Jackson-Fillmore Cleanup Planned

After nearly two years of inspecting motels and bleak apartment units, the Neighborhood Improvement Task Force is preparing for its most ambitious project: cleaning up the blighted Jackson-Fillmore district.

The fire, police, health and city code inspectors who jointly began the task force 18 months ago said this project will look beyond individual apartments.

“This time we are trying a pioneering effort where we take a whole neighborhood and see what we can do with it,” Police Capt. Gary Hicken said. “The bottom-line mission is to increase property values, the sense of community, and to stop deterioration of the neighborhood and crime.”

The neighborhood, created in the early 1960s, includes Jackson Way and Fillmore Drive between Grand and Western avenues and encompasses a sprawling, 17-acre complex of apartments now owned by 56 individual landlords.

Most of the buildings are run-down, dreary and significantly in violation of health and fire codes, Police Chief Richard M. Tefank said.

Task force officials said they will contact all the landlords and encourage them to form a homeowners association. At that point, they can tap into public funding for low-income housing and rehabilitate the buildings using one coherent theme.