or nightclubs operating on or adjacent to Capitol Street in the city’s central downtown business district. The moratorium has since expired.
The moratorium went into effect in 2022 after an incident in which residents reported more than 100 rounds fired by semi-automatic weapons in or around a bar operating on Capitol Street during a time when there were crowds congregating in the area. There were also concerns that the concentration of an excessive number of bars and nightclubs in the Capitol Street corridor could undermine the city’s existing zoning and development plans for the area by squeezing out other desirable businesses and discouraging resident development and impact neighborhood property uses and property values.
In 2018, the Madison Board of Supervisors considered a 120-day moratorium on convenience stores, liquor stores and storage units in the Gluckstadt area. Residents proposed the moratorium until Gluckstadt could be incorporated.
Katie Bryant Snell, who was then attorney for the supervisors, said at the time that a moratorium could not be tied to an incorporation because a moratorium has to have specific boundaries and incorporations do not have set deadlines.
The Ridgeland Board of Aldermen have used moratoriums numerous times to take a pause to keep several types of new businesses from opening until research could be done.
In April 2017, new hotels and motels were the focus of a 180-day moratorium in Ridgeland. The moratorium was put into place so the city could review its current zoning classifications for hotels and motels. The city conducted a study, using both city employees and others, to assess the hospitality industry in the city.
After the moratorium expired, the board of aldermen approved a Holiday Inn Express and Tru by Hilton, both developed by Chico Patel, president of the Heritage Hospitality Group.
After those hotels were approved, the moratorium was extended until the end of December 2018. At that time, Kerioth Corp. was in the preliminary steps of building a hotel at the Township on Highland Colony Parkway, but the moratorium excluded hotels that might be built in any overlay district, including Jackson Street, the Township and Renaissance.
The moratorium resulted in an amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance; a conditional use process was added for new hotels, giving city leaders more control over what could be built. A conditional use process requires a developer to show 15 factors such as traffic, safety and architecture have been considered.
In 2018, the Ridgeland aldermen passed an ordinance removing climate-controlled storage facilities from the allowed conditional uses for areas zoned C-3 and added the conditional use to C-4.
The ordinance came after a 90-day moratorium on storage facility construction in Ridgeland. City leaders wanted to ensure that not too many of the facilities were built in the main areas of the city.
During the moratorium, officials studied maps of current and possible locations for storage facilities throughout the city and also held a public hearing to get input.
Prompting the moratorium were developers who wanted to put a StorageMax at Highland Colony Parkway and New Pointe Drive; the proposal was denied by the city’s planning and zoning board. StorageMax appealed the decision and the Ridgeland aldermen approved its construction after the moratorium. A StorageMax was eventually constructed at 326 New Pointe Drive.
In 1994, Ridgeland relied on a moratorium to limit the construction of new apartments until a report about land needs could be completed. A mini boom in apartment construction spurred the moratorium on new apartments. Mike McCollum, then the Ridgeland zoning administrator, said city leaders wanted to evaluate the land use plan.
In March 2007, the Jackson City Council approved a moratorium on the placement of new billboards and digital signs in the city for 60 days while it could evaluate the new technology and how to regulate it. Former Jackson Mayor Kane Ditto spoke out against billboards, saying the trend nationwide was to eliminate billboards.
