The Jackson City Council voted Tuesday to approve a citywide data center moratorium. It is the first city in Mississippi to do so.
Ward 1 Council Member Ashby Foote has often been the lone voice on the council extolling the benefits a data center could bring to the city, noting it could boost Jackson’s middling general fund revenue by millions of dollars.
“While the data center may not be the perfect economic development, I think it’s a very worthy economic development,” Foote said during Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The moratorium is the latest step in a months-long debate over the future of data centers in Mississippi’s capital city. City Council President and Ward 4 Council Member Brian Grizzell first proposed the six-month moratorium in April. Since then, there have been multiple city and community meetings to educate and solicit feedback from the public.
“This council has voted to go in the right direction,” Grizzell said after the moratorium passed 5-2, with Foote and Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley voting against.
The council can extend or cancel the moratorium at any time. For its duration, the ordinance states the council will identify appropriate sites for a data center and investigate the potential impacts of such development on the city.
A New Jersey-based developer has expressed interest in building a data center in northwest Jackson. Multiple data centers under construction in the state are projected to bring in millions of dollars each year in new property taxes, growing the coffers of local governments.
When the proposal to rezone the 230-acre piece of property in northwest Jackson went to the planning board, a large crowd turned up in opposition. Public comments have consistently been in favor of a temporary moratorium and passing regulations to address community concerns.
Even as AI promises to reshape the world, the physical infrastructure it needs has become a maelstrom of contention across the country. Jackson is not alone in passing a temporary moratorium. Other cities and states have considered or even passed temporary bans on data center development.
In Mississippi, Clinton and Madison have updated their zoning ordinances to regulate new data centers and Clarksdale attached a list of conditions when it rezoned property where a developer was considering building a data center. Legislators are also starting to explore regulation at the state level, including an AI task force meeting this week.
During Tuesday’s debate on the moratorium, Ward 3 Council Member Kenny Stokes said that he theoretically supports data centers but believed council members should have more control over economic development in their wards.
“I don’t think it’s right that we’re putting something in a council person’s ward and the people don’t want it, the council man doesn’t want it, but you’re doing it because you can,” he said.
Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley said that he spoke to the property owner a few days ago and told him that Jackson is not ready for a data center.
“We need money, true, but we’re looking at an industry here that is still being developed and tested all over the county,” he said.
But Hartley said he felt a moratorium would divide the city. Instead, he said Jackson needed to identify engineering or consulting firms that could help the city’s legal department vet potential data center developments.
Ward 1 Council Member Kevin Parkinson proposed reducing the moratorium to 60 days in an amendment that failed. Another amendment Parkinson offered to create an exemption from the moratorium for land surrounding the Jackson airport passed.
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