Knight-Parker Road has a little more than a dozen homes on the mile-long road near the edge of Meridian’s city limits.

Neighbors have each other’s landlines and recognize cars passing along the quiet road.

But rezoning 30 acres has residents banded against the landowners, who want to rezone the property from residential to business.

“In February of this year when they started clearing that property off I called Mr. (Ronnie) Massey,” Kathy Masters, who lives across the street said. “And he said, ‘Oh, no. We’re just clearing the property. We’re not doing anything.’ “

Massey and Johnny Morgan, who own the property, asked the city earlier this year to rezone the property to allow for a medical clinic across the street from Masters’ house.

The zoning commission ruled on March 13 to rezone from residential to business and Masters appealed the decision to the city council, who heard arguments during a public hearing on Tuesday.

“At the time the property was annexed into the city it was zoned B4 (for businesses),” Morgan said during the hearing. “And at some point, we don’t know when, it was rezoned for residential… (this) was the first time we found out there was a zoning issue to start with.”

Masters and other residents, including next-door neighbor Geraldine Knight, said they wanted to know more about the proposed clinic and didn’t appreciate the secrecy surrounding the project. 

“(Massey) told us it was a well-known nurse practitioner who wants to put a clinic out here with a playground,” Knight said. “What do we need a playground out here for?… And what kind of clinic? They never would tell us.”

Knight attended Tuesday’s meeting and told the council that the road was already too narrow for school buses and cars to pass each other. She said a police officer once refused to come to her home, saying she lived in the county. Despite city promises following annexation, the entire street uses the same two-to-three inch pipe for water.

“And if the whole neighborhood is running water on a Sunday? Then somebody is not going to get any water from their pipes,” Masters said. “We pay our taxes and we’re not getting the same services.”

Yet residents said they feel like the city would provide those services to the clinic.

“One clinic comes along and they’re going to widen the road but we’re been here 29 years,” Knight said. “The city’s going to spend all this money on the road for just one clinic?”

Masters echoed that thought. 

“It kind of feels like we’re the stepkids out there because we’re on the county line,” Masters said. “When they annexed us, they promised city services… we’re still waiting. Glad we didn’t hold our breath.”

Residents asked why Massey and Morgan couldn’t put the clinic on the land they owned off of Highway 11 and 80, which is already zoned for commercial purposes.

“A business, when they build, wants to build where they’ll attract the most people,” Masters, who worked in real estate in San Antonio two decades ago, said. “It’s not in the middle of a neighborhood.”

Morgan, speaking at the Tuesday public hearing, said the land closer to the highway, less than a mile from the proposed I-20/59 Industrial Park, would be more suitable for a bigger commercial building.

“This is the first potential client we’ve had in some time,” Morgan said. “This is beneficial to everybody out there and the zoning board agreed with us.”

Massey, who lives four miles away, also urged the council to rezone on Tuesday. 

“If the city wants to grow, I don’t know how it’s going to grow without (things like) this,” Massey said. “She (the unnamed nurse practitioner) wants to build as soon as we get it cleared up.”

Mississippi requires certain health facilities to apply for a certificate of need (CON), published on the state’s department of health website.

A search on the state’s website found only one recent CON for Lauderdale County, for Alliance Health Center to convert adolescent psychiatric beds to adult psychiatric beds at a cost of $5,000.

Ward 2 council member Tyrone Johnson, whose Ward includes Knight-Parker Road, encouraged Massey and Morgan to speak to the residents and attempt to find a middle ground, saying he would vote against the rezoning. 

“We have residents that have been living out there for 30 (or more) years,” Johnson said, expanding on Wednesday. “They do not complain even though they don’t get as much of our city services… I hope (Morgan and Massey) do their homework and communicate with the community.”

Johnson said enough residents had decided to leave the city limits and the city shouldn’t take actions that would push out more residents.

“We do want businesses to come here and do want businesses to open up,” Johnson said. “I just want to make sure the residents are taken care of… For me, we’re in a time when we need to put the citizens first. Citizens get put on the back burner because of what outsiders want to happen in Meridian.

“We desperately need jobs but we live in this city and I don’t know what going to happen if we don’t take care of our own.”

Masters and her husband, Paul, stood on their porch on Wednesday afternoon, wondering how the city would proceed.

“Once they sell it off there’s no telling what’s going to come,” Paul Masters said. “I’m not looking forward to looking out and seeing a parking lot… they’ve already got commercial land. They don’t need to come here.”

“I bet none of the city council members want commercial property across from them,” Kathy Masters said. “If someday we want to sell this and get more than what we paid and what we’ve put into it – we’re not going to get it if anything commercial comes.

“We have enjoyed it all of these years. And we want to continue to enjoy it.”