Future annexations for Decatur and Avondale Estates remain big question marks with the State Legislature opening this week.
“Since the LaVista Hills cityhood failed (by 136 votes), the desire for annexation is probably minimal for now,” State Representative Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates, said during an Avondale Estates town hall meeting last week. “There will also probably be a temporary moratorium on the cityhood movement.”
Decatur’s annexation bill, stripped of commercial properties at Suburban Plaza and the four centers at North Decatur Road/Clairmont Road, passed the House last year and now sits in the Senate. Avondale’s bill passed the House, went to the Senate where all its proposed commercial property was excised before returning to the House where it now sits.
In November Avondale Estates revised its annexation plan, which now includes less residential and only one major commercial district—the Rio Circle collective north of the city — though Drenner hasn’t yet decided if she’ll sponsor it.
Meantime, Decatur’s commission hasn’t discussed annexation since last April.
“Both [Decatur and Avondale Estates] bills are alive, and both could move,” Drenner said. “But whether or not they do, it’s too early to say.”
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