Atlanta City Council OKs oversight commission for Dickens’ $5B plan
The Atlanta City Council has agreed to form an oversight commission for Mayor Andre Dickens’ $5 billion plan to spur development in historically neglected neighborhoods on the south and west sides.
The resolution passed Monday creates a 13-member Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative Commission to “ensure fiscal responsibility” and “due diligence” as the body considers legislation to extend eight active tax allocation districts, or TADs, until 2055.
They are set to expire between the next five to 13 years.
The oversight commission will convene in January and deliver its recommendations and findings later in 2026. It will review the more than 215 line items in the mayor’s office project list, according to District 8 Council member Mary Norwood, who sponsored the resolution along with Post 1 at-large Council member Michael Julian Bond.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, Norwood said council members share the mayor’s goals to fund affordable housing, transit and infrastructure.
“Every single one of us wants all communities in the city having access to appropriate resources, to have safe and clean communities, to have healthy outcomes,” Norwood said.
“Though that goal is laudable, the question becomes, which one of these line items … are appropriate for TADs … or are there other ways that we can achieve the goal?”
Council members had agreed to try to complete their work in three months after talks with the mayor’s office on Tuesday, according to Norwood.
Initially, the resolution stated the commission would deliver its findings no later than June 30 but it was amended to March 31, Norwood said during the meeting at City Hall on Monday.
The commission will include representatives from the City Council and the mayor’s office, and four representatives from Invest Atlanta’s TAD Committee — whose members include representatives from Atlanta Public Schools, Fulton County and the Atlanta Planning Advisory Board.
The chairs of the City Council’s Finance/Executive Committee and the Community Development/Human Services Committee will co-chair the commission. Members will include people from civic institutions, foundations and nonprofits, Norwood said.
Dickens’ press secretary, Michael Smith, said ahead of Monday’s meeting that the mayor’s office had been coordinating with council members before they finalized the resolution.
Dickens and his chief of staff, Courtney English, have said the plan would address persistent income inequality and poor outcomes in historically segregated parts of the south and west sides of the city.
Even so, critics have questioned the wisdom of extending the districts and say they should be allowed to expire so revenue can go to the city’s general fund and Atlanta Public Schools. Some have argued extending the TADs may even accelerate gentrification and price people out of their communities.
English, who is leading the plan, has said ongoing uncertainty about federal funding means the city needs to lean on other sources to create transit, affordable housing, parks and trails, and improve the city’s aging infrastructure.
The chief of staff has said that extending the TADs would give the city more leeway to fund current and future projects and issue redevelopment bonds.
If extended, the base property value in the districts would remain frozen. Tax growth above the base would go toward redevelopment funds rather than the city’s general fund. That revenue is used to repay the bonds for the city’s redevelopment projects.
For example, the Beltline TAD’s base year assessed value in 2005 was $542.9 million. Its assessed value is now $4.25 billion, according to the resolution.
Council member Matt Westmoreland said that legislation to extend the city’s TADs would come up for a vote after the commission has done its work.
He said there is “universal support” on council for Dickens’ plan. But “in some instances” the mayor’s plan aligns with tax allocation districts “and in some instances they don’t.”
“Thomasville Heights, for instance, is a priority neighborhood. That’s not in a TAD,” Westmoreland told the AJC last week.
Citing the city’s economic mobility, recovery and resiliency plan, which maps parts of the city that have fallen behind, Westmoreland added that he wanted to make sure lawmakers discuss the best way to lift up communities that fall outside tax district boundaries.
Even though council members have lingering questions, including whether the plan would tie the hands of future administrations, they have given it an overwhelmingly warm reception.
Still, Norwood denied that the City Council is just a rubber stamp for the mayor and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative.
“Anybody who knows me knows I am not a rubber stamp kind of gal,” Norwood said.
The resolution would allow the commission to create subcommittees, including on housing, transit, infrastructure and education, and the meetings will be open to the public under the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
About the Author
Matt Reynolds is a housing reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's local government team.
