Starkville Residents Weigh In On Proposed Development Site For Pecan Acres Subdivision

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Residents of Starkville’s Pecan Acres subdivision may soon have a new home.

It was a little over a month ago when the Starkville Housing Authority announced it’s looking to move tenants to a new location.

All of this comes as alarming news to the tenants living in Pecan Acres.

In Fact, during a public meeting Wednesday night, some said they didn’t find out about this development proposal until it was released in the news.

Emotions were running high in the standing room only meeting as tenants had a chance to address members with the housing authority for the very first time about the future of their subdivision.

“For the most part people had questions about transportation, logistics, groceries, drugs stores, and different things like that,” said Loren Bell, Chairman of the Starkville Housing Authority Board.

However, during the meeting, residents expressed their biggest concern isn’t necessarily moving, but rather the location they would be moving to.

“The logistics part is hard because you are looking at 10, 15, or 20 acre piece of property inside of Starkville, it’s hard to find that,” said Bell. “That was our hardest thing to do was to identify a property that seem to work for everybody.”

The proposed development site will be on Highway 82 near Talley Ho Road, located just across the highway from Long’s Lake.

On Wednesday night, those living in the subdivision stated they didn’t like that location because there’s not much development on that side of town.

However, members with the housing authority believe it’s an ideal location for the project.

“We did look at four other locations, some of which were even farther out,” said Bell. “It is closer to several of the schools, closer to the hospital, closer to doctors row on Hospital Road, it’s not very far from Walmart, actually closer to Walmart and Kroger.”

According to The Housing Authority, residents who are currently living in Pecan Acres will not be displaced due to this decision.

“During this whole process the taxpayers have no burden here, the housing authority has no burden here,” the board chairman explained. “There is no cash incentive to us. They will literally go in and the investors will build out what we want and what we agree to and then we land swap. We don’t make money off of it, we don’t have to pay for a part of it, nor do our taxpayers.”

At this time, the housing authority said this is not a done deal, and if residents are not happy with the proposed development site and prefer another location, they are willing to take their request into consideration.

“The investor will play a part in choosing that location as far as purchasing that location, now HUD would have to bless it, but if the majority of our tenants came along and said we do not want to move, we want to stay put, then we will kill the deal and stay where we are,” said Bell.

If this move was to comes to fruition, the current location of Pecan Acres on Highway 12 could possibly be re-purposed as a commercial site.

Another meeting will be held on June 6th for tenants and members of the Starkville Housing Authority to discuss this issue.

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