Improved infrastructure, redeveloped housing and better health care are some of the goals city planners are crafting for Richmond’s historic Jackson Ward.

Known as The Jackson Ward Community Plan, the project’s goals include replacing some public housing with mixed-income housing, constructing new community and recreation facilities and better streetscapes, sidewalks and lighting.

During a community meeting two weeks ago at Jackson Ward’s Hippodrome Theater, city and housing officials said the plan will be a two-year, multi-stage process of outreach, engagement and workshops.

“One of the great opportunities we have as a community is to align the efforts so that everyone in Jackson Ward knows what these plans are,” said Maritza Pechin, Richmond’s deputy director of equitable development. “Then, where there’s conflict between some of the planning efforts, we can find alignment and synergy.”

The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority received a $450,000 Choice Neighborhood grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to jumpstart planning.

RRHA is coordinating redevelopment efforts with the Richmond City Health District, Storefront for Community Design and other organizations.

In its current form, the goals of the Jackson Ward Community Plan are focused on three core objectives: renovating the neighborhood itself, addressing the needs of residents and redeveloping distressed area housing.

Some of the two dozen residents who attended the meeting asked how they can invest in the redevelopment, help preserve the area’s historic elements, and how redevelopment will address long-term issues such as redlining, something that residents have dealt with for decades.

“We have to make sure that we are being intentional about the decisions we’re making about this community,” said Valeria Burton, a 15-year resident of Jackson Ward. “The offer that’s on the table, how is that going to effectively help embody the community that has always been here? Is it going to look like we were never a part of it?

Part of the answer to Ms. Burton’s question is provided in the grant’s language, which requires that consistent meetings with residents, conducting community surveys and hiring a coordinator to keep Gilpin Court residents informed must occur in order for officials to receive a second HUD grant that would help implement any substantial changes in Jackson Ward. If officials and developers meet these requirements, millions in funding could be available for redevelopment in 2024.

“We will probably start working on an implementation toward the grant toward the end of the planning process so that we can hopefully be successful,” Ms. Pechin said. “We can’t get that big implementation grant money without having a plan first.”

The Community Plan is just one part of several revitalization projects planned for Jackson Ward. RRHA and the city of Richmond have already matched the funds from HUD’s planning grant with their own funds, as part of efforts to reconnect Jackson Ward and Gilpin Court after the creation of Intersection 95, which separated the northern and southern parts of the community decades ago.

Officials stressed that, while The Community Plan is a work in progress, some small-scale improvements may be on the way. For example, $200,000 from the planning grant has been set aside for community murals, facades, playground repairs and other area improvements.

Other Jackson Ward residents, for their part, looked to more large-scale changes to the neighborhood and Gilpin Court that go beyond redevelopment as a solution for the problems they face. Gary Flowers, a fourth-generation Jackson Ward resident, sees a need for institutional investment for people already living in the area. He believes that public policy initiatives and private financial backing are ways to address “old wounds” inflicted over decades by laws that have harmed Jackson Ward residents.

“I’d invest in the people who are there, not remove them, and invest in people yet to be there,” Mr. Flowers said.

The next meeting for Gilpin Court residents is June 14 at 6 p.m. in the Fay Towers Community Room, 1202 N. 1st St., followed by a community meeting on June 16 at 6 p.m. at Gallery5, 200 W. Marshall St.