Atlanta Beltline officials are pushing for a $50 million bond as part of its 2017 budget planning to pay for projects to keep the ambitious 22-mile loop on track.
Included in the pitch would be $7.5 million for affordable housing along the Beltline and $2.5 million in economic development for the communities directly accessible near the project.
To date, there have been fewer than 600 units of affordable housing created within the Beltline’s Tax Allocation District. That is way beneath the Beltline’s legal obligation to produce 5,600 new affordable housing units for low-incoming families living along the project.
Ericka Brown-Davis, communications director for the Atlanta Beltline said the agency is still developing a list economic development projects — from pop-ups to the massive Ponce City Market — to consider.
In addition to the $50 million which will cover long term costs, the actual Tax Allocation District portion of the 2017 budget would be $14.3 million dollars. The 2016 TAD budget was $11.1 million.
The Atlanta Beltline’s board of directors unanimously approved the revised budget at a special call meeting Wednesday morning.
The budget still has to be approved by Invest Atlanta, the city agency that oversees each of Atlanta’s 10 tax districts. The city is the entity that would orchestrate the issuance of the bonds on behalf of the Beltline Tax Allocation District.
The Beltline still owes the city of Atlanta $9 million and Atlanta Public Schools $10 million. Atlanta Beltline CFO Marshall Norwood said a separate series of bonds would be used to repay those commitments.
To pay for parks, trails, transit and development, the Beltline uses a portion of property tax revenue that would have gone to the City of Atlanta, Fulton County and APS, the participating taxing entities with the Beltline TAD.
In exchange, city officials agreed to make fixed payments from the Beltline’s tax allocation district, or TAD, to the school system and Fulton County.
Matt Fogt, a spokesman for Invest Atlanta said Wednesday that the 2017 Atlanta Beltline budget is expected to be on the Sept. 15 Invest Atlanta board meeting agenda for voting.
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