Residents opposing the construction of the Magnolia Materials hot-mix asphalt plant in the Lafayette County Max D. Hipp Industrial Park filed an appeal of the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors’ decision on May 4 not to rezone parcels of the industrial park from (I-1) light industrial to (I-2) heavy industrial. The appeal was filed with the county on May 14 to be heard by the Lafayette County Circuit Court.
“We are doing this on behalf of all citizens of Lafayette County whose voices have been ignored,” Glynna McKendree, a representative of the Save Oxford: Asphalt Plant Facebook group, said in a statement to The Daily Mississippian. “An asphalt plant facility creates significant physical and health damages for all residents and visitors traveling and living in the area. Our elected officials have ignored the researched dangers and have not looked out for the greater good of our historic town.”
Lafayette County Administrator Kate Victor deferred comment to Lafayette County Board of Supervisors Attorney David O’Donnell, who declined to comment on the appeal.
A court date has not been set at the time of publication.
At its May 4 meeting, the board of supervisors voted 3–1 to accept the Lafayette County Planning Commission’s March 23 recommendation to decline a rezoning application filed by Lafayette County residents Ronnie McGinness, Meg Faulkner Duchaine and John Duchaine.
“The supervisors were requested to recuse themselves because any objective observer would determine that there was a probability of actual bias in making their decision,” the appeal says. “The circumstance would offer an average man the possible temptation to ignore the appropriate governing standard and instead protect separate interests. Despite this request, none of the individual supervisors recused themselves from hearing this matter and instead voted to deny the rezoning request.”
Lafayette County and the Oxford-Lafayette Economic Development Foundation (Oxford-Lafayette Inc.) own parcels in the industrial park. Brent Larson, the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors president, serves as a director of Oxford-Lafayette Inc., according to documents filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. According to Ryan Miller, CEO of Oxford-Lafayette Inc., Magnolia Materials owner JW McCurdy is also a current director of Oxford-Lafayette Inc.
According to Walt Davis, an attorney representing the rezoning applicants opposed to the plant’s planned industrial park location, the county’s ownership of the parcels requested to be rezoned creates a conflict of interest that compromises the board of supervisors’ ability to make a correct zoning decision.
The applicants were given 10 days from the May 4 meeting to file an appeal of the board of supervisors’ decision, per Mississippi Code § 11-51-7, which allows for any person “aggrieved” by a county board of supervisors’ decision to appeal to the circuit court of that county.
At the May 4 meeting, Davis argued that parcels of the industrial park should be rezoned based on the board of supervisors’ and planning commissions’ non-compliance with the Lafayette County Zoning Ordinance’s transitional zoning requirements for (I-2) heavy industrial zoned areas. Davis also raised concerns about heavy industry, such as the Magnolia Materials asphalt plant, being located near populated neighborhoods within a one-mile radius of the industrial park.
“It is the intent of this Ordinance that such ‘heavy’ industrial districts be located insofar as possible adjacent only to C-3 (commercial high-density or I-1 (light industrial) districts, which shall serve as transitional zones between (heavy industrial) districts and residential uses and lower-intensity commercial uses,” the Lafayette County Zoning Ordinance says.
Transitional zoning would allow for adequate spacing between Meg Faulkner Duchaine and John Duchaine’s 165-acre property that sits 150 feet away from the proposed site of the Magnolia Materials asphalt plant.
“(With) the establishment of the zoning ordinance and zoning map in 2018, residential growth in the area surrounding the industrial park has mushroomed, with Lafayette County citing this growth of residential development as justification for finding a ‘change in the neighborhood’ in the rezoning of other, nearby parcels,” the appeal says. “ Further, additional residential growth in the area has been specifically approved by the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, including the rezoning of two specific parcels with the anticipated future addition of at least 1,200 new homes as a result of that separate rezoning.”
The appeal refers to the new Lamar Lakes housing development on North Lamar Boulevard. The neighborhoods Tara Estates, Whitetail Landing, Quail Creek, Oxmoor, The Ranch and Fieldstone Farms are also located within one mile of the proposed asphalt plant site.
The board of supervisors agreed with Lafayette County Director of Developmental Services Joel Hollowell that it is not possible to provide transitional zoning in the industrial park.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality will hold a public hearing regarding Magnolia Materials’ pending Large Construction Storm Water General Permit and Hot Mix Asphalt General Permit on June 10 at the Oxford Conference Center from 6 to 8 p.m.
