Shaping Jackson's Future: A Look at the Updated Master Plan
Every 10 years, the city of Jackson is required to review the Comprehensive Master plan and this year, the City, County, and the Greater Jackson Chamber have been 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 initiative promises a more vibrant and prosperous Jackson for all areas.
These plans provide in-depth blueprints for specific areas within Jackson, including Downtown/Airways, Oman Arena, Jackson Plaza/Old Hickory, and West. The Jackson Plaza/Old Hickory subarea will receive particular attention, with a focus on developing a multi-purpose arena. These guidelines will establish a consistent aesthetic for the entire city, encompassing elements like parking regulations, landscaping requirements, and signage. The plans will be adopted by the planning commission and by city council in June, becoming living, breathing documents. The purpose of these plans is for casting vision, and backing up the vision with regulations, but it’s up to developers and investors to take this vision and make it a reality for Jackson. These plans help people imagine what it could be instead of just looking at a vacant lot or an empty building.
“Our hope is that having neighborhood plans for each defined area helps define the character and the hope we have for the city and what we want it to be,” Lauren Kirk, Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Jackson, said. “These plans set forth a vision of a vibrant, urban center… When you start to see that end goal, then you start to be able to formulate the steps to accomplish that.”
Often, the problem with plans is that it wasn't thought through holistically, so this time, the planning team has taken it outside of City Hall and hosted planning in outside spaces and invited people who are not considered “typical” planners. They wanted to ask people “what is your current experience of Downtown and what do you want to see in the future.” By inviting different voices that are not heard at every meeting, the master plans help provide support for the city as a whole. The plans give investors vision and motivation. They encourage vision that will be beneficial to everyone.
These plans are not simply dictates; they are tools to inspire and guide development that benefits everyone.
“At the end of the day, we [the city] are the vision caster, we provide the table, and everyone else shows up with the ingredients,” Kirk said.
Paul Taylor, president of the JDDC board, emphasized the value of master plans for developers. They provide a framework for development, fostering cohesion and simplifying processes like rezoning. He compared the plan to a roadmap for a successful development journey.
“It’s like taking a road trip,” Taylor explained. “If you don’t know where you’re going, it’s really hard to get there. And [these plans] are really like saying ‘we’re gonna head West and here’s our end goal, here’s where we want it to be.’ Now that path could take a lot of different routes, but really these plans are a general high level view of where we want and where we need to go to get the community that we want.”
In the Downtown section of Jackson, we have seen collective effort take place over the past several years to make improvements and begin to create the city we all desire. Taylor explained that it will take collective effort to get our city where we want it to be in these plans. This process will take a long time, you usually have to have one builder who is the pioneer and leads the way. After that, it will take a slow wave of interest, it can’t just be one person.
The city encourages everyone to actively participate in shaping Jackson's future. Here's how you can contribute:
Review the Plans: Familiarize yourself with the proposed plans before the city council's adoption vote.
Communicate Your Vision: Share your ideas and aspirations for Jackson's development.
By working together, Jackson can leverage these plans to unlock what we want to see as a community. Just like progress in other areas of Jackson, these plans require cohesion and diverse groups coming together to accomplish one common plan.
