Biloxi City Council votes to hold a public hearing to further discuss a controversial zoning change

Today the Biloxi City Council met for the second time this year and a new and very controversial ordinance was presented on the agenda.
The ordinance asks to approve a zoning map amendment that would change the area on the northwest corner of Highway 67 and Rue Sanchez from a single family residential area to a neighborhood business area.
Once the zoning classification is changed, Waring Investments Inc. plans to build a convenience store with gas sales in that location. Residents of the area showed up to today’s meeting and expressed their concerns about the plan.
Property value loss and increased flooding in the area were two of the most talked about points by the homeowners. Attorney Wayne Hengen said, “The public hearing was a good move. Some of those decisions by some of those council persons were made without having read the report and the fact of the matter is you cannot build and get city permits to build unless you have the runoff after construction, to be no more than, in fact less than, what was there before. So there can’t be any flooding and we have engineers that will show that.”
The public hearing to further discuss the zoning classification change will be held on February 20th.