The City of Jackson reached an agreement with Flowood, Pearl and Rankin County, in a 5-1 vote, to allow the annexation of land around the Medgar Evers International Airport.
Jackson owns and has annexed the land directly around the airport but for decades there has been a substantial amount of land owned by Jackson but not annexed. This land has been in unincorporated Rankin County making permitting difficult.
The city of Jackson released a statement following the vote on the agreement. Mayor John Horhn's office stated the following in a written statement:
"It is important for the public to understand that this agreement does not transfer or surrender any City of Jackson property. The City of Jackson continues to own all airport lands, including the surrounding acreage. What has changed is simply the incorporation status of that land, allowing Jackson, Pearl, and Flowood to legally include portions of the land within their municipal boundaries for purposes of planning and taxation."
"For Jackson, this means new opportunity where there was none before. Currently, this area is not incorporated and therefore generates no sales or property tax revenue for the City. Under this agreement, the portions incorporated by Jackson will now allow our city to collect property and sales taxes from development, leasehold interests, and business activity on the land, all while maintaining full ownership of the property.
"Any land incorporated by another city will not result in ownership changes; instead, it allows those cities to extend essential services such as water and sewer. In fact, Pearl has already agreed to provide these services within the next 18 months, relieving Jackson of that financial and operational responsibility."
Going forward, developers can lease the land from Jackson and then get appropriate permits from whatever city has annexed that particular parcel of land. The annexation will also allow municipal utilities.
It is not the question of ownership that is changing, all the land is remaining under the ownership of the city of Jackson. The question of annexation is what is changing, meaning the city will simply own land in other city's city limits under the agreement.
