This article is Part 2 in a continuing examination of Monarch Villas. Part 1, titled "Monarch Villas: A Small, More Blatantly Unlawful, Sister to Beauvoir Villas," details the broader legal, zoning, and planning issues at stake. What follows here is a deeper focus on the initial procedural failure that enabled the development to reach the City Council: an unlawful variance issued in direct violation of Biloxi's zoning rules.
What Are Legal Variances
In Biloxi, the purpose of a variance is to provide narrowly limited relief from certain requirements in the zoning ordinance—but only under very specific conditions and for very specific elements. A variance may be granted when a landowner demonstrates that their ability to comply with zoning standards is constrained by physical characteristics of the land that are truly exceptional and beyond their control, which could include unusual topography, an extremely narrow or shallow lot, or an irregular shape that makes compliance not only difficult, but unreasonably burdensome.
Biloxi’s Land Development Ordinance limits variances to a narrow set of standards—such as building height, impervious surface coverage, minimum setbacks, lot width and depth, off-street parking and loading, landscaping, fencing, exterior lighting, and signage. Notably absent from this list is anything related to minimum district area. There is no provision—anywhere in the ordinance—that allows a variance to be granted for the minimum acreage required to qualify for a Planned Development. In cases like Monarch Villas, where the required five-acre threshold for a PD-C was not met, the law does not offer a workaround. The application should have been deemed ineligible from the start.
Importantly, the zoning ordinance sets firm boundaries around what does not qualify as a legitimate reason for a variance. A variance must be denied if the request involves a use that is not allowed in the zoning district. Hardships that arise from circumstances unrelated to the ordinance—such as market trends, property values, or developer goals—do not meet the legal threshold. Likewise, claims that a property would be more profitable, easier to sell, or similar to others nearby—whether those others conform or not—simply do not count. Under the ordinance, these factors are not just insufficient—they are grounds for mandatory denial. In the case of Monarch Villas, even if a variance for minimum district size were permitted—which it is not—the justification given was based precisely on these disqualifying factors: profitability, marketability, and surrounding development. By the ordinance’s own terms, the variance should have been rejected outright.
- Read the Standards for What Can and Cannot Get a Variance
- Read the District Area Requirement for Planned Development - Commercial
A Development That Never Qualified
Monarch Villas, located at 955 Motsie Road, was approved under a Planned Development – Commercial (PD-C) zoning designation despite failing to meet one of its most basic eligibility requirements: size. The Land Development Ordinance mandates that properties must be at least five acres—that is, 217,800 square feet—to even qualify for a PD-C designation. Monarch Villas sits on just 1.51 acres, a staggering 70% shortfall. Even more troubling, a variance to waive this minimum size requirement was granted by the Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA) on June 20, 2024—weeks before the PD-C zoning request had even been submitted to the City Council, much less approved [ref.]. At the time the variance was granted, the property was still zoned Regional Business, a zoning category that does not include a minimum district size requirement. As a result, any variance granted under that zoning would not carry forward once the property was rezoned. Even if such a variance were legally permitted—which it is not—it would have to be considered and approved as part of a PD-C Master Plan, not as a stand-alone action. In short, the BZA’s decision didn’t just violate the ordinance—it circumvented the entire legal framework of the process.
During the City Council meeting on October 1, 2024, City Attorney Peter Abide was asked directly whether the BZA had the authority to approve such a variance. He responded: "They applied for a variance. It was advertised, there was a public hearing…and at that point, they had a variance, since no one appealed it." While this explanation describes what procedurally took place, it fails to acknowledge a critical point: the Board lacked the legal authority to grant a variance for a district size requirement in the first place. Councilman Kenny Glavan echoed this view when he stated, “So things were done properly, rules were followed, and I don't think we need to hold this up in more red tape to encumber the developer further...and I would ask my colleagues to kind of see it for what it is and support this.” This framing dangerously reduces a fundamental legal violation to a matter of bureaucratic delay—ignoring the fact that no amount of procedural smoothness can make an unlawful act legitimate.
The very act of seeking a variance was an admission that the project did not comply with the law, but perhaps more concerning is that this request advanced under the oversight of Jerry Creel, Biloxi’s Director of Community Development. After nearly two decades in that role, Mr. Creel cannot plausibly claim ignorance of the five-acre threshold, nor of the fact that neither the BZA nor the City Council has the authority to waive it.
A Pattern Too Dangerous to Ignore
The approval of Monarch Villas sent a message: if you push hard enough, break the rules quietly enough, and no one files an appeal in time, you can get away with it. A project that should have been disqualified at the first review—based on a blatant 70% shortfall in minimum land area—was instead greenlit by a city government that either didn’t know the law, didn’t care, or worse, chose to ignore it. Now, the damage is spreading.
Beauvoir Villas, a far larger and even more controversial development, is attempting to follow the same playbook. It proposes 213 tightly packed homes on minimum lot sizes of 1,500 square feet, using a Planned Development–Residential (PD-R) designation to sidestep 5,000 square foot lot sizes that has defined a minimum standard for single-family neighborhoods in Biloxi for generations. Worse yet, the extra square footage made available by shrinking lot sizes isn’t used to meet the property’s required 20% open space set-aside—a non-negotiable standard—but is instead exploited to cram in even more houses and drive up profits. Like Monarch Villas, the legal justifications are weak, the density extreme, and the burden on surrounding residents considerable. Again—just as before—the developers are relying on a process more interested in momentum than legality.
This is no longer about isolated errors. It’s about a governing culture in which illegal variances and procedural shortcuts are normalized, and where zoning law is treated as optional, so long as no one fights back hard enough. This isn’t just a legal issue—it’s a civic one. The public must ask: Who is defending the law? It certainly isn’t City Attorney Peter Abide, who justified an unlawful variance because no one appealed it. Who is enforcing the standards? Not Jerry Creel, the city’s longtime Director of Community Development, who allowed a Planned Development to advance on a parcel that never qualified. Who is listening to Biloxi’s citizens? Not our elected officials, who approve projects like these despite clear objections, unanswered legal questions, and with answers like “sounds good to me”. If Biloxi is ever going to draw a line—one that defends its laws, respects its citizens, and reclaims control over its future—then what it chooses to do next with Beauvoir Villas will be that line.