From the folks at East Decatur Station…

The Big Pop Up III – the Biggest Little Festival in Decatur – returns to East Decatur Station on June 12 from 6-9pm, featuring local arts & crafts, music, food & craft beer…

Decatur -The Decatur Arts Alliance & East Decatur Station will present the Big Pop Up III on June 12 from 6-9 pm. New this year, Three Taverns Craft Beers will offer a special price on their fabulous brewery tour and tastings, and their lovely parlour will be open for an exhibition of original art curated by VINSONart with live music by P-Jazz.

The Mobile Marlay Fish n Chips truck will return, as will live acoustic music in the courtyard. Visitors can browse and buy locally made arts, crafts and jewelry, and Mingei World Arts will make their Big Pop Up debut from their new home at EDS.

This free event is open to all ages and there is plenty of parking, or you can take MARTA to the Avondale Station. East Decatur Station is just a short walk away, at the corner of East College and New Street. Come explore this popular mixed-use complex of dining, retail & studios between Agnes Scott College and Avondale Estates and enjoy a pleasant summer evening of art, crafts, music, food and drinks!

Visit http://fb.com/PopUpDecatur for up to the minute details.

There was a lot of talk on FFAF this past week as property owners around Decatur and DeKalb County received their annual property tax bills for the coming year, many reporting large increases in the value.  You may recall all the hubbub back in 2012 when county had to do a number of reassessments.

Well things are still confusing for many residents.  John wrote in detailing his own recent findings, which show the odd trends that still exist along single streets…

Well, here we are again at property re-assessment time.  Based on your prior reporting of a 6% average increase, I was prepared to see something in that range.  Alas, being DeKalb County, it has to be something more complicated than that.  As was noted a few years ago, the assessors “flipped” the amount for each of the assessment’s components (*previously*, the LAND value was the lower, fairly constant amount among neighboring properties and the IMPROVEMENTS value was the higher, quite variable amount among neighboring properties – these were the components “flipped” a few years ago). 

Now, looking at several property values under the new assessments, some of the assessments have reverted back to the previous low land, high improvements values while other assessments remain at the recent high land, low improvements values.  In addition to being inconsistent and, frankly, looking haphazard, this makes it very difficult to adequately compare property values among competing properties.

Here are some of the assessments I came across (from properties on same street):
Property 1              LAND  236,300       IMPROVEMENTS 101,900
Property 2              LAND     85,200      IMPROVEMENTS 188,900
Property 3              LAND   184,300      IMPROVEMENTS   49,570
Property 4              LAND     85,200      IMPROVEMENTS 322,700

Nonsensical.