On May 6, 2025, the Biloxi City Council tabled a decision on the proposed Beauvoir Villas rezoning, postponing it until July to allow time for further review. As of mid-July, the matter still has not appeared on a public meeting agenda. With only one council meeting remaining this month, it is now assumed that the proposal will be heard on Tuesday, July 29 at 1:30 PM at Biloxi City Hall.

As the City prepares to revisit the request, here’s a fun thought experiment: how does this high-density subdivision compare to the rules for a mobile home park? It’s not a rhetorical question—it’s a regulatory punchline. The answer is quantifiable, embarrassing, and reveals just how low the bar is being dragged under the banner of “planned development.” If Beauvoir Villas went from double-tall to double-wide and tried to drive itself into a legally zoned mobile home park, it would be in immediate violation of nearly every standard on the books.

Zoning for Mobile Home Parks

Biloxi’s Land Development Ordinance includes a dedicated zoning category for mobile homes: the Residential Manufactured/Mobile Home District (RMH). It is the highest-density non-multifamily residential zoning category in Biloxi, specifically intended for mobile homes and manufactured housing while also allowing for detached single-family homes. However, even this district is governed by clear legal minimums:

• Density may not exceed 10 dwelling units per acre.
• Each home space must provide at least 3,600 square feet per unit.
• Open space must be at least 20% of the total site area.

Beauvoir Villas Doesn’t Qualify—Even for That

Beauvoir Villas is not a mobile home park. It is a proposal for 213 permanent, two-story detached houses. If the project were reviewed under the standards of the Residential Manufactured/Mobile Home District (RMH), which allows for single-family housing, it would be ineligible in nearly every category:

• It proposes 12.75 units per acre, exceeding the RMH maximum of 10.
• Lot sizes drop as low as 1,500 square feet, far below the 3,600 square feet required per unit in RMH.
• The development provides only about 5% open space, even though both RMH and PD-R zoning (when applied to RS-10 base-zoned property) require a minimum of 20%.

At this point, a vintage double-wide with a lawn flamingo would face more regulatory hurdles than this entire subdivision.

A Final Thought

Before anyone calls this comparison unfair, here’s a final thought: Would the City Council even approve rezoning this property to RMH to allow 3,600 square foot lots? Let’s be honest—we all know the answer. A mobile home park with 3,600 square foot lots would be met with outrage, hand-wringing, and a unanimous vote to “protect neighborhood character", but cram in two-story houses with less than half that footprint (at 1,500 sq ft), call it a planned development, and suddenly it’s visionary.

Zoning, it turns out, isn’t about standards—it’s about branding.