City wants input on land bank usage

West Memphis working toward revitalization in the community

By JOHN RECH

news@theeveningtimes.com

The three R’s used to be reading, writing and arithmetic, but Mayor Marco McClendon rolled out three new R’s, revitalize, rejuvenate and restore housing in West Memphis. The city planned to create a land bank as a way to handle the work to upgrade housing and in_ll vacant lots with new housing starts. Mc-Clendon called for citizen input.

“We will continue to press forward in revitalizing our community,” said McClendon. “We must demo to build back new.”

The mayor said the city was already pursuing builders for new homes. One developer planned four affordable housing starts near the new Wonder-East Junior High under construction. McClendon said the city continued marketing commercial properties to business as part of the campaign to ‘reimagine’ the city.

The city demolished 107 houses and 10 commercial buildings since McClendon took of_ce. The razed houses and buildings amounted to more city sponsored demolition than in the history of the city.

McClendon took his record revitalization efforts to social media via video on September 13 and asked for community involvement to create a city land bank.

“Having access to safe and affordable housing is the foundation for healthy, prosperous communities,” said McClendon. “This means renovating some of our existing housing so that people can once again call them home or combine lots that are too small to build new homes. These are only a couple of ways to use the land bank.”

The mayor asked for written input to planning@westmemphisar. gov.

“Let’s revitalize and restore our city together,” said McClendon.

Mayor Marco McClendon looked over a condemned house slated for demolition. McClendon asked for citizen input about developing a land bank to deal with revitalizing the city.

Photo by John Rech