What’s happening?
Every 10 years at minimum, the City is required to review and update its Comprehensive Plan. The City, County, and the Greater Jackson Chamber are working with the LRK architecture and planning firm to update our One Jackson Civic Master Plan design guidelines and to create four small area plans.
This update will provide more in-depth plans for four subareas across the City, along with how the City can accommodate new population and employment growth. The subareas include Downtown/Airways, Oman Arena, Jackson Plaza/Old Hickory, and West. The Jackson Plaza/Old Hickory subarea will include a more in-depth site plan and market feasibility analysis for the Jackson Plaza site that was purchased by the City last year, with the vision of developing a multi-purpose arena.
This update also includes new Design Guidelines that will be applied citywide to better shape the look and feel of our city. These include parking regulations, landscaping requirements, signage, and more.
What is a comprehensive plan?
The One Jackson Civic Master Plan, adopted in 2015, describes the community's long-term vision and goals, looking twenty years into the future. It covers issues like housing, land use, transportation, parks and open spaces, utilities and public safety services, and economic development.
The Plan also helps to inform our partners, like transit providers and school districts, with information to help coordinate provision of services for all of us.
What role does the City play in development?
The Civic Master Plan is used in several meaningful ways. It provides a shared vision of our future the public and City can work to achieve. It informs the City about where growth will occur and at which intensities, so utility and infrastructure improvements are sized for the anticipated need. It also provides policy direction and vision for City programs and budgets.
While the City can make some public investments to initiate or encourage development, the role of the City is largely to cast a vision and support that vision through appropriate regulations, infrastructure, and other public services. Development is primarily completed by the private sector according to this shared vision.
How to get involved?
Over the past few months, the City of Jackson hosted a series of design workshops and community open houses for residents to provide feedback on the design guidelines and subarea plans. Click through the presentations below to learn more about each subarea, feedback from stakeholders, and the preliminary vision for each.