A familiar item on the Decatur City Commission meeting agenda this evening…annexation!
The commission is slated to take a vote on the petition of property owners along South Columbia and Derrydown Way – just south of the city limits – to have 31 properties of approximately 10 acres annexed into the city of Decatur. According to the application, all lots are single-family residential.
Though a long, ongoing conversation, of late the annexation requests by groups of neighboring property owners have seemed to pick up steam. Back in April, the entire Parkwood neighborhood west of the city was annexed by request into the City of Decatur. Smaller annexation requests have been a semi-regular item on the commission’s agenda for the past year or so.
The headline is misleading. It should read “Decatur City Commission Will Approve Annexation 31 Properties Along South Columbia and Derrydown Way at Tonight’s Meeting”
It’s brilliant, actually. With all the residential annexation, all opposition to the commercial opposition north of the city will be killed because it will be the only way to balance out the rolls!
Except there will be about 1000 more residential units before that area can be annexed.
That’s fine. We’ll just annex Padeia, too, then!
DawgFan – No joke.
What is the area’s stated reasoning for wanting to be annexed? We ended up with Parkwood in the city limits bc the area didn’t want to end up in a “Franken-city” like Lakeside or Briarcliff. They also claimed that since about a third of the houses in Parkwood were already in the city limits, we should just add *all* of the rest, too.
This other side of town that wants annexing tonight will end up with their houses going up considerably more in value than they are now, since outside of the city limits, the area is not that desirable.
Hell yeah CH. They are really close to Walmart amirite?
The reason I want in is because of the increased property value, better services and to unify the random COD/Not COD nature of our street. I watch the City and County trash collection vehicles pick and choose their way down the street. I have even witnessed the Decatur street sweeping truck stop sweeping right at the unincorporated boundary by our house and then resume several houses down. This just seems silly and inefficient in my opinion. I also think it is in the City’s best interest to take in partial properties like mine since we are already receiving some City services that we are not really entitled to. For example, COD police responded to an incident at our home and said their system shows us as COD residents. I assume it is the same situation with COD fire. But we pay less than $10 in property tax to Decatur… in two equal installments! Again, this seems silly and inefficient. The city boundaries should make logical sense and in our neighborhood they really don’t. I understand they have to draw the line somewhere but why not take all of a street or none of it? They have allowed City adjacent properties on our street to piecemeal annex over the years and that is what lead to our current hodgepodge of ins and outs. May as well finish what they started and tidy up the map lines.
And thank you for being honest right off the bat by admitting “increased property values” is your first/top reason. (It’s that and the schools.)
Well, along with the increased property values, this new resident will be paying increased taxes. I had a friend in the Parkwood area who was dead set against the annexation because she didn’t think the higher taxes were worth it and didn’t think the schools were that much better than the Druid Hills cluster.
South Columbia/Derrydown is a very different neighborhood than Parkwood. Can’t really compare the two regarding housing prices.
This worries me. I’m eager to see some numbers from CSD. From what I’d heard of enrollment for 14-15 in May was that many grade levels are already full, especially on the Southside (OAK and WP) which would be directly effected by this particular annexation. The opening of West Chester did little to lighten the load on the Southside of town.
Have you read the posted doumentation on this yet? I think the student numbers have been calculated.
According to the report (sorry about formatting):
There are currently 10 school age children and youth living in the annexation area, three of tl1e ten attend private school. Based on current census of ch.ildren, it is possible that 3 children UI1der tl1e age of five will be eligible to enter school in the next five years and that 1 student will graduate from high school and leave the system over the same time period. Based on the current local tax cost of $7,800 per student and estimates of local real property taxes the
following table shows an estimated fiscal impact local revenues and expenditures for a five
year period:
Year I Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
Real Property Taxes 20,430 40,870 44,960 47,200 48,620
Number of Students 2, 2, 5, 6, 6
Local tax cost
per student 15,600 15,600 39,000 46,800 46,800
In theory their chart makes sense. Until developers buy 4-5 properties and build big homes to be sold to families with at least 2 school aged kids. Then the NET becomes -$40,000 per year.
We are already seeing this happen in Parkwood. I am very worried about the lack of a commercial tax base in Decatur
The chart as stated still doesn’t make sense. According to the report, there will be a minimum of 7 students added in year 1, but they project 2? It goes on to say that in the next few years there could be 9 students given things as they currently stand, but again they project a lower number of 6. Am I reading this wrong? I’m not even talking about new development, people moving in with families, etc.
I read it the same as you. this is bad math here, just plain wrong. costs today will exceed revenue. costs in a few years will really really exceed revenue. please say no!
Seen what happen in Parkwood? Developers buying 4-5 houses to make large homes to be sold to families? Because I haven’t seen a single example of that yet.
You are correct, no one is knocking down houses in Parkwood, but there has been more turnover in housing in the newly acquired Parkwoods (or will that officially go thru next month?) than before. I noticed two more coming soon signs on west parkwood this week, one is advertised to be in process of renovation. The number of children listed in that silly report to show the “financial impact on CSD” is just a starting point. No one is dissing anyone’s neighborhood here, just worried about the crowding schools and costs that will eventually be passed off to the rest of us.
Eventually, lot by lot, almost everyone could be part of COD. 5, 10, 30 lots at a time.
WP, that’s just it. When does it end? Do we annex all the way to Avondale? All the way to DeKalb Medical? Etc.
The simple fact is that the CSD schools don’t have room for the kids who actually live within the current city limits.
As I understand it, all annexations include a financial impact analysis in which each city department, including schools, documents the applicable revenues and costs of delivery that will be associated with the request. From what I’ve seen, all the recent annexations were approved because they came out positive from a revenue perspective.
Obviously the commission is making a decision based on the “as-of-today” information they do have, rather than the “speculative-tomorrow” information they don’t have, which acknowledges the uncertainty of what’s to come. That’s usually where the debate is, as some folks have rosier expectations than others, and only time will tell what the long-term impacts will be.
If COD is considering CSD in its financial analysis, that is new (except for 2007 when they completely mucked it up). I can’t locate that in the 20 or so ambiguously worded documents linked to above, so I can’t tell what the analysis is or where it came from. Was the analysis done by CSD? Obviously only CSD should touch that analysis.
Scott, am i understanding you right that we should ONLY look at the situation today, pre-annexation, since what may happen after annexation is completely unknown and opinions will differ? That would be irresponsible, no? Especially since it’s pretty predictable in a general what will happen (more families) and since COD’s job is in fact to anticipate development trends. It is ONLY when it comes to anticipating the impact of their decisions on CSD that COD and their spokesmen decide to set aside future impact.
To be clear, Judd, my comments are not advocating any particular position. Only detailing what I believe is how the process currently operates (and I don’t know if it’s COD or CSD who’s determining the student costs) — in part to establish a baseline for the conversation; in part to refute the suggestion that approval decisions are totally arbitrary.
I agree that only examining the current condition as the basis for any decision is, as you say, irresponsible. The question is, what factors outside that which can be counted today should be considered, to what degree must we acknowledge the things we can only *know* with a crystal ball and, for those, what parametric ranges can we speculate that leave room for the community’s diversity of speculation — from rose colored glasses to gloomy-doomerson?
Personally, I get bored when the conversation devolves to whether or not the commission is reckless. These decisions do and will probably increasingly need to be made so, personally, I’m more interested in how we can get to a criteria with some consensus agreement. For example, a criteria that, in practical use, equates to raising the drawbridges (or raising some of them), would likely not be acceptable to me, just as one that discounts the reality of schools and their requisite costs would not be acceptable to you (or me, actually). We need a way to say, “These are the values, these are the concerns, these are the knowable facts, and these are the ranges of possibility that are generally acceptable to the community.” Until that point, expect these comment streams to become increasingly redundant.
The re-opening of Westchester does nothing about the lack of space at the middle and high school. And middle/high are the problem.
Wow, still blows my mind. Back in the day, it was unheard of to even speculate about Renfroe or DHS being crowded. Huge classrooms were used as teacher lounges, there was so much extra space. It was the fashion to keep your children in the cute, walkable elementary schools then ship them off after 5th grade. That community script has totally changed. Much kudos to the leadership and teachers at Renfroe and DHS, past and present, that made them positive and successful places to send your children. RMS is downright warm and friendly; it would probably flunk the mean girl test.
There will be a proposal floated in the next year or two to expand the high school, likely building where the JROTC obstacle course is now. Not sure about plans for Renfroe.
How is this related to the current renovation/expansion initiative for DHS, which is a done deal? From what I understand, it’s currently in the bidding process. Once the contractor is identified, they’ll be having the community meetings to work through the details and commence construction.
Are you talking about an expansion after the expansion, or are they one and the same?
Nope, I’m talking about the same thing. Your information is better than mine.
That is one area where the city/county divide has been an odd patchwork. The documentation doesn’t say this, but I know at least one former land owner in that area already had their property split between the City and unincorporated Dekalb. I suspect more. I have no idea if any of these are parcels that are included, but they were located on the east side of S. Columbia between Talley and Derrydown, which seem to be the range of addresses indicated.
Derrydown also seems to have arbitrary properties already in the City.
The area also seems ripe for building permits. Check back in 2 years …
To me, Derrydown makes more sense to annex then Parkwood did, due to the hodgepodge way residences have been annexed in the past on Derrydown. That said, it is full of small houses that do seem ripe for developers to buy and tear down for infill houses. Currently, I believe the current COD houses in that area are zoned for WP, but it might make more sense to rezone it to Glennwood if there are a significant number of under 9 year olds.
Go look here to see the weirdness (I tried to add a URL by editing my post, but it didn’t take)
http://mapping.dekalbcountyga.gov/parcel/index.html?center=2260914.824,1370894.136&level=8
So I’m new to the area, so I have no idea on the background. Why wouldn’t City of Decatur just be whatever their postcode is and that be it?
Because the post office establishes the zip code per whatever their internal criteria is based on how they deliver mail, not where the actual city or other limits might be.
Oh Andrew. That’s because people from Postal Decatur might shop at Walmart instead of Whole Foods. We can’t have that around here. Think of the children*!
* COD frontal lobe developed children, of course
I’ve lived in parts of the country where the zip codes seemed to match town and city limits better. Not sure why there’s such a disconnect in the case of Decatur. There must be some history to this. Maybe it’s got to do with having large parts of unincorporated counties next to small incorporated cities. In some parts of the county, everyone is in a particular town or city and no one lives in unincorporated areas.
This may have changed with the recent city creations, but at one time DeKalb had the most densely populated unincorporated areas in the country.
I though most of Derrydown already was in COD? Seems like most of the houses annexed themselves one property at a time over the last 5 years or so?
Yes, many did already annex in, particularly the houses with kids. As an adjacent property I can file an individual petition at any point and will be doing so if this larger effort fails tonight. You can also petition in if you are across the street from someone who is already in COD. I imagine there will be a number of new individual petitions they will have to consider from Derrydown in the future if they don’t take in the street as a whole.
Yes – “particularly the houses with kids.” Please don’t pretend it’s not about the schools.
I too will be filing an individual petition if necessary. And it’s not ONLY about the kids. My husband & I do not have kids. Our interest is in the better city services and yes, of course, the increased property values. Many of us here on Derrydown are long-time residents with a vested interest in the COD. We work, shop, play & send kids to school in COD. I don’t think you’re going to see us all sell our houses to developers as soon as property values go up. If you read the #s in the service delivery report it’s pretty clear the city comes out ahead.
So what is the overall strategy here? This seems to me to be a short-term tax benefit for long-term pain in our schools. Why is our city saying yes to every annexation request that comes along?
Strategy! You are looking for a strategy here!?
We are Decatur. We don’t need no stinking strategy…
We don’t need no stinking badges either…
🙂
Apologies to Mel Brooks
That’s a great question, and I’d love for the Commissioners or Ms Merriss or someone to answer it. COD typically prides itself on very careful long-term planning. When it comes to these annexations, each of the by now scores of annexation requests seem to be treated and analyzed in isolation, all of them pass muster (such as it is), and that inspires new ones. (I’m sure it also inspires speculators, whether young families or investors, buying housing on the periphery, since COD has not once said no to a request. You could make or save a lot of money this way.)
This amounts to an Open Annexation Policy, but I have never heard that discussed as a policy. From the Strategic Plan adopted by the Commission, annexation will be considered when it benefits the tax base and when it “enhances CSD operations.” These annexations do neither of these, and in fact so far as I have ever been able to determine it’s harmful in both respects. So the de facto Open Annexation Policy in fact violates COD’s official Strategic Plan. And yet I respect COD enough to believe that they are thinking strategically (if not soundly), I just can’t figure what the unstated strategy is.
The ppl for whom I feel awful are the ones who cannot afford CoD prices and therefore buy outside of the city limits in the unincorporated area. They’d like CoD for CSD, but it’s out of their reach financially, which limits them to underperforming schools. In all seriousness, if only they had known they could buy a much cheaper house one or two houses outside of the city limits and then request annexation. (This clearly applies to the Conway Road area, not the Parkwood area. It’s mostly applicable to the houses outside the SE quadrant of the city.) These folks played by what they thought were the rules, and really, they could’ve circumvented them, like clearly many other people are doing.
AND WHEN WILL THE CITY OFFER AN EXPLANATION FOR THE “OPEN ANNEXATION POLICY?” It’s just ridiculous to get no answer to the question.
No you don’t. You feel sorry for yourself and/or jealous of those people that you think are “getting something for nothing,” perhaps because you overpaid to join the COD club.
Pythagoras, nope, you don’t know my situation at all. Been here for years, before prices became so ridiculous. Doesn’t affect me financially.
Some ppl play by the rules – buy where they can truly afford – and get crappy schools as a result. Other ppl bend the rules and get good schools at “crappy school prices” (those who buy a house or two outside the city limit and then squeeze in through annexation). I can’t tell you how many friends we have in unincorporated DeKalb (and Avondale, for that matter) whose children didn’t get into a single one of the charter schools (Museum School, ICS, GLOBE) to which they applied. They are really, really stuck. They would have bought in CoD if it weren’t so expensive. So, yes, even though it’s clearly hard for you to believe, I feel real concern for ppl in that situation.
It is SELFISH for residences to continue to ask for annexation when the schools cannot house the children who *already* live here. That’s my opinion, clearly, and to me, it really is that simple. Sorry for my brutal honesty. We may quickly approach a point where CSD may not be a good system any more be of the sheer overcrowding. Overcrowded schools are bad schools.
That’s exactly how I feel. I think feeling jealous and sorry for oneself is a pretty normal response to a situation where one pays a lot for something and then finds out someone gets the same thing for a lot less. I know Derrydown is a nice street–I drive by all the time as a shortcut–I just wish I had known to buy a $275K house there and then petition in.
Actually, we did not buy a “much cheaper” house and bend the rules. The price on our house was pretty closely aligned with similar houses on the City side of Derrydown. As a partial property we were mislead by the selling agent into thinking that we could send kids to Decatur schools. That turned out not to be the case. Not a huge deal for us because we don’t have kids. But if/when we sold we would not have mislead a buyer in the same way and would have had to set the asking price lower as a result. So last night’s annexation probably just brought our value up to where it should be considering what we paid for the place.
10×10,
The seller certainly didn’t mislead you (unless it was FSBO…). The seller’s agent may have been confused (I’ve seen plenty of cases where agents can’t get the school system right), but who knows if it was intentional. Clearly your agent wasn’t so great. Clearly you also didn’t do your due diligence and call the city/school system to verify where potential children in your home would go to school. And you might say you didn’t ask bc you had no children, but it matters very much for the reasons you mention: 1) you paid significantly more for your house than you should have bc you mistakenly thought it was within CSD, and 2) yeah, when you sell, buyers *really* care about the schools. You can only “mislead” a buyer who isn’t savvy/doesn’t pay attention to details.
You are very lucky bc last night’s vote bc fixes your buying mistake.
CH, you still haven’t identified the “rules” that were broken by the property owners that requested annexation per the actual rules. But at least you’ve continued your condescending tirade against people that live in the area that you proclaimed to be “not that desirable.”
Pyth, this comment addresses 10×10’s statement about being “misled” when he bought his house.
CH,
Your posts are misleading too. You stated the City is ” now saddled with these extra 31 residences,” but that is not actually true.
I’ll ask again,
Did you attend any of the meetings? Have you educated yourself on the facts? Have you read the service report? Asked Peggy Merriss or Commissioners questions leading up to the vote?
I will wholly listen to your point of view of being against any annexation, if you have become an active particpant in the process. But posting comments as you have does not give credence to the “But what about our schools” agrument.
If you want to discuss the overall issue, I think Scott’s post has been the best one to lay out the groundwork. This will come up again. Let’s start supporting creative ideas like Diane proposed, instead of dismissing them.
Wow. I wish my wife and I had just bought on Derrydown or Conway in the last two years. I didn’t know it was that easy to get into the city. Looks like one of the Conway homeowners whose house was annexed a couple of months ago wasted no time in listing his house at the elevated CoD price.
Suggestion: CoD and CSD both start assisting the City of Briarcliff and the Druid Hills Charter Cluster initiatives. If CoB and DHCC were both passed, I bet the requests for annexation into the City of Decatur would go _way_ down.
Or folks could just keep on kvetching.
Diane, that sounds nice, but really. CSD schools are better, period. CoD property values are higher, period. Given the choice, ppl want CoD, not Briarcliff or Lakeside, and CSD, not the Druid Hills charter. Your “solution” is no solution.
So, I just checked Decaturish. The city is now saddled with these extra 31 residences. Annexation was approved last night.
Seriously? Saddled? Have you been to Derrydown? It’s a beautiful street with a strong sense of community. And now I don’t have to file the individual petition.
KL, I’m glad last night’s approval will save you some work.
Was there ever even a hint of a shadow of a doubt that they wouldn’t?
Really?
Unfortunately, no.
“extra 31 residences”
I would find your comments a good addition to the discussion if you knew the facts of this discussion. Unless I a mistaken, it is not 31 new residences. As a CoD resident, I am embarrassed we keep throwing assumptions on facts, intentions, and so forth.
Did you attend any of the meetings? Have you educated yourself on the facts? Have you read the service report? Asked Peggy Merriss or Commissioners questions leading up to the vote?
Welcome to our City the fine homes on Derrydown! At least one person is glad you are here.
Just a few quick tips on what some of my neighbors think “allows you in”:
1. You may not sell your home, EVER
2. You may not renovate your home, especially in preparation for a sale
3. You may not add more than the number of children identified in the service report
4. You may continue supporting our shops and restaurants
5. Please pick up your dog poo
6. Be sure to declare your stance on Wal-mart and Trader Joe’s
I didn’t do any of those things–attend meetings, talk to the Commissioners, etc.– but I think I’m safe in saying that the math is all wrong. Why don’t we just set a reminder in two years to see if the estimate of school-aged kids was at all accurate? If it is, I will apologize profusely–anonymously, of course, on DM.
How about annexing everything north of Memorial Drive and west of Columbia Drive? At least we could get another school out this deal – the former Hooper Alexander School is located next to Aldi.
www2 dot gsu dot edu/~mstccox/
It’s also already in the 30030 zipcode.
Didn’t that school burn down? It would be a place to build though.
On the Derrydown properties and this area in general, you should read the Avondale Marta/Columbia Park LCI and the 2010 Master Plan on the Decatur website. If you read the reports in detail, there is a concentrated effort to make re-develop the whole area south of college and east to Avondale Estates. A lot of Derrydown is already included in these sketches. The city wants badly to annex the Children’s Methodist Home for the greenspace and lake there. It is already drawn into their plan.
I have criticized the commission before about this semi-hidden agenda, but they never discuss it publicly. They want the Methodist home and all the greenspace and they don’t want any slivers of unincorporated DeKalb in between. They should be up front about this.
What slivers of unincorporated DeKalb are between the CoD and the Children’s Home? The Children’s Home is right on the city border. For some reason I thought nobody wanted to annex the Children’s Home, I assumed because of tax exemptions and because it would add more kids to the schools. I saw an annexation plan from Avondale on Decaturish (that I think was ultimately abandoned) which had them annexing Forrest Hills and some other areas but very conspicuously not annexing the Children’s Home.
Derrydown is between the UMCH and the city limits where it curves around toward Columbia.