In the coming months additional code enforcement officers should be on the job in the city of Jackson.
The Jackson City Council made sure the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget, which goes into effect on Oct. 1, included funding to strengthen code enforcement.
Jhai Keeton, director of the city’s Planning and Zoning Department, said his department received $505,437 to fund a total of 13 new positions.
“We will hire six code enforcement officers, one code enforcement supervisor and support staff,” he said.
During the city’s budget hearings, Keeton told council members that it was difficult to keep code enforcement officers because cities in the metro area paid their code enforcement officers.
“The pay for code enforcement officers will be raised an average of $4 an hour, bringing it to a livable wage,” Keeton said.
An online job listing for a Jackson code enforcement officer puts the salary at $12.72 an hour to $15.26 an hour. The job requires two years of experience in building construction, code enforcement or a related field and an education equivalent to the completion of the twelfth grade, supplemented by additional training in construction or the building trades.
The council also provided funding to purchase vehicles for the code enforcement officers working in the field, said Virgi Lindsay, who serves as president of the council and represents Ward 7.
Code enforcement extends beyond run down property, she said. “It’s not just about dilapidated houses but overgrown yards and fallen trees, anything that makes a property a menace in the community,” she said.
Rebecca Garrison, executive director of the Fondren Renaissance Foundation, believes code enforcement is just as important as law enforcement.
“They go hand-in-hand,” she said. “Turning things around means investing significantly in both.”
The city’s code enforcement team has done “an amazing job” with the resources it had but it needed more people and more funds to catch up with the issues that have already been reported, Garrison said.
“For the most part, it’s not just a matter of aesthetics,” she said. “It’s a matter of health and safety. We pass along plenty of complaints about illegally parked cars and lawns that need to be cut. But it’s the structures that should be condemned or boarded up where people are living, legally or as squatters, that pose real problems.”
When a city lacks proper code enforcement it impacts the attitude of the community, Garrison said.
“People take pride in their neighborhoods and take the responsibility for maintaining them by reporting problems to the city,” she said. “When months, even years, pass and those problems aren’t addressed, it’s easy to lose confidence in our city.”
Andy Frame, executive director of Revitalize Mississippi, said it’s encouraging that the city council is investing in more code enforcement officers.
“The city has a good online system for reporting and transparency through OpenGov ( https://jacksonms.portal.opengov.com/ ), but staffing shortages have made it difficult to keep cases moving efficiently,” he said. “The existing staff does a great job, and adding more trained officers who understand the critical role of code compliance will be key to solving this problem.’
When done efficiently and effectively, code enforcement can make a real difference in communities struggling with high levels of abandonment, he said.
“At Revitalize Mississippi and Jackson
Association of Neighborhoods, we look forward to working with the new officers.” Frame said. “Collaboration with community organizations is essential, as well.”
Code enforcement is vital but not the only solution, he said.
“We need faster pathways to turn problem properties into productive ones,” Frame said. “Solutions like neighborhood strengthening, land banks, addressing property tax and heirship issues, greenspace development and housing initiatives all play a role. Recognizing that this is an emergency is just the first step—now we need to work together to solve it.”
The council also paid attention to commercial structures that need to be demolished, Lindsay said.
The council allocated $1.3 million for commercial structures, including Hotel O on the I-55 Frontage Road, in the new budget. Also to be torn down are six commercial properties with these addresses: 1125 Raymond Road (Southdown Arms Apartments), 1500 Bailey Ave., 735 N. Farish St., 1434 U.S. 80 West, Unit 40, 1769 University Blvd. and 2605 Livingston Rd.
The city of Jackson should have everything in place near the end of October so the demolition of Hotel O, the burned-out, blighted property located at 4639 I-55, can proceed.
“If all goes well and there is no legal appeal, we could have everything ready to go by Oct. 22,” Lindsay said.
“The legal process would be completed, a bid (for demolition) would have been issued and the (demolition) company identified.”
The subject of abandoned properties in the city of Jackson was the topic the House Select Committee on Capital and Metro Revitalization took up at its first meeting on Aug. 29.
The city owns about 900 abandoned, dilapidated and vacant buildings, while the state of Mississippi owns another 1,900 of them in the Jackson city limits, according to the secretary of state’s office.
A property owner has two years to pay unpaid taxes and if he or she doesn’t then the property goes up for sale during a tax sale. If the property is not sold at a tax sale, then it is deeded to the state.
The secretary of state’s office has a tax forfeited land staff that works on marketing and selling the state-owned properties. Last year, it sold about 2,300 parcels and broke even, Bill Cheney, assistant secretary of state lands, told the committee.
