The city of Ridgeland has a new amendment in its zoning ordinance — a conditional use process is now required for any new hotels in the city, giving officials more control over what can be built.
“We’re putting more teeth into any hotels that might come in the future,” Mayor Gene McGee said. “We’re being sure that we get the best we can get as far as hotel developments.”
The mayor and board of aldermen held a public hearing for the amendment during a regular board meeting on January 16 and approved the amendment.
“It’s language that is going to possibly make approval of hotels in the future go through the conditional use process,” Ward 1 Alderman Ken Heard said last month. “So, no matter what land it goes on, it would require a conditional use process. That puts much more control into the hands of the aldermen.
A conditional use process requires the developer to show they have properly considered 15 different factors, such as traffic, safety, architecture and other items.
“The city will be able to continue to have a real positive hotel development, and (city officials) can implement conditions to make sure, in the long-term, it’s a positive thing,” McGee said.
This will ensure the city offers facilities it wants and should have there, he added.
The conditional use option is a product of the city’s moratorium on hotels. The city originally approved the motion for a 180-day stretch in April 2017 with a unanimous vote from the mayor and board.
The moratorium expired at the beginning of October, at which point the board of aldermen approved a Holiday Inn Express and Tru by Hilton, both done by developer Chico Patel, president of the Heritage Hospitality Group.
Once completed, Ridgeland Hospitality LLC will own the two hotels. Heritage is Ridgeland Hospitality’s umbrella company.
After the board of aldermen voted on the hotels, the moratorium was extended until the end of December.
The Kerioth Corporation is also in the preliminary process of building a hotel at the Township on Highland Colony Parkway, but the moratorium specifically excludes hotels that might be built in any overlay district, which includes Jackson Street, the Township and now the Renaissance, as of January 16.
“The moratorium was put in place to just review our current zoning classification,” Heard said. “We’ll possibly implement a separate hotel class. Included in the hotel classification, we would address the different hotel qualities.”
During the moratorium, the Ridgeland Tourism Commission financed a study to assess the hotel and hospitality industry and formulate a zoning class.
“The study is to help us better understand the hospitality industry in general so we can make a better decision on the zoning classification, if we were to put that in place,” Heard said.
“The board wanted to be sure. We’re getting a lot of requests for hotels,” said McGee. “We want to use it in the best interest (of the city). We just want to look at that very carefully.”
“The study being done is on the city’s need for future hotels,” Alan Hart, director of community development, said. “It talks about the percentage of room rentals in the city, how the number of hotels looks compared to other cities, and if there’s still room for growth. We’re looking at the need.”
