College Park approves controversial plan to waive development fees

College Park’s City Council on Monday unanimously approved Councilman Joe Carn’s controversial proposal for a citywide suspension of certain construction and planning fees through the end of March.

But Carn agreed to set a $50,000 cap on the amount of fees that can be waived, and to cover that amount with his own “community enhancement” funds — after council members questioned who the resolution would benefit and how much it would cost the city in lost revenue.

Carn has characterized his proposal as “our version of a Black Friday sale” that would spur development projects in the city.

But when Carn unveiled his resolution at the Dec. 1 meeting, Mayor Bianca Motley Broom and Council member Jamelle McKenzie raised concerns about the proposal, especially given that Carn initially provided no projections of how much it would cost.

Carn estimated the waived fees could amount to $76,000 in the first quarter, which is the average amount in fees for the first quarters of the three previous years, he said.

The timing of Carn’s proposal on Dec. 1 also has raised eyebrows.

He brought it forward less than two weeks after former city manager Lindell Miller said she was fired for refusing to waive permits for a developer.

Miller has said the City Council voted to fire her Nov. 17 because Carn and Council member Tracie Arnold were unhappy with her for refusing to allow the owner of an apartment complex to redevelop it without the proper permits. Carn made the motion to fire Miller at the November meeting.

The property — which used to be called Chelsea Gardens but was renamed The Ivy at College Park — was condemned last year, displacing residents.

On Monday, Mayor Motley Broom said that “we need to look really closely” at “who is the first to come and who is the first to get served by this fire sale on permitting fees” before the $50,000 cap is reached.

“I don’t like the looks of it,” added Motley Broom, who does not vote except when a tiebreaker is needed. “I think we are setting ourselves up to support those who are not, who have not been supportive of our community in the past and don’t have great track records.”

College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom speaks about new public safety resources in College Park. She raised concerns as to who is really benefiting from this development fee waiver. (Arvin Temkar/AJC 2023)

“I hope I’m surprised and it’s not the folks that I think it will be,” she said, referring to Contour Companies, which owns The Ivy at College Park.

Representatives of Contour have not responded to questions from the AJC about Carn’s proposal. In November, the company said it has not sought to “circumvent or avoid the City’s established permitting, code enforcement or construction approval processes.”

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the day after she was fired, Miller recounted the events leading up to her dismissal.

She said the city realized the week before her firing that the owner of The Ivy at College Park was doing two phases of work on the property without construction permits and issued stop-work orders for both phases. Miller said the property owner then got a permit for one of the two phases, and the stop-work order for that phase was lifted.

Miller said Carn and Arnold approached her about the project the previous week and that Carn told her an arrangement had been made for the property owner to do the work without permits.