# Jackson's Data Center Ban Expires Jan. 23. The Ordinance That Replaces It Is Still a Draft. > The 183-day moratorium the council passed July 14 runs out in about 16 weeks, and the city attorney told the council in August there is no new draft ready. A 230-acre rezoning request in northwest Jackson is waiting on it. *Development · By Jackson Wire Staff · October 1, 2026* Jackson's freeze on new data centers has a hard end date, and the rules meant to replace it do not exist yet in written form. The 183-day moratorium the City Council approved on July 14 runs out around Jan. 23, 2027. City Attorney Drew Martin told the council on Aug. 11 that a draft ordinance had been circulated but that "there isn't a new draft that's anywhere near ready to be brought forward yet," according to WLBT's account of that meeting. The clock matters because of what is parked behind it. Saxum Investment Company, an out-of-state real estate firm, has asked Jackson to rezone 230 acres south of Forest Avenue, between I-220 and Medgar Evers Boulevard, from R-1 residential, C-3 commercial and I-1 light industrial to heavy industrial so the land can host a data center. The company amended its application on April 30 to expand the request from 190 acres to 230, according to the Mississippi Free Press. Planning and Development Director Angela Brown told the June 22 public hearing that the rezoning hearing would be postponed "while we continue to research and understand the ordinance and other policies we will have in place around data centers," the Free Press reported. That postponement is the whole strategy. The rezoning cannot move until the ordinance exists, and the ordinance cannot be finished until the council holds at least one more public hearing on a draft that has not been produced. The arithmetic is unforgiving. Counting from the July 14 vote, the moratorium took effect 30 days later, on Aug. 13, because the vote was 5-2 rather than unanimous. That puts the expiration at roughly Jan. 23, 2027, about 16 weeks from today. The council's own calendar gives it six regular meetings between now and then, on Oct. 6, Oct. 20, Nov. 17, Dec. 1, Dec. 15 and a date in early January, based on the meeting schedule the city has posted. The moratorium bars the city from accepting, processing or approving special use permits, conditional use permits, zoning map amendments, building permits or other zoning changes for data centers. It does not cover everything. Councilman Kevin Parkinson's amendment, adopted unanimously, exempts land adjacent to Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport, where the city owns roughly 1,100 acres, much of it undeveloped. That carve-out is the one place in Jackson where a data center could still be permitted while the ban is in force. The fight over the ban was also a fight about money, and the losing side named a number. Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote, who voted no, cited the city's $23 million budget shortfall and argued that data center tax revenue could help close it. "It may not be the perfect economic development, but it's a good economic development that could bring millions of dollars to city government, county government, and the schools," he said, per WLBT. Ward Two Councilwoman Tina Clay answered that the city had already balanced its budget without one. That dispute is now settled by events, at least for a year. The council adopted a $340 million total budget for fiscal 2027 on Sept. 11, with a general fund of about $113 million, and the fiscal year began Wednesday. No data center revenue is in it. The city's own monthly sales tax diversion from the Department of Revenue came to $2,612,443 in August, up 9.5 percent from a year earlier, which is the kind of growth a data center would be expected to multiply rather than replace. Jackson is not the only metro government that has moved on this. Ridgeland adopted data center rules in April requiring a 500-foot residential buffer and advance planning for electricity, water and sewer. Clinton amended its zoning on June 3 to require conditional use permits and confine data centers to industrial zones. The Legislature passed SB 3410 in April authorizing Brandon and West Rankin to enter water and wastewater agreements for data centers. Jackson, the largest city in the state, is the one still writing. The delay has a cost that is easy to miss. Every month the ordinance is unfinished is a month the Forest Avenue site stays in its current zoning, and a month the city cannot collect an application fee, a permit fee or a special use review on any project anywhere except the airport tract. It is also a month in which the council's stated reason for the ban, that Jackson needs standards before it needs buildings, goes untested against an actual set of standards. The last public word from the council president on the process came in a June 22 press release. "Council members anticipate that revisions and amendments will continue throughout the process to ensure the final ordinance reflects the needs and priorities of the people of Jackson," Brian Grizzell said then. Nothing in the record since shows a draft, a hearing date or a committee vote. What's next: The council's next regular meeting is Oct. 6, and the city attorney is the person who would bring a draft forward. Watch for an ordinance on that agenda or the Oct. 20 one. If a draft appears, it must be introduced, read, and sent to a public hearing before adoption, which is a minimum of two more meetings. If no draft is introduced by the Nov. 17 meeting, the council will be inside 60 days of expiration with no replacement rule in place, and its options narrow to letting the ban lapse or extending it. The second date to watch is the Planning Board's handling of the Saxum rezoning. That hearing stays postponed until the ordinance passes, so the two are now the same decision. Anyone who wants to know whether a data center gets built on 230 acres in northwest Jackson should read the draft ordinance when it appears, not the rezoning file. --- [The Jackson Wire](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/) · [Read on the web](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/article/jackson-data-center-moratorium-expires-jan-23-ordinance-still-in-draft)