NATCHEZ &8212; Natchez aldermen were justified in their rezoning of property downtown for a new Fat Mama&8217;s Tamales building, City Attorney Walter Brown said Tuesday.

But downtown residents protesting the rezoning of a lot at Canal and Washington streets are staying mum on the case, instead letting their lawyer, Bruce Kuehnle, do the talking.

&8220;We just decided to let him speak for us&8221; rather than each plaintiff making a separate statement, said Mimi Miller, one of 20 plaintiffs who filed suit against the mayor and board of aldermen Dec. 1 in Adams County Circuit Court.

Kuehnle could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Miller and 19 others, almost all living on Washington and adjacent streets, filed suit against a rezoning that would allow Fat Mama&8217;s Tamales to move from its current South Canal Street location to the corner of Canal and Washington streets.

Aldermen approved rezoning the lot from open land to B-2 business, which allows for restaurants and a number of other businesses by right rather than variance. The board&8217;s decision overturned a Planning Commission decision to rezone the parcel as B-1, a lighter commercial use.

&8220;The city&8217;s position is that the applicant (owner David Gammill) showed there has been a change in business patterns in the area, and so the Board of Aldermen is justified&8221; in its action, attorney Brown said.

The owners&8217; attorney, Bob Latham, argued before the Board of Aldermen that the area has always been used for commercial and industrial purposes, so the rezoning was needed to conform the parcel to the majority of other parcels along Canal.

The city has until Dec. 31 to file a written answer to the lawsuit.

Relocating will also allow owners to expand the restaurant&8217;s kitchen and storage space and add a pickup window, as well as a few more seats.

In their appeal, plaintiffs stated, among other arguments:

4That to make such zoning changes, a public body must show there&8217;s a change in the area in question, a public need for the rezoning or an error in the original zoning, and that the city didn&8217;t prove any of those criteria.

4That because more than 20 percent of the neighborhood signed a petition against the rezoning, it would have taken a &8220;supermajority,&8221; or two-thirds, vote to rezone.

4That city ordinances require a transition zone between residentially zoned areas and those zoned for business.

4That city ordinances state an area can&8217;t be rezoned unless the parcel contains at least eight acres, in the case of B-2 zoning, or two acres, for B-1 zoning.

If the B-2 rezoning stands, the restaurant could relocate to Canal and Washington by the middle of next year. Gammill has said the move is necessary because the National Park Service is buying up land at the old Fort Rosalie site, of which Fat Mama&8217;s is a part.