Fulton County considers pulling out of Westside development fund

The resolution, sponsored by Vice Chair and District 2 Commissioner Bob Ellis and District 6 Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman, would end the remittance of the county’s tax increments to Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development authority. According to the resolution, the county pays an estimated $9.4 million each year to the TAD.

Ellis and Abdur-Rahman argued Wednesday that the resolution was a fiscally responsible move, as the county considers a property tax hike. The Board of Commissioners has tentatively adopted a 2025 millage rate that would increase property taxes by as much as 12.5%.

According to Ellis’ resolution, the county’s portion of surplus funds for the Westside TAD was approximately $5.85 million as of April 2024.

“I think those funds should come back to Fulton County for purposes of providing general fund services so we’re not having to ask the taxpayers to pay higher taxes,” Ellis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Housing advocates, developers, residents and city officials denounced the resolution at the board’s Wednesday meeting. Courtney English, chief policy officer and senior adviser to Mayor Andre Dickens, warned the commissioners that many of the city’s Westside affordable housing projects rely on TAD dollars.

“Pulling out of the Westside TAD would mean that every affordable housing project on the Westside … would either stop or be slowed. Full stop,” English said, adding it would leave already vulnerable residents in an underserved community at the mercy of market rates for housing and price them out of their neighborhoods.

But Abdur-Rahman said the county could make better use of the surplus TAD dollars, noting how programs designed to protect residents with tax relief or down payment assistance had been undermined by the wave of new development.

“The sentiment on the ground is clear: For many who call the Westside home, the TAD is seen less as a tool for community uplift and more as an engine of redevelopment that threatens to erase the very culture and people it was meant to serve,” Abdur-Rahman said.

Credit: Matt Reynolds

Credit: Matt Reynolds

District 3 Commissioner Dana Barrett argued the resolution betrayed mixed priorities, contrasting the board’s decision the same day to approve $1.7 million for escalators in a government building.

“Just keep in mind that we are keeping affordable housing from people who need it in this city, but we’re going to have an escalator, by God,” Barrett said.

After the prospect of the county’s legal exposure was also raised, commissioners approved a motion to put the resolution on hold.

English told the AJC that justifications in the resolution for exiting the tax allocation district were “incomplete at best and misleading at worst” because the TAD reserve funds include debt and development obligations.

During public comment, Leonard Watkins, chairperson of the neighborhood planning unit for Vine City and English Avenue, blasted the proposal as an example of overreach.

“My community has historically not benefited from TAD funding. And now that we have it, it seems that you want to take it away, even though we are actively giving affordable housing to people who normally can’t get it,” Watkins said.

In a July 8 letter to the Board of Commissioners, John Ahmann, president and CEO of nonprofit the Westside Future Fund, said the move would undercut its ability to raise philanthropic and capital funding for its affordable housing projects.

Ahmann said the organization had leveraged $6.2 million in Westside TAD funds to finance $37 million in developments, representing a 6-to-1 return for the county.

“Disrupting this momentum would harm these communities and signal to current and potential investors that Fulton County lacks commitment to its most challenged areas,” Ahmann wrote in the letter.

In an interview, Ahmann added that a withdrawal would make projects more expensive and jeopardize developments with funding. In his letter to commissioners, he said the withdrawal would cast doubt on its projects to create deeply affordable housing.

“I live in Vine City,” Ahmann said. “These neighborhoods have become substantially depopulated, disinvested. The TADs have been proven to work.

“We need to stimulate investment to come back into these neighborhoods.”

There are also tax allocation districts for Atlantic Station, Perry Bolton, Princeton Lakes, Eastside and the Beltline.

— Staff writer Reed Williams contributed to this story.