Richmond Hill City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the creation of the city’s first Tax Allocation District. This will allow the city to improve it’s current commercial sector with a portion of the increase in property taxes as the sector grows.
Council did give final approval by a 4-0 vote to create a Tax Allocation District (TAD) which is the city’s first ever.
City residents voted in July 2019 to approve a referendum allowing the city to use Georgia’s Redevelopment Powers Law. The TAD request will now go before the Bryan County School Board and the Bryan County Commission for their concurrence. The three governing bodies have until Dec. 31 to be in agreement in for the request to become effective. If only one or two of the governing bodies approve the agreement, then they can still use their portion of the tax increases.
“This has been a long-time coming and it’s going to be a key element in the redevelopment of Exit 87 (off I-95) and other areas,” Planning and Zoning Director Scott Allison told council in making his presentation prior to the vote.
Once finalized the TAD will essentially include much of Richmond Hill’s current commercial sector. It will consist of 157 parcels on 567 acres of land along Highway 17, Ford Avenue and I-95 at Exits 87 and 90, according to information provided the city earlier by consultant Ken Bleakly of KB Advisory Group.
Those parcels, which already include everything from motels to office spaces to restaurants and gas stations, had in 2019 a combined taxable value of more than $34 million which represents approximately 5.8% of the city’s tax digest of $588.7 million.
The KB Advisory Group said that’s important because a city can’t have more than 10% of its digest in a TAD at any given time. That means there could be an additional TAD in the future.
The TAD would allow the city to take a portion of the increase in property taxes in that district and reinvest in that district.
In a fast-growing area like Richmond Hill, a TAD is a low risk, high return proposition.
Mayor’s veto on rezoning stands
Vetoes by a government head are difficult to overcome as council learned Tuesday night as it could not garner enough votes to override a rare veto by Mayor Russ Carpenter.
At July’s council meeting, Carpenter surprised many when he vetoed city council’s 3-1 vote to approve three separate petitions by Simcoe Investment Group Inc., Simcoe requested a rezoning of three properties from R-2, Low-Density Single-Family District to R-3 Moderate Density Residential District.
Veteran council observers could not recall the last time a Richmond Hill mayor had vetoed what on the surface appeared to be a relatively routine matter.
Needing a 4-0 vote to override the veto, council members supporting the petitions could muster only three votes. Mayor Pro Tem Kristi Cox, as she did at the July meeting, failed to go along with Councilmen Robbie Ward, Steve Scholar and Les Fussell.
Prior to the vote, Carpenter had read into the official minutes his reasons for the veto and Scholar countered for council as to its reasoning.
Among his reasons, Carpenter cited the Planning and Zoning Commission’s 4-0 vote against approval and Cox’s nay vote which, in effect, made it a 5-3 vote against. There were also concerns about traffic and congestion and the plans failed to follow the city’s comprehensive plan.
Scholar somewhat passionately gave several reasons for why he, Ward and Fussell supported the project, noting among them it would provide an increase in affordable housing, there would be an increased tax base, there would be work force support for the new interchange jobs and a traffic study showed the egress and ingress of the area would not be adversely affected.
When a vote was taken, Ward, Fussell and Scholar voted in the affirmative with Cox again being the lone holdout. When she raised her hand for a nay on the vote of each petition, the veto was sustained and will stand.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Richmond Hill looks to growth, develops Tax Allocation District along current commercial sector
