# Residents Packed Two Meetings Monday. They Did Not Ask for a Moratorium. They Asked for a Ban.

> The Jackson City Council held a Planning Committee meeting and a special public hearing on data centers July 6. Speaker after speaker told council members a temporary pause is not enough.

*General News · By Jackson Wire Staff · July 8, 2026*

The Jackson City Council held two meetings about data centers on Monday, July 6. A Planning and Economic Development Committee session at 4 p.m. followed by a special public hearing at 6 p.m. The question on the agenda was whether to pass a six-month moratorium on data center construction while the city drafts regulations.

Residents who packed City Hall had a different answer. They do not want a pause. They want a ban.

According to WLBT, one speaker told council members: 'Ideally, the council would ban development expansion of data centers, but in lieu of that, a temporary moratorium and regulatory framework is vital.' Another resident said: 'We don't need more big business interests coming into our city and taking out value without really contributing anything.'

A third speaker described what they called a statewide pattern: 'We're witnessing a wave of irresponsible development across our state driven by big tech giants rushing to build without regard for the long-term consequences on our communities and our infrastructure.'

The meetings came six weeks after the council first tabled a moratorium proposal in May over legal questions about whether it would violate state zoning law. Since then, the public pressure has only intensified.

At the center of the fight is a 190-acre site along Forest Avenue near Interstate 220. Saxum Investment Group, an out-of-state firm represented by attorney Robert Ireland of Watkins and Eager, wants to rezone the property from residential and commercial to heavy industrial for a data center. The Planning Board postponed the rezoning hearing in May at Saxum's own request, and again in June, as the city works on data center-specific standards.

Council President Brian Grizzell, who introduced the moratorium in April, told WAPT after Monday's meetings that the city still has unanswered questions. 'We still need to talk to engineers and environmentalists,' Grizzell said. 'It's just really important for us to get all of this done before we make a decision in terms of where or if even these data centers will be here in the city of Jackson.'

Grizzell also acknowledged a tension that ran beneath the entire evening. Data centers may bring revenue, he said, but Jackson still needs basics: better schools, more grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods. The city cannot afford to chase one kind of development at the expense of everything else.

Ward 7 Council Member Kevin Parkinson asked Hinds County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Hunter Gardner whether a moratorium would kill any potential project. Gardner's answer was not reported, but the question itself captured the council's dilemma: how to regulate an industry that has not yet arrived, without scaring it away before it does.

The draft ordinance the council is working on includes definitions, zoning standards, and opportunities for council review of future projects. Grizzell said it will take time for the body to vote on any new ordinances. At least one more public hearing is expected before a final vote.

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has scheduled a separate public hearing for July 14 on an air permit application related to a proposed data center project. That hearing will give residents another chance to weigh in on the environmental impacts of a technology that, in Jackson, does not yet exist but is already reshaping the city's politics.

Ridgeland, which approved a data center in 2024 and passed regulations this April, is the cautionary tale council members keep citing. Grizzell said he does not want Jackson to be the city that put the cart before the horse. After Monday night, it is clear that a significant portion of Jackson's residents do not want the horse at all.

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[The Jackson Wire](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/) · [Read on the web](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/article/jackson-data-center-meetings-july-6-residents-demand-ban)