After tweaks, mayor’s tax extension plan headed to council for final vote
Mayor Andre Dickens’ multibillion-dollar proposal aimed at boosting Atlanta’s historically underserved communities is set to come up for a final council vote next week — with a big catch.
An amendment made during Wednesday’s Finance Committee meeting would prohibit the city from bonding against future tax increment revenue without the buy-in of either the Fulton County Commission or Atlanta’s school board.
“If we’re the only ones, then we should just take the increment back and bond against it without the TAD restrictions,” said Councilmember Alex Wan, who proposed five amendments to the existing legislation.
Wan said the city would prefer for the commission and school system to get on board “because it makes it more impactful.” But if neither signs on, the city is projected to generate far less revenue. In that case, Wan said it would be in Atlanta’s best interest to recalibrate and come up with a more flexible plan.
Dickens’ widely debated Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative hinges on extending six of Atlanta’s eight tax allocation districts, or TADs, for 30 years.
Supporters of the sweeping proposal say it is necessary to improve Atlanta’s poorest communities, build more affordable housing and help close the city’s massive wealth divide.
Opponents say the plan does little to address the systemic inequality that led to Atlanta’s growing wealth gap. Critics also argue the groups that stand to benefit most are Atlanta’s already wealthy developers and that the increased property tax revenue could be put to better use.
Extending the six TADs would allow the city to freeze the property tax base in those districts and funnel all new revenue above that base into redevelopment. It also requires the school district and the county to agree to give up billions of dollars in tax revenue for the duration of the extensions.
The city’s proposed legislation includes an “anti-displacement tool kit” with initiatives aimed at keeping longtime residents and businesses in place as their neighborhoods are developed.
Some council members have expressed concerns that abrupt development could quickly drive up property values, leading to rent hikes and skyrocketing property tax bills in certain neighborhoods. Others have been on board with the mayor’s plan since the beginning, saying their districts are in desperate need of revitalization.
City Council members have also expressed support for finding new funding streams for neighborhoods located outside of the districts. One proposed way to fund those communities in the future could be through a citywide tax on commercial properties, but that was not included in the final version of the legislation.
Members of both the school board and the commission have expressed reservations about extending the TADs, which would pull property tax growth revenue from their own general funds for the next three decades.
The school board last week unanimously approved the creation of a nine-member committee that will evaluate the proposal and issue a report by October. Fulton County, which is in the beginning stages of financing $1.2 billion in jail improvements, has also expressed skepticism about forgoing the revenue by extending the TADs.
Other tweaks made to the legislation aim to provide more oversight about when money is borrowed and how it is ultimately used. That includes requiring that Invest Atlanta create new redevelopment plans after a city audit found the previous plans often lacked clear, measurable goals.
Addressing council members after Wednesday’s committee vote, Dickens said the plan came about as a “desire to see opportunities and change in our underinvested communities.”
He thanked council members and city staff for putting in countless hours of work, which is expected to culminate Monday with a full council vote. Dickens had previously pushed the council to extend all eight of the city’s TADs before the end of 2025.
“This move forward really makes a statement about your effort to improve things,” he told council members. “Let’s get it done on Monday.”
Sparks fly over PR campaign
The mayor has been working to drum up support for his Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative since he first introduced it last fall. He’s given impassioned speeches at the King Center and to council members at City Hall about why he thinks it will improve the lives of Atlanta’s poorest residents. He dedicated a significant amount of time during his State of the City address to the issue, as well.
Since last year, his administration has spent more than $370,000 on marketing and communications consultants hired to bolster support for his proposal, Atlanta Community Press Collective reported Tuesday.
That total included at least $100,000 from the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the news outlet reported, spurring questions from one council member who called the findings “deeply concerning.”
“This raises so many legal and ethical and moral concerns around how the city is pushing legislation that has not been voted on,” Councilmember Kelsea Bond said.
Courtney English, the mayor’s chief of staff, called it “a clerical error” and said the money didn’t actually come from the city’s affordable housing trust fund. But even if it had, English told council members that would have been a perfectly legitimate use of that money.
“Everything we have done has been aboveboard and in accordance with city processes,” English told the committee Tuesday. “This is actually the largest investment in affordable housing in the city of Atlanta’s history. And so we needed every tool at our disposal to ensure the community was engaged, to ensure that people had the facts.”
English said there has been a “concerted and continuous effort” by detractors to misinform the public about the legislation, and members of his staff “had to work overtime” to push back against some of those narratives.
“We’ve instructed no one to do anything wrong or act outside of ethical bounds,” English said. “We stand by those expenditures. We stand by our efforts to engage and inform the community.”
Bond didn’t seem convinced, calling it a “deeply unethical” use of tax dollars earmarked for affordable housing.
“This is not how our public dollars should be spent,” Bond said. " It is so untransparent, it is so unethical. I question whether it’s legal.”
Bond also raised concerns about whether the city could be opening itself up to future lawsuits by extending the TADs without first reevaluating the city’s tax base.
English said he thinks the city is on “sound legal ground” when it comes to extending the TADs.
An audit of the city’s TADs released last week found Atlanta’s redevelopment plans lacked clear, measurable goals, making it difficult to determine whether the tax districts had actually been successful in a specific area.
The City Auditor’s Office suggested Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, update its redevelopment plans with more specific, measurable, time-bound metrics, including a school system analysis.
The first city audit of Atlanta’s TADs in over a decade also recommended bringing in a third-party consultant to track progress and called on Invest Atlanta to consolidate its reporting framework — linking expenditures to ongoing projects and redevelopment goals.
Eloisa Klementich, president and CEO of Invest Atlanta, said her team has reviewed the audit recommendations and already started implementing them.
“Anything that provides greater accountability and accessibility to the public, we embrace,” said Klementich, who called the TADs “one of Atlanta’s most important economic development tools.”
Assuming the TAD extension legislation passes, new redevelopment plans for each district must be brought to the City Council for approval, likely in late March.
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