The Jackson City Council voted Tuesday to become the first municipality in Mississippi to impose a moratorium on new data center development. The 5-2 vote capped three months of public hearings, dueling expert testimony, and a rezoning fight that had turned a quiet stretch of northwest Jackson into a battleground over the city's future.

The ordinance halts the city from accepting, processing, or approving any applications for special use permits, conditional use permits, zoning map amendments, or building permits related to data centers for 183 days. Because the vote was not unanimous, the moratorium takes effect in 30 days rather than immediately, per city rules.

Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell, who first proposed the pause in April, called it a necessary step. 'This council has voted to go in the right direction,' he said after the vote.

Voting in favor were Grizzell, Ward 2's Tina Clay, Ward 3's Kenneth Stokes, Ward 6's Lashia Brown-Thomas, and Ward 7's Kevin Parkinson, who participated remotely. Voting against were Ward 1's Ashby Foote and Ward 5's Vernon Hartley.

The vote came after a rezoning application by New Jersey-based Saxum Investment Group to build a data center on roughly 230 acres near Forest Avenue and Interstate 220 had galvanized opposition in Clay's ward. The company had expanded its original 190-acre request by 40 acres in April, according to filings with the city planning board. The planning board postponed the case at Saxum's request in May and again in June, as the company said it wanted to wait for the city to adopt data center standards.

Foote argued the moratorium would cost Jackson a rare chance to shore up its finances. The city faces a roughly $23 million budget shortfall, and Foote said a data center could generate millions in new tax revenue for city government, Hinds County, and Jackson Public Schools. 'It may not be the perfect economic development, but it's a good economic development,' he said.

Clay pushed back directly. She said the council had knowingly adopted an unrealistic budget and should not use data centers as a rescue plan. 'From day one, we knew we didn't have but $112 million coming in,' she said. 'We have held the budget to the point where we don't have a deficit.'

Hartley, who voted against the moratorium, nevertheless said Jackson was not ready for a data center. 'We're looking at an industry that is still being tested all over the country,' he said. 'Jackson is not ready.' He urged the council to hire engineers and consultants to write permanent regulations rather than rely on a temporary pause.

Before the final vote, the council approved an amendment from Parkinson exempting land adjacent to Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport from the moratorium. The city owns roughly 1,100 acres around the airport, much of it undeveloped. Parkinson argued the airport corridor could host data centers without the same risks to nearby neighborhoods. A separate amendment to shorten the moratorium to 60 days failed on a 2-3-2 vote.

The debate in Jackson mirrors a national reckoning. On the same day the council voted, New York became the first state to enact a data center moratorium. In Mississippi, a 2024 state law known as the Data Center Giveaway Act stripped the Public Service Commission of its usual oversight role over large-load energy contracts, allowing utilities like Entergy Mississippi to enter secret agreements with data center operators. A May 2026 report by Synapse Energy Economics found that Entergy's residential customers in Mississippi are already paying an estimated $10.60 more per month on their electric bills due to investments made to serve data centers.

The contrast with Madison County is sharp. There, Amazon Web Services' data center campus has driven a property value surge so large that county officials recently doubled the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement. Madison County projects it will collect $6 million in new property tax revenue from AWS in fiscal year 2026, rising to $54 million annually by 2032. Jackson's moratorium ensures the capital city will not see similar revenue anytime soon.

The council can extend or cancel the moratorium at any time. During the six-month pause, the ordinance directs the city to identify appropriate sites for data centers and study their potential impacts on water, sewer, electrical infrastructure, and nearby neighborhoods. Whether the council can produce a permanent regulatory framework before the clock runs out is the open question.