{"id":153034,"date":"2025-10-28T17:28:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=153034"},"modified":"2025-10-28T17:28:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:28:43","slug":"developer-moves-proposed-lafayette-county-asphalt-plant-for-the-sake-of-peace-with-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/developer-moves-proposed-lafayette-county-asphalt-plant-for-the-sake-of-peace-with-neighbors\/","title":{"rendered":"Developer Moves Proposed Lafayette County asphalt Plant, \u2018for the sake of peace\u2019 with Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Katherine Lin and Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The developer behind a controversial proposed asphalt plant announced on Tuesday he will seek to build it in the Lafayette County Industrial Park<\/strong>, not in the small community of Taylor <\/strong>as originally planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The developer, J.W. McCurdy<\/strong>, announced this change after residents and the owners of a nearby farm vocally opposed the plans, and fought rezoning efforts before the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur (original) site on (Mississippi) 328 is an outstanding industrial node, and that\u2019s not changing, but I\u2019m also happy to change for the sake of peace,\u201d McCurdy said in a press release, adding, \u201cWe\u2019re going to make this work, just in a new location.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During public meetings over the last month, locals showed up in droves to protest the proposal to rezone the land from agricultural to heavy industrial use, arguing the plant would threaten<\/a> the sanctity of neighboring Falkner Farms<\/strong> and the \u201cbucolic\u201d nature of Taylor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors was slated to vote on the proposal on Monday. During an October 20, 2025 meeting, the board had tabled its decision<\/a> after hours of public comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson<\/strong> visited the Falkner family<\/a> last week and shared photos of the visit on social media. In a letter to the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, Gipson asked the Board \u201cto consider the agricultural impact the zoning change could have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A letter from Commissioner of Agriculture & Commerce Andy Gipson to Lafayette County officials.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy maintains the site on Mississippi 328<\/strong> is \u201cstill superior,\u201d and that there are increased costs and risks to the new location. He and others have stated that the utility capacity of the industrial park has been a challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy, whose company JWM Development LLC<\/strong> owns the land along the highway, said he\u2019s still planning projects there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur neighbors all along said that all they objected to was an asphalt plant, not development in general,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we are full speed ahead to bring new commercial, manufacturing, and industrial tenants to the county.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor residents were concerned the development would increase runoff into the Yocona River, produce air pollution and increase noise and traffic in the quiet area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve also spoken to how recent expansion around Oxford has started to erode the rural identity of surrounding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But McCurdy and some county officials said the area\u2019s recent growth has caused a higher demand for asphalt to pave roads and build subdivisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

District 5 Supervisor Greg Bynum<\/strong> said, \u201c(McCurdy) has been patient and professional throughout all this, and, knowing him, I\u2019m not at all surprised that he would sacrifice all his work for the betterment of the county.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on Mississippi Today<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Katherine Lin and Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today The developer behind a controversial proposed asphalt plant announced on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":152675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[27202,32824,32828,31563,32945,32946,256,25392,32944,5,4,78],"class_list":["post-153034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-andy-gipson","tag-falkner-farms","tag-greg-bynum","tag-highway-328","tag-j-w-mccurdy","tag-jwm-development-llc","tag-lafayette-county","tag-lafayette-county-board-of-supervisors","tag-lafayette-county-industrial-park","tag-mississippi","tag-oxford","tag-taylor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FaulknerFarms-PotentialAsphaltPlant-03-CMYK.jpg?fit=2048%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153093,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153034\/revisions\/153093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}