Improvements coming to east Jackson with city’s strategic plan

JACKSON, Tenn. — Residents in east Jackson can look forward to some much needed improvements in the area as the Community Redevelopment Agency has finalized its plans.

On July 9, the Jackson Community Redevelopment Agency held its monthly meeting in the Ben Langford meeting room inside city hall. The main topic of this meeting was the review and approval of the district 2 strategic plan.

We spoke with Vicki Lake, chair of the CRA, who shares more about their upcoming plans.

“The stakeholders really focused on the area around Lane College and felt that that was a huge anchor area and to start there and kind of move out in the core of east Jackson to do redevelopment activities including affordable housing, eliminating dilapidated housing, and bringing in more commercial businesses into the area,” said Lake.

As district 2 does not generate as much income as other districts, the CRA is hoping to attract master developers to help bring its vision to life.

“Right now, we get TIF funds, which is tax incremental financing, and that’s money that we get from city and county property taxes as the property has improved. We’ll look at other grants, private and public funding to help with this and investors,” said Lake.

Councilman Johnny Dodd voiced concern over the issue with vacant properties across district 2. The CRA plans to conduct a housing reassessment of the area.

“The stakeholders in east Jackson asked us to go back and do that again, actually drive the streets of east Jackson and assess each property on the ability for us to either renovate it and use it or is it vacant, dilapidated, and do we need to look at the process for tearing it down,” said Lake.

The CRA is hoping to see project results within the next year. The district 2 strategic plan was approved.

Its subcommittee will meet next month to develop a plan to attract developers.

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