Decatur will mail about a dozen petitions this week to property owners who have “partial parcels,” or land bisected by city limits. Though no deadline’s been set, property owners will have a certain timeframe to complete and submit the petition if they want their land combined into one Decatur parcel.
Over the years Decatur’s had a number of these partial parcels that date to at least the 1940s, meaning that landowners get multiple parcel ID numbers and tax bills from both Decatur and DeKalb County. At times there has even been uncertainty whether children in these home are eligible to attend city schools. Since 2011 the city has annexed—by unofficial count—154 properties through residential petition, many of those partial parcels.
City Manager Peggy Merriss said she’d eventually like to “clean up” all bisecting boundaries, but after this year the city probably won’t accept an annexation petition from homeowners again until 2017.
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