McComb officials are considering expanding its city limits to include part of Gateway Industrial Park, with the mayor saying the benefits to this are much more than possible complications.
The city limits include property on the west side of Gateway Drive, while land east of the road is unincorporated.
The annexation, if approved, would not only take in that half of the industrial park but would extend the city limits from Wardlaw Road south to Airport-Fernwood Road, all the way to Highway 51.
“I would like to see us go ahead and square that off and take that in,” Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said. “That way if anybody wants to develop on the (east) side, they would have to meet the requirements of the city.”
The issue of annexing the east side of Gateway Industrial Park has come up many times in the past. The city annexed the western portion of Gateway during the previous administration and since then has run sewer service to the area, making annexing the other side much more convenient.
“We have got the sewer, and it would be easy to provide sewer to that area,” Lockley said, adding that it wouldn’t be difficult to extend city water service to the area, either.
Selectman Ronnie Brock, who was one of just two selectmen to attend the informal work session, asked Lockley if there were any residents in the area, and Lockley said there were about four or five. Brock asked Lockley to get their input before the annexation moves forward.
“I have not reached out to them. I am putting it out there for us to start talking about it. I’d be more than happy to reach out to them and find out who they are, and tell them we are looking into annexing,” Lockley said. “We want the citizens on board, but we don’t need them to be on board.”
Fire Chief Gary McKenzie said the fire department wants to build a new station in the industrial park, but that project would be tied to the development of a new National Guard armory, and those plans haven’t solidified.
“The issue from the fire department’s perspective is that we’ve annexed the west side between Gateway Drive and the interstate, so we are responsible for that now,” McKenzie said. “When the first major business comes in and wants to build a warehouse or any kind of facility down there, we are going to have to be right behind them to maintain our fire rating.
“I think that was the plan all along was to annex both sides of Gateway, and from a business standpoint, I can see where it would be more attractive if it were all in one parcel.”
