Last week, developers of the former Natchez Eola Hotel came before the Natchez Planning Commission with plans that didn’t meet the city’s development code.

Interim City Planner Riccardo Giani told commissioners he denied the application as a result.

But the developers seemed to switch their plans at the presentation to the planning commission. From what he heard Giani suggested his concerns were resolved. The commission still denied the request.

With the planning commission’s denial, the developers can simply appeal to the Natchez aldermen to get the approval for their plans.

The challenge is that aldermen — particularly in an election year — are not unbiased when it comes to such things. The owner of the Eola also is one of the owners of the Magnolia Bluffs Casino which regularly gives the City of Natchez $1 million per year for land at Roth Hill Road. That will almost certainly make the city’s position biased.

That the presentation differed from the written plans is a red flag that deserves caution.

Natchez aldermen would be wise to deny the appeal and ask that the matter go back to the planning commission until the commission is fully on board with the development plans.

The Eola’s future in some ways will shape downtown’s development. To simply allow developers to call an audible play and circumvent the actual planning commission may be legal, but it’s certainly not ideal.