The AJC’s April Hunt reports that Decatur and Avondale’s effort to annex the retail strip along beautiful E. College Ave will go before the county delegation tomorrow.

According to Hunt, Avondale has failed twice in the past to get the necessary 10 signatures, due in large part to opposition by property owners in the area.

Avondale wants to annex 22 parcels, while Decatur wants 10.  Neither small land grab will do much to help contribute to city coffers, but it is certainly in both cities’ interest to clean up this strip.

I have two questions for the AJC’s April Hunt and one for the city of Avondale after reading this latest AJC annexation article…

First to Ms. Hunt -

1.  Does the city of Decatur really care whether residents way up near Doraville accept annexation?   Are we really simplistic enough to think its even remotely an apples-to-apples comparison?

2.  Is it really accurate to assert that it was negative vocal opposition at commission meetings that killed Decatur’s annexation plan?

So, assuming that the city had bullet-proof data to show how a large-scale annexation would reduce property taxes, all it would take to kill such a huge plan would be vocal opposition by nonresidents at a commission meeting?  So riddle me this – assuming that this vocal opposition represents the will of the annexed areas (which is still not really known) and the initiative failed to get the necessary 50% vote, would the city commissioners really be any worse for wear?  Might they actually be better off for having tried to lower residents’ taxes?

As I’ve said before, I believe it had a lot more to do with the irreconcilable student enrollment data than anything else.  But that’s just my not-so-humble opinion.

And finally, to Avondale -

3.  Avondale, I love you, but why so reactionary?  If you want to annex part of College Ave,  just do it!  Why are you letting Decatur’s actions dictate your border?

The back and forth annexation discussion between Decatur and Avondale – which I’ve been terming an “annexation throwdown” for ages in an attempt at self-amusement – continues.

Ever concerned about Decatur’s annexation plans along E College (NOT Ponce de Leon AJC!…oy vey!), Avondale Estates’ mayor tells the AJC that if Decatur annexes along the corridor, Avondale must also.  The gentlemen’s agreement would be to meet at Sam’s Crossing.

Of course, lots of the business owners along that strip don’t want any part of either city, unable to look past the tax increase to other benefits.  But majority commercial annexations don’t need to be voted on by those affected, so all these businesses can do is alert their local legislator of their position.

I have a feeling that this might be the one area that Decatur’s city commission is concerned about annexing now.  If left in the hands o’ the county, it could soon be Avondale all the way up to the current eastern Decatur line.

Avondale will be holding their own annexation meeting tonight at 5:30p to discuss extending the city limits farther out College Avenue, encompassing more commercial and residential land.

For those of you just arriving at the Annexation Party (Let me take your coat. Would you like a mimosa?) here’s a short recap of the annexation tension (or lack thereof) between the two cities…

Shortly after it was revealed earlier this year that Decatur was looking at annexation along College Avenue, Avondale quickly responded by saying that they were ALSO going to begin studying annexation along College Avenue between the two cities…presumably because they didn’t want Decatur to gobble up all the commercial goodies along the corridor, leaving nothing but residential crumbs behind.

What could have resulted in a throwdown between these two neighboring cities instead ended in a “gentleman’s agreement” that concluded that if both decided to annex, they would meet in the middle.

But I still say that pistols at dawn would have made for a better blog posting!

The AJC recaps the annexation issue in Decatur and Avondale this morning, with a couple gross exaggerations and few new details.

The paper starts out framing Decatur’s annexation issue around everyone’s favorite topic…declining home values.

Dropping property values, the driving force for so much economic misery in metro Atlanta, are also reviving talk of annexation in two central DeKalb County cities.

Decatur, which put the brakes on the discussion last winter, plans several meetings later this summer to offer information and gather input on the prospect of adding more land to the city.

Alright…so let’s tackle these first two sentences.  First off, neither is quite true.  Decatur has been mulling annexation for much longer than the length of the current housing slowdown.  If I may sum up the mayor’s thoughts on this subject from late last year…Decatur’s problem is (and has been) the large percentage of residential property in relation to commercial.  Not simply “declining home values” over the last 12 months.

And while declining home values would certainly hurt the city’s coffers…its a bit unclear whether that’s the case in Decatur.  The AJC’s own report has Decatur residential land prices up 6.6% from last year, even though the the city stated that it lost $4 mil in property value last year.  (I’m a bit unclear of the discrepancy, but one is certainly that the AJC number is only residential, while the city’s figure most likely includes commercial/industrial, etc…)

Onto the second sentence.  As I’ve said previously…Decatur didn’t put the annexation issue “on hold” late last year, as the AJC asserts above.  The heavily-attended city manager’s report commission meeting was just an early preliminary step of seriously evaluating the option of annexation.  The mayor and every commissioner made it clear that this was a very preliminary step in the process and recognized that they were far from finished with this evaluation stage…especially concerning the school capacity issue.  The AJC has made this misstatement before…so I can only assume the author simply went to the AJC archives for the backstory and wrote it again.

All that said, I found two interesting little tidbits of info in this article…

The first is a strong quote from Mayor Floyd stating…

“Quite honestly, you’re talking about survival as a city, when 60 percent of our income comes from property taxes,”

In case you thought the mayor was on the fence on this issue, now you know better.

Also, it references a February meeting between Decatur and Avondale of which I hadn’t heard many details…

The two cities met in February to discuss the potential for their borders to meet at Sams Crossing on College Avenue. [emphasis mine]

Decatur considered gobbling both commercial and residential land east of its current borders, while Avondale Estates wants only the commercial strip between Sams Crossing and its current border at Maple Street.

Could be a hint of annexation plans to come…

After the Decatur City Commission officially unveiled its report last month that showed it had a hankering to annex a square mile of land to its north and east in an attempt to get property taxes under control, Avondale Estates metaphorically cleared its throat. “Perhaps”, the neighboring city said, “we might also like to annex some of that land.”

Townfolk and reporters gasped. Would this be a throwdown (Bobby Flay style) the likes we haven’t seen since the Battle of Atlanta? We have waited anxiously for the next move.

Well, apparently its much friendlier than we had first bloodthirstily speculated. The AJC reports…

On Monday, Rieker and Avondale City Manager Clai Brown discussed annexation with Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd and City Manager Peggy Merrisson.

Under one plan, Avondale would annex commercial property along College Avenue west from its city line, while Decatur would add the businesses along College Avenue east from its current borders.

“It’s been a gentleman’s agreement between the two cities,” said Allan Kirwan, chairman of Avondale’s annexation committee. “It is a natural gateway for both cities.”

Officials in both cities described Monday’s meeting as preliminary and said there are no concrete agreements.

“I don’t know we’re ready to say where it would be yet,” Floyd said. “There is no question, if we’re going to do this, the point of the whole thing would be to have that area be incorporated into either the city of Avondale or the city of Decatur.”

A gentleman’s agreement eh? Quite a cordial reconciliation. Are you sure you don’t want to settle this with pistols at dawn? That would be a hell of a post!

But seriously, regardless of any agreement, residents of a proposed annexation area would have to provide a majority vote in favor come November for the annexation to become a reality.

(And AJC, for the last time…I have not heard the Decatur City Commission say it was “backing away” from annexation. Last I knew they were waiting for an evaluation from the school superintendent before moving forward.)

The other interesting tidbit in this article (if it can be trusted) is the idea originally raised by Commissioner Baskett at the commission meeting about only annexing commercial land and leaving out most residential; thus eliminating the problem of an influx of students.

If that were to occur, it would be a drastic shift from the original plan. We’ll have to keep an eye out for further developments.