The AJC reports that Decatur’s partial annexation bill “fell apart” today after it didn’t get the required four signatures from state Senators to move forward.
The AJC also reports what we already know – that the predominant issue at hand was the commercial property – and thus tax revenue – being diverted from DeKalb County to Decatur and the various neighborhood groups that opposed the commercial-dominated effort.
“Other senators felt there was too much controversy with Decatur and too little time to work it out,” [Sen. Elena] Parent said. “I’m not saying it’s impossible to get this done, but we’re going to wait and see how things develop over the next year.”
Meanwhile the Avondale bill did get the required signatures and will be voted on by the full Senate on Thursday. However, again there’s opposition due to the transfer of – say it with me – commercial areas from DeKalb to the city.
If Decatur wants to realize its Master Annexation Plan, it needs to develop a winning strategy and execute it. Peggy Merris is a very competent manager, but it is asking too much of her to be a political fixer under the dome. If the stakes are as high as they say, they need to hire a good lobbying firm. They also need to do PR outreach within and without the city limits. I might support annexation if I felt the tax projections v. the student costs were reasonable.
Much of the criticism from Dekalb neighborhood groups was hypocritical and self serving, i.e. they don’t want Decatur to annex unless they can come too or they take the commercial themselves into Atlanta. Decatur could have pre-empted TIA on Parcel “A” but they never made any type of sale to the voters in Parcel “A” regarding the benefits of annexation. If all everyone hears is passionate opposition, you lose. Look at the NRA.
You gotta give people a reason to be supportive and passionate about your vision and demonstrate competence in following through. Decatur hasn’t done that.
I agree about needing a better approach but dismissing opposing neighborhoods as hypocritical is a huge mistake. Their opposition played a major role in the failure of Decatur’s plan. Decatur should find a way to work with them. Also unlike Decatur TIA was set to take mostly residential so calling it hypocritical is just not correct.
It is hypocritical to argue that Decatur is wrong to take away tax money from the DeKalb County and its schools and use that as leverage (or blackmail) to get annexed into Decatur and abandon the same schools you are supposedly championing. Or, as with Clairmont Heights, arguing that its all about the children of DeKalb and then abandoning DeKalb and its schools (and it cluster), using the commercial areas as bait, to work a deal with Atlanta.
Its saying one thing and doing another. It is the dictionary denotation of “hypocrisy.”
So is your point that Decatur is at least being honest about the annexation plans being self-serving, i.e. attempting to avoid having current residents pay higher taxes for expanded schools?
Decatur annexation hurts the county and helps Decatur. It not unfair to argue that it is a money grab. Of course, the corruption, disfunction and lack of services is a good contra argument in favor of annexation and cityhood.
If someone wants to stay in the county and not be annexed, then I understand their arguments and they are good citizens to lobby the legislature about it. However, some neighborhoods groups are making those arguments as a fig leaf to get out of DeKalb themselves.
It’s a heavy lift for Decatur. I get that. Unlike the cityhood groups, Decatur can’t make high-minded arguments about self-determinative government and local control. They already have it. However, since Decatur made the decision to move forward in the face of this, then it needs to devise a political strategy to accomplish its objectives or abandon annexation altogether. Politics aint beanbag and Decatur is losing politically, badly.
As others have suggested, the main issue annexation is supposed to address, school overcrowding, is likely gonna be a self-correcting problem. High taxes plus lots of kids in trailers will eventually diminish the appeal (not to mention what appears to be an uptick in violent crime).
What good is throwing a bunch of money at lobbying, if it’s still politically unpopular with citizens both outside and within the city? As someone pointed out a few days ago, the city has been saying for quite some time they annex to clean up borders. That’s been their narrative for (years)? How does annexing Patel Plaza fit with this? Why is Patel Plaza even on a map being discussed, seriously, for what reason?
People are griping that taxes are all over the map regarding assessments, the city response is basically “legally there’s nothing we can do.”
Why not introduce legislation to do something about what is rightfully theirs (uncollected taxes)? Instead they want to annex a bunch of apartments. None of this makes any sense.
I am stunned that AE’s bill is making it to a vote.
Moderate, comparing the opponents of Area A’s proposed annexation to the NRA is not analogous or appropriate.
I’m not comparing the two. I am suggesting that a vocal minority, whether their motives are altruistic or not, fills the vacuum in the absence of a competing supportive position.
Or maybe the absence of a competing supportive vision is enough to have killed this. “We want more of other people’s money to pay for our schools” is hardly a convincing rationale, at least for anyone living outside COD. And the weakness of COD’s position meant that even a hypocritical rejoinder would be enough to defeat it. Which it was.
This is the best news I have heard all day. I am not sure what the answer is, but annexing a bunch of residential and apartments is not the answer to CSD’s funding pressures.
Huh? Seems to me CoD made a play for commercial and some reasonably large plats of land (that I am guessing might have been used for a school location or two) and it didn’t work. Sure, apartments were in it, but that could not have been the motivating factor.
Misinformation / FUD tactics from surrounding residential neighborhoods seems to have temporarily prevailed.
Herein lies the problem – the “commercial” Decatur would have annexed was mainly suburban garden-style apartments. In a decent school system, these will be a net cost and exacerbate the current funding/overcrowding problem, contributing more students than revenue.
Rep Drenner’s bill made things more extreme by moving single family residential Decatur Terrace to Decatur, but put the real commercial stretch along College in Avondale.
“Herein lies the problem – the “commercial” Decatur would have annexed was mainly suburban garden-style apartments.”
Which is the same point I made in reply to Scott below. Someone could look at the cited “66 percent commercial” and think Decatur is getting over. But then you dig deeper and discover part of that commercial consists of the type of apartments that attract a lot of households with kids.
I just dont read the map that way — Areas A, B & C seem to cover Suburban Plaza, Publix Plaza, Kroger, Patel Plaza, etc.
I get there are apartments in there, and soon to be more w Fuqua, but help me out with how you coming to the conclusion that these are ‘mainly garden apartments?’ Thanks in advance.
Not to speak for breakeven, but the plan that just died didn’t include Suburban Plaza or Publix et al. And even without those the reason it failed was that it took too much commercial. So probably no chance of adding those back next year without also adding a lot of residential.
The annexation was 66% commercial
And in the “commercial” are boatloads of apartments which equal more kids.
Opponents inside Decatur:
“The planned area has too much residential.”
Opponents outside Decatur:
“The planned area has too much commercial.”
You really can be two things at once. 🙂
Yes, it is possible that both are true. At an advertised 2/3 commercial, that would be too much from an “outsider’s” perspective. But since some unknown but likely substantial percentage of that commercial is actually garden-style apartments, it’s too much residential from an “insider’s” perspective.
Well, yes. Of course. That’s the joke. But they shouldn’t be taken as concerns on equal footing. Those outside the city opposed to the loss of commercial can quantify that loss in an accurate accounting. Those inside Decatur opposed to residential impacts may be working off current student enrollments in the target areas (which, as I understand it, still pan out net positive) but to my knowledge have no meaningful projections for the future that are rooted in the specific garden apartment product type in the kind of predominantly auto-dependent context we’re looking at.
I’m all for opposing annexation on that basis if context-specific projection data on the area (which may exist but I certainly haven’t seen) receives the same rigorous review that inside-Decatur numbers have received and is shown to be a straight-up loser. But until then, committed opposition requires a lot more speculation than I’m personally comfortable with. I hope the next 12 months are devoted to developing better numbers.
DM – please post the annexation map of the bill that was introduced. This is the 2014 one. It has changed dramatically and may no longer be relevant even for the ‘wishlist’ master plan of the future.
You can find new map here, btw: http://www.decaturga.com/index.aspx?page=660
Much less ambitious than the original one DM posted, and only includes the areas Karla Drenner represents. It seemed like a very reasonable balance between residential and commeisrcial. I am wondering what Peggy Merriss and commissioners think about this? Is Decatur not allowed to annex anything commercial just because it has its own school system?
Thanks! I’ve updated the post with this map.
Ah hah, there is difference. I was using the old map. The new one (B-3) is mostly apartments as has been pointed out. I am guessing we wanted C for land…
“Is Decatur not allowed to annex anything commercial just because it has its own school system?”
Assume this is a rhetorical question. But the answer is it’s going to be tough politically. Note that none of the state senators other than Parent signed off on this “less ambitious” plan.
In my opinion, that observation may be the crux. It is not in Georgia citizens’ best interest to take $ away from DeKalb county schools, no matter how dysfunctional, and give it to Decatur – land of the more well off – so the well off can minimize property tax increases.
Not everyone in Decatur is well off. And many of us who live here may want to minimize tax increases to keep seniors, middle and low income families here in our ever eroding diverse community.
Plus 1 on the eroding diversity of our community. And it certainly does not help that the vast majority of rental units being built are expensive one bedroom units.
You should be more worried about Dekalb County Schools misallocation of education funds.
Seems like a lot of the future plans for CSD was predicated on successful annexation. Now that this seems unlikely (at least to me) in just about any form, is there any reasonable Plan B for issues with revenue and space for existing/additional schools?
They have enrollment and revenue projects for both scenarios.
Good data published Tuesday from the CSD info sessions on the GO bonds.
Check it out and look at the tremendous growth. Very eye opening and frankly kind of scary as it relates to implications for required investment to support – particularly in the context of all the infrastructure work (walkable city, etc) that us residents are calling for and are contemplated in Master Plan.
Also consider the fact that we know the big ‘bulge’ of K-3 will at least continue for awhile as evidenced by the 300+ on the College Heights wait list for 0-3.
The answer can only include some combination of higher taxes and worse schools.
Here is an alternative whodean,
There has been a long standing problem with the City’s current commercial tax digest.
Many properties are significantly under valued on the tax rolls. In the high tens or low hundreds of millions.
Addressing this issue produces 100% commercial property tax and 0% kids.
Sounds like it could help, good luck getting the County to do it.
I really wish people would leave the gloom and doom of “worse schools” and the like out. That’s not a given. There are very capable teachers, administrators, support personnel at all levels of the school system. There are very strong and challenging curriculums guiding the path. And best of all is the excellent parent and community support here in Decatur. The system has only gotten better and more respected through the last 10 years of crazy growth.
And “worse” than what? Just how far away from its excellence now would CSD have to go to be an awful place to have to send your kids to school?
Okay, rant over. Requesting more reasonable predictions of the impact of change. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for this response. I’m trying to remain hopeful about this and I know less than many of you about these issues so I was looking to see what the options are if annexation just won’t work.
My response was in reply to Whodean.
How about this wording: Less resources for Decatur schools
So glad the annexation bill failed. To quote the movie, “Let it go!” A tax hike is better than 500 or more kids from apartments in annexed areas. The bond will help resolve issues. Drop it CoD the residents and CSD school teachers are against it.
I don’t live in COD but would much prefer that Decatur get the commercial than Atlanta. The Avondale area will lose Druid Hills High and Middle. I think the whole scheme is deplorable and brought about by people who didn’t get what they wanted from DeKalb County Schools. This affects many people in a very negative way. I personally was for the Druid Hills Cluster, but just imagine Atlanta stealing our best schools.
I understand your sentiment and am empathetic. But the empirical data from the Druid Hills Survey don’t back up the assertion that the Atlanta annexation was driven by the decision regarding the charter cluster proposal. The seeds for Atlanta annexation were hatched at least a year before the charter cluster decision. There certainly may be animosity in the parents in Clairmont Heights, but these folks were brought into Atlanta annexation late in the game. Perhaps the majority of the people in Druid Hills are simply naive of the issues associated with any move on the people in Avondale Estates. The people in Avondale live in a vibrant lovely city, with a reasonable governance structure and good neighborhood planning. It seems like the people of Druid Hills angling for annexation just wanted the same type of city governance model.
So, if Decatur is currently estimated at 85% Residential / 15% commercial, I wonder what it would be if similar scrutiny were applied regarding apartment buildings within the city? How much of that “commercial” is actually residential?
Seems that the proposed annexation may have been a pretty good deal for CoD–would have given them at least Patel Plaza, the car dealerships, Kroger Plaza, pharmacies, etc. It’s unfortunate it wasn’t supported.
Avondale’s annexation dead for the year too, AJC reporting.
Article says that Blazer put on a full court press to have it killed.
Just note: the entire shopping plaza containing Patel Bros. paid $78k in school taxes last year, and this was one of the commercial gems to be annexed. This pays for 7 students on average. (parcel 18 062 04 002 if you are curious). This is also equal to the school tax revenue from about ten Decatur “McMansions” with homestead exemptions.
The Jackson Square apartments (18 048 03 014) paid $342k in school tax (and has 380 units). That pays for 32 kids (around $10.5k each). I bet there would be way more than 32 kids at Jackson Square if it were in CSD. I also bet there would be way more than the 32 + 7 supported by Patel Bros.
Given all the apartments that would have been added and made this a further tax drain on existing Decatur residents, I’m glad this didn’t pass.
Good sleuthin’! Agreed.
Breakeven- Great research. Shows how bad apartments could be to CSD. Don’t our city leaders have this same info? If so, why the continued push for annexation?