Marietta residents this fall may be asked to vote on a $35 million bond to pay for redevelopment projects around the city, including a plan to demolish aging apartments on Franklin Road.
Mayor Steve Tumlin and other city leaders see big potential for redevelopment on Franklin Road, a strip that parallels I-75, and is currently occupied by run-down strip malls, 40-year-old apartment complexes and abandoned businesses. Tumlin says the city could buy and demolish apartments to make way for commercial businesses that want a prime location with easy access to the interstate, the airport and Atlanta.
But not all residents think the city should be in the real estate business, and the idea must make it through two city council votes before appearing on the November ballot.
“It is a referendum, so no matter how good or bad it is, people will have the chance to decide,” Tumlin said.
The bond would mean an tax increase of about $160 annually for a $200,000 home under current tax rates.
The idea is still taking shape, but early plans are to buy and demolish three or four apartment complexes near the Franklin Road/Delk Road intersection, Tumlin said. The city would work with the Marietta Housing Authority to find residents another place to live.
As is, Franklin Road is undervalued and underused, Tumlin said. Some of the apartments are financially struggling and have a high number of vacancies, he said, and a high concentration of crime. Clearing the way for new businesses could create jobs and have a ripple effect up and down the corridor.
“To come from the ashes, you have to get it down to the ashes,” he said. “With revitalization, you have to retrench first and then go forward. It is an investment.”
The bulk of the bond money would be invested in Franklin Road. But also being considering is a memorial to honor Lemon Street High, which served at the city’s black high school during segregation. Road improvements along busy Whitlock Avenue are also being discussed.
City Councilman Griffin L. Chalfant, said the idea is good, but the city must now seriously research whether the bond will raise enough to jump start revitalization efforts on Franklin Road.
“If it pans out, we can do a lot with that area,” he said. “But we have to find out whether it will … make a dent in what the problem is or just touch the edges.”
Longtime Marietta resident Robbie Huck wants residents to squash the idea before it makes it to a vote. She doesn’t support the bonds because she doesn’t think its an appropriate use of tax money. If the area is ripe for business revitalization, then private industry should lead the effort.
“If you have a good idea, you can sell it,” said Huck, who is also member of the Cobb Taxpayers Association, a government watchdog group. “You don’t have to go in debt to do it. Let the private industry take the risk and get the return on investment.”
But Heath Garrett, co-founder of Revitalize Marietta, a non-profit focused on bringing attention to blighted parts of the city, said continuing to do nothing or ignoring the issues will only drive up costs for the average taxpayer.
“Marietta has one of the costliest concentrations of blighted and foreclosed apartments and run down properties in all of metro Atlanta,” he said. “Informed conservative taxpayers support this bond because the crime, the transiency of the students, the destruction of property value and the uncompensated healthcare at the Kennestone ER is a hidden tax that will cost the taxpayer a lot more than $35 million over the same time.”
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