On your November 2nd ballot, Decatur residents will find this lovely legalese…

Shall the Act be approved which authorizes the City of Decatur to exercise redevelopment powers under the ‘Redevelopment Powers Law,’ as it may be amended from time to time?”

In layman’s terms this essentially asks you, “Should Decatur have the option to create Tax Allocation Districts inside the city limits?”

Tax Allocation Districts or “TADs” have been used with mixed success throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area in recent years. The most prominent – and successful example – being Atlantic Station.  In a nutshell, TADs use additional tax revenue generated by new development on-site, (i.e. – the difference between your taxes pre-renovation and after renovation) to pay-off the very construction bonds that funded the development in the first place.

Read the rest of this entry »

Both the AJC and Creative Loafing are in favor of Georgia Constitutional Amendments 1 (forests – Yes!) and 2 (TADs and school taxes), while opposed to 3 (private cities).

I actually think that #2 might be in some trouble because people are reading it as diverting existing school tax revenue to development projects.  And quote “School money should go to the schools!”.  Uh OK, but if you can’t make the any substantial improvements to your district, there won’t be all this extra “school money” for the kids.  And its not like the Board of Ed still won’t have jurisdiction over whether to use school taxes or not.  Its just another option.

Without it, you might have to say “bye-bye” to the Beltline.