Supervisors approve pipe yard, landscaping business near Taylor

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors moved JWM Development’s Highway 328 project forward Monday, approving two conditional use permits and signing off on a final site plan that pushes the Taylor-area subdivision from paper plans toward actual use.

One permit allows Lot 2 at 85 Highway 328 to operate as a laydown pipe yard, a storage area for construction materials with no building planned on the parcel. A second permit covers a landscaping business in the same Highway 328 Commercial Subdivision, placing another commercial use into a corridor that county officials have treated carefully because of its rural setting.

Planning Services Director Joel Hollowell said the larger subdivision had already received conditional use approval in 2023, and that supervisors expected each lot to return for separate review when specific uses were proposed. That lot-by-lot approach matters in this part of the county, where the land around Taylor still carries an agricultural feel and where screening, buffering and compatibility with nearby properties remain part of the conversation.

The Planning Department handles the county zoning ordinance and land-development standards, while the Building Department issues permits and conducts inspections. JWM Development’s subdivision also has construction stormwater coverage through the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, with coverage issued Nov. 21, 2023 and set to run through Jan. 31, 2027.

The approvals came against the backdrop of a long-running fight over what kind of development belongs near Taylor. In October 2025, the county said JWM Development, owned by J.W. McCurdy, withdrew its request to rezone 40 acres on Highway 328 from agricultural to industrial use for a proposed asphalt plant. More than 200 people attended a nearly five-hour Board of Supervisors meeting on that proposal before supervisors tabled the rezoning request, and county leaders later said any new rezoning would need a fresh application and additional public hearings.

Monday’s action suggests the county is still willing to allow commercial growth near Taylor, but with tighter oversight and a more limited footprint than the industrial plan that sparked so much opposition. A pipe yard and a landscaping business may not carry the scale of an asphalt plant, but they still can shape traffic patterns, add truck movement and raise noise concerns for neighbors who have watched the Highway 328 corridor turn into a testing ground for how far commercial expansion should reach. The approvals also send a signal about future land values and future growth near Taylor: this stretch of road is no longer being treated as empty ground, but as property with a commercial future the county is now managing parcel by parcel.