A community improvement supervisor with the city of Jackson describes code enforcement as if an ER doctor.
“We’re in triage,” Robert Brunson told members of the Jackson City Council Planning and Economic Development Committee during their meeting on Feb. 5.
“We’re still trying to fix it like it’s going to go away. It’s not.”
The city of Jackson has more than 6,000 commercial and residential properties with code enforcement violations dating from October 2025 to present time, he said.
Brunson told committee members that some city code enforcement ordinances have “no teeth” in them, some elderly people whose homes are run down cannot afford to pay for improvements and there is a registration process that few residents seem to know that makes it the responsibility of a mortgage company, owner or lien holder to notify the city when a property will become vacant.
An issue across the country, code enforcement is often seen as inefficient and ineffective and lacking manpower and funds to do the job.
Kevin Parkinson, who represents Ward 7 on the city council, said the city’s code enforcement system needs improvement.
The city council declared more than 50 properties to be a menace to public health, safety and welfare during its March 10 meeting and more than a third of those properties were in Ward Seven.
In his recap of the March 10 meeting, Parkinson wrote: “For context, there are more than 800 properties with issues related to demolition, boarding up, trash and debris, grass and weeds or vehicles parked on lawns in Ward Seven alone. If we successfully tackled one of these properties every single day with no days off, and if we somehow prevented any new properties from becoming a problem, we would still be tackling these problems until today’s sophomores were approaching graduation. To say that a systemic solution is needed is an understatement.”
Mary Alex Thigpen, executive director of the Greater Belhaven Foundation, said she’s had little success in getting property with code violations addressed.
“I had to turn my attention to other projects because it feels like I’m beating my head against a wall with no progress,” she said.
She believes more code enforcement officers and funds for cleanup are needed to make a difference. “There’s still not enough staff and funding,” she said. “
The Community Improvement/Code Enforcement Division currently has eight code enforcement officers, and the Rental Registration Division has four code enforcement officers.
At the top of the Greater Belhaven Foundation’s list of blighted property is a colonial-style house at 1825 Peachtree Street, across from Belhaven University.
Code violations at the property date to 2014.
The four-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath home with a swimming pool was once part of the estate of Cynthia A. Langston, an attorney who died on Oct. 26, 2013, from 2014 until 2020.
GSRAN-Z LLC at P.O. Box 71276 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania bought the property in 2021. The current owner, NR Deed LLC, located at 1266 W. Paces Ferry Road #517 in Atlanta, purchased the property in 2022. A note on the property tax roll listing for 2023 indicates “parcel was sold in the prior year tax sale.”
The Hinds County tax roll lists Charles Davis, a real estate investor who appears to own other residential properties in Jackson, as the owner of 1825 Peachtree St.
Bryant G. Miller, who lives at 1837 Peachtree, which is located on one side of 1825 Peachtree St., and owns a duplex at 1811 Peachtree St., which is on the other side of 1825 Peachtree St., would like to see the dilapidated house torn down.
“It’s beyond any kind of repair,” he said, noting that the floors are warped and the windows, soffits and fascia boards are rotted. “It’s a nuisance to the community.”
Before freezing temperatures hit this winter, he took upon it himself to have the doors to the house secured to keep out vagrants.
The out-of-state owner hires a contractor twice a year to cut back shrubs, Miller said.
“In between that, it gets way overgrown,” he said. “It’s an awful mess.”
Belhaven is the state’s largest historic home district and there’s a higher expectation for those houses, Thigpen said.
There’s a demolition by neglect provision in the historic district but “we’ve not seen that provision help,” she said.
Thigpen said she requested the city’s registry of abandoned properties but has not received it so she would know the trouble spots.
She plans to take matters in her own hands, spend several days driving throughout the neighborhood and come up with her own list of abandoned properties.
Ken Wilson, acting president of the Ridgewood Park Homeowners’ Association, said the neighborhood had an issue with a residence after the owner moved to Oklahoma and it became an eyesore.
“The owner was planning to sell the property,” he said. “We took in on ourselves to cut the grass and maintain the shrubs, and it was put on the market. We try to stay on top of things.”
When Ridgewood Park experienced a problem with drivers of 18-wheelers parking where they should not, the homeowners’ association reached out to make the drivers aware of the city ordinances and made the Jackson Police Department aware of it, too, he said.
The Ridgewood Park Homeowners’ Association sends out weekly and monthly communication to residents about challenges the neighborhood faces and asks them to inform the association “whether it’s an issue with a dog, a homeowner turning a garage into a mechanic’s shop or an issue with the housing code,” he said.
Residents are encouraged to report issues to the city, he said, and have found that easy to do.
Wilson believes the response from the city has improved compared to what it was during the previous administration. “It’s a huge contrast,” he said.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn named the elimination of blighted properties as one of his priorities for the year.
A bill in the Senate, if passed, would allow help with the elimination of blighted properties, a problem not just in Jackson but other cities in the state, he said. The bill would authorize the creation of land banks by local government that could acquire and redevelop blighted or abandoned property.
Miller believes it would be helpful to have additional attorneys involved in the legal process to move code enforcement issues along and for the Legislature to pass a bill streamlining the code enforcement process.
To report a complaint about an abandoned or neglected property in the city of Jackson, dial the 311 Action Line at 601-960-1111 or use the 311 mobile app.
Esther Urbina, deputy city clerk for Ward 7, said a citizen may call her directly at 601-960-1063 and she would submit the report to 311 on the citizen’s behalf.
