Sunday, December 20, 2009, 12:19 PM
News, Opinion, Politics
By Stephanie Ramage

THE TRUTH ABOUT ATLANTA'S TADS

Stephanie,

Your "truth about TADs" isn't exactly truthful. TAD's are good for economic development and bring jobs, something we need more of in the city, not less. 1) There is no evidence that TADs increase service costs. We suspect the net effect is they actually decrease service costs since sales tax revenues go up, property values just outside the TAD increase and crime goes down, 2) TADs have funded a new fire station and a new police mini-precinct in the Atlantic Station TAD will fund the same in the Perry-Bolton TAD in NW Atlanta, 3) Since 50% of property taxes go to public schools and most TAD residential units are condos, there generally is no increase in service costs for public schools, since people living in condos typically don't have kids. Conclusion: TADs are a good investment in Atlanta's future.

by Sonya Moste with the Atlanta Development Authority

Sonya
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 10:21 AM

Sonya,

Just because the truth hurts, doesn't mean it's not the truth.

Building police precincts and fire stations isn't the same thing as staffing them. The APD and the fire department already have plenty of buildings, what they don't have is staff.

The police haven't seen an annual pay increase in years. The fire personnel budget has been cut to dangerous levels. Clearly, what the city needs more than condos is an increase in tax revenue.

In fact, CFO Jim Glass said during this year's budget deliberations "Atlanta has a revenue problem." That problem has not been helped by freezing revenue collection at its 2001 level in TADs. That means that even as the city grows--and Atlanta has grown by 25 percent in that time--its revenue collection within its hulking TADs does not. It essentially robs itself of revenue growth. No wonder the city is revenue starved. True, in 15 to 20 years there could well be a windfall, but Atlanta needs revenue in the here-and-now to finance basic public services.

The schools are the least of anyone's worry. (They get nearly half of Fulton County's revenue. It's the City of Atlanta's services that are the worry.) People in condos don't have kids? More than half of the condos on the Westside don't even have people living in them, and vacant buildings soon become attractive nuisances, places that are vandalized, broken into and inhabited by squatters, hookers, and/or thieves. There is no evidence that I have found that shows that crime rates decrease in TADs. TADs do not have a long history in Georgia. I would be curious to see the research that supports your statement. Does it include TADs with large numbers of empty units?

Also, your assertion regarding sales tax revenue is misleading and inaccurate. Sales tax only increases if sales increase. With no one moving into those condos and with businesses like Publix shutting down, it is unlikely that sales revenue will increase enough to offset the additional public service costs. That's why experts like Matthews always warn that sales tax should NEVER be considered part of the equation when planning a TAD.
Naturally, I was quite interested to see that the City of Atlanta had indeed offered up projected sales tax revenues in its TADs to Moody's when that bond rating company examined the city for its bond rating.

Carolyn Bordeaux, one of the country's few experts on TADs, and who has studied Atlanta's TADs, has said TADs are "a gamble."

No doubt they help ensure your office has plenty to do, but whether they are in Atlanta's best interest, in their present structure, remains to be seen. The fact that so many units are empty and a grocery store is closing though it has no competition within sight of its shopping center does not augur well.

More to the point, we absolutely should not be starting new TADs at a time when tax revenue would be frozen at a decreased value i.e. Fulton County's projected 14 percent drop. Why would the city want to freeze revenue at a loss?

--Stephanie Ramage

Stephanie
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 2:38 PM

Just like everything else this city does, the horse before the cart. The city has a huge safety issue. Whether crime is actually down or not, the perception is the city is a dangerous place. What will change that???? NOT building pretty places hoping it will lure people into the city. Make it a better place to live by TAKING CARE OF THE PUBLIC SERVANTS ie the police and fire. Not by treating them as a neccesary evil or a step child. If you made the city a more attractive place to live, you wouldn't need to have TADS, builders and developers would come of thier own accord with no need to give them assistance at tax payers expense. Until the city remakes itself and shows a true dedication to making it a better place for people to live and visit, these projects will continue to be nothing but a waste of time.....and by the way, do the companies and builders using all this money to help defray thier risk even live work and have offices in the city, or are they from outside just coming in and taking money from the citizens?

rob
Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 9:19 AM

I can't help but feel that this is the wind-up for some apologist article on why Reed can't fulfill his campaign promises. I look forward to the "he didn't have all of the information again" post.

Way to stay irrelevant, Ramage!

Nina
Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 11:25 AM

There are a couple of GIGANTIC holes in the argument that TAD's are costing the city in revenue.

First of all, has there been more development in Buckhead and Midtown or the Westide TAD.
The fact of the matter is that the areas that boomed in the last ten years are non-TAD areas. Furthermore, there are housing developments just as empty in Buckhead and Midtown. There is always some risk involved in development no matter what area its in.

Secondly, you're completely ingnoring the misamanagement that permeates this city government. The city's revenue HAD GROWN prior to the recession but was essentially wasted with the city as a jobs program mentality of the city government. The Business Chronicle reported in February 2008 that the city budget had increased 50 % since Shirley Franklin took office.

I do agree with you on a couple of points which is that there are probably too many and some the TAD's are just waaaay too large. Ideally they should be focused on a smaller area so that infrastructure and other improvements can be concentrated so that it can become self-sustaining much sooner. Atlantic Station is a good example of the proper size IMO. Furthermore, I'm not seeing the kind of infrastructure improvements that one would expect from these kind of projects. In general, that appears to be a blind spot for this city which simply that one way to revitalize an are is to make it more attractive.

James
Saturday, January 02, 2010 at 4:32 PM

James,

You make some good additional points, but fail to support your introductory statement.

Where exactly are these "giant holes in the argument that TADs cost the city money"?

Rather than supporting that, you refer to an ABC article that restated what everyone else has known since 2005 (that the city government grew a lot--as did most governments; actually, the federal government enjoyed the largest sustained boom in its history during the same time period).

So, I get the impression that you wanted to disagree with me about something, but you just couldn't hit paydirt, so you claimed to find fault although you failed to show the fault.

Nonetheless, I thank you for emphasizing the point that I made regarding the size of the TADs.

The point that you seem to be making is that there are also many empty units in private developments in Buckhead and Midtown. Certainly, there are, but the difference is bonds were not sold to build most of those.

If you have a vested interest in the Westside (and I'm pretty sure I know who you are, so I also know that you do), then I hope you will agree with me that the thing most desperately needed is to get people into those units who can help pay for them and who can help support the businesses that moved in on the promise of the TAD's future.

Hope things will look up in VIne City in 2010. -- Very best, Steph

Stephanie
Saturday, January 02, 2010 at 5:38 PM