As just reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, “Georgia cities and counties will be able to use school property taxes to improve blighted areas in their communities, a critical revenue component for redevelopment zones known as tax allocation districts.”
This is great news for the Smyrna Vinings community and the TAD projects that have been in process at Jonquil Village and Belmont Hills.
“With 96 percent of precincts statewide having reported Tuesday’s election results by Wednesday afternoon, a constitutional amendment allowing TADs to be funded with school taxes was well on its way to passage. More than 1.8 million Georgians supported the amendment, good for 51.5 percent of the vote, while about 1.7 million opposed it.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously last February in a lawsuit challenging Atlanta’s Beltline TAD that school property taxes could only be used for education.
TAD supporters in the General Assembly responded by pushing the constitutional amendment through the legislature, setting up Tuesday’s statewide vote.
Atlanta and other communities have continued to move forward with TAD projects since the ruling. But since school taxes make up at least half of the typical property tax bill, those projects have been scaled back significantly.”
Click here to see the ABC article in its entirety.
With the passage of the TAD amendment, Georgia will now be able to use an effective financing vehicle that has been used in numerous other states for decades. However, don’t expect smooth sailing even with the amendment. The respective school boards will still be responsible for signing off on the TAD developments, estimates, etc., which they have proven to be hesitant to do in the past as this is certainly not an area that you expect your local school board member to be an expert.
Nonetheless, this could prove to re-energize the Jonquil Village project at the corner of Atlanta Road and Spring Road.
Stay tuned for more details…
[tags]Smyrna Real Estate, Jonquil Village, Belmont Hills, Smyrna Georgia[/tags]
[where: 30080]