Members of the Greater Belhaven Foundation Love Your Haven Committee have gone house to house throughout the neighborhood putting door hangers in place.
The door hangers are intended to educate residents about the expectations of living in the Belhaven Historic District.
“We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback about the hangers,” said Mary Alex Thigpen, executive director of the Greater Belhaven Foundation.
Owning property in Belhaven includes the responsibility of preserving and maintaining it within the city of Jackson’s code guidelines and the Historic Preservation Commission’s Belhaven and Belhaven Heights Design guidelines.
A referral to the city’s code enforcement department could result in a summons to Environmental Court, court-ordered compliance and monetary penalties, including the potential for a lien to be placed on one’s property.
In a historic district, properties can be fined up to $1,000 a day for noncompliance.
Thigpen said she understands the sentiment of “it’s my property and I’ll do what I want,” but residents who abide by the city’s code and within historical guidelines ensure property values remain high and that contributes to the neighborhood’s quality of life.
“Caring for property deters blight and crime,” she said. “It benefits everybody in the long run.”
To make it easy for neighborhood residents to report property that they believe is not up to code, Thigpen created a tracker so that anyone who receives the foundation’s online newsletter can easily respond to her and she can then submit the information to the city and keep track of what happens.
“I wanted to make it easy for residents to submit properties they are concerned about,” she said. “The employees in the city’s code enforcement department have their work cut out for them across the city.
I hope that by taking this approach, I can be a liaison between them and the neighborhood.”
The city’s code enforcement department has been responsive with the submissions she has made, Thigpen said. “They’re keeping me up to date and messaging me on the portal,” she said.
Thigpen wants residents to become more educated about code enforcement, so much so that they can drive by a property and not just know it doesn’t meet code standards but exactly why it does not. “That empowers our neighbors to have such an understanding of code versus ‘that house looks bad,’” she said.A challenge that faces the Belhaven and Belhaven Heights neighborhoods is the large number of rental properties. “Some property owners engage in a responsible way, while others, absentee landlords, are the ones with properties being reported to code enforcement,” she said
Working with the city’s code enforcement department, the foundation has had 18 abandoned vehicles removed since last November 2023 from the neighborhood streets.
“It’s pretty obvious when a car is being driven daily or left there,” Thigpen said, explaining vehicles are often abandoned because they need repairs.
The foundation is also working to make sure residents know that vehicles shouldn’t be parked in front yards, she said.
Andy Frame, executive director of Revitalize Mississippi, said his organization has been working on cleaning up vacant, abandoned and dilapidated properties since 2016.
“We’ve also been working with the Jackson Association of Neighborhoods to help neighborhoods become more effective at responding to these problem properties,” he said.
Frame said the city has been steadily improving its code enforcement the last few years.
“The city’s website (https://jacksonms.portal.opengov.com/) for reporting code violations has been a huge benefit to neighborhoods throughout the city,” he said. “Now anyone can start a new code enforcement complaint, and the file is treated the same as if a code officer started it. The public is also able to track progress as these files progress through the process.”
Like Thigpen, Frame said he, too, has found the code enforcement department to be responsive to the community.
“Enforcement is so important, because the city doesn’t have unlimited funds to clean up every privately-owned dilapidated property,” he said.
The Jackson Association of Neighborhoods is working with neighborhoods and the city to help improve community awareness of the importance of filing complaints, and how to do it through the website, he said.
Frame said the association is working with Country Club Place and Colonial Heights, two neighborhoods in West Jackson, to identify the 10 worst code violations in the area, so that they can work together and with the city to focus on those properties getting cleaned up.
“We’re doing a similar project in the Mid City neighborhood off Bailey Avenue (between Woodrow Wilson and Fortification), so that we can focus on abandoned properties,” he said.
Thigpen said the foundation is also making sure residents receive information about what it means to live in a historic district.
The Historic Preservation Ordinance is administered by the city, and all decisions concerning it are made by the city’s planning department and the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. Members of the commission are volunteers from each City Council ward, who are appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council.
Residents in a historic district can access tax credits for repairs and renovations, a topic that Thigpen also plans to let residents know more about.
Most external altercations to residential properties in Belhaven will need prior approval from the Historic Preservation Commission. Property owners must file an application for a Certificate of Appropriateness with the City’s planning department before starting altercations.
The Historic Preservation Commission meets monthly to consider Certificate of Appropriateness applications, and applications may need to be submitted a month or more in advance of a scheduled meeting. Certain alterations, such as changes to paint color, interior renovations and some routine maintenance, do not require a certificate.
However, property owners should consult with the city before making any exterior alterations, including changing the style or materials of windows, doors or roofing; adding or removing architectural elements such as decks, porches, garages, windows or doors, cutting trees and erecting or changing hardscape features such as fences, driveways, steps or decks.
A plus for owning a home in a historic district is residents can access a tax credits for the rehabilitation of historic structures. Thigpen plans to provide information to residents about that topic.
The foundation is also celebrating residents who put time into making their homes beautiful. To be considered, property must have the curbs, driveway and walkways regularly edged and cleaned, the yard mowed and edged regularly, flower beds weeded and mulched and shrubs trimmed regularly. The yard must also be free of debris and clutter.
Peachtree Street residents Kevin and Jayme McDonald earned the foundation’s first Yard of the Month designation.
