The Fayetteville City Council at a called meeting Monday agreed to work out details to have a November referendum for voters to have their say on establishing a city redevelopment agency to initiate and oversee redevelopment projects called Tax Allocation Districts (TAD). The issue will require a board resolution to be signed by mid-September.

The TAD process has been used in some Georgia localities to turn economically deficient areas into productive ones.

Though not definitively stated, at least two of the three projects targeted for the Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) supplemental grant agreed to last week by the council could be applicable as TAD projects, said City Manager Joe Morton.

Those include the 692 Shopping Center on North Glynn Street and the Fayette Place Shopping Center at the 300 block of North Glynn. Morton said he was not certain about the applicability of the under-utilized area of the Market Place at Lafayette that is a part of the Villages at Lafayette master plan.

Representatives from the 692 Shopping Center and the Market Place at Lafayette attended the meeting.

Essentially a redevelopment tool, the process requires voter approval to form a redevelopment agency, followed by the agency’s identification of a targeted area or areas through a public hearing process, that would qualify as a TAD project.

A qualifying area must be either blighted or distressed, deteriorating or one with inadequate infrastructure. The establishment of a redevelopment agency does not require that TAD projects be proposed.

City Attorney David Winkle told the board that of the three qualifying areas it would likely be an area with inadequate infrastructure that would be used to qualify as a TAD project.

Financing for TADs comes as the tax base for the project area is frozen to form a base valuation, with property taxes used to pay eligible redevelopment costs. Bonds may also be issued to help finance projects. Subsequent annual tax revenues in the project area are used to fund the city’s portion of the redevelopment.

Specific TAD projects must also gain approval from the county commission and school board since the property tax revenues generated in the TAD project area would stay there to help defray the costs of the infrastructure and other improvements designated in the project document.

In essence, a TAD is not a new tax but rather a diversion of existing taxes in a specific geographic area to be used for redevelopment purposes.

Those TAD property taxes could also be used to pay on any public or private bond that might be associated with the TAD project.

Winkle said a city council or development authority could function as the redevelopment agency or the council could appoint a completely new board. In response, Mayor Ken Steele said he believed the mayor and city council should function as the redevelopment agency.

Developers are usually expected to be responsible for infrastructure improvements, Winkle said, but with TAD project tax revenue can also be used.

TADs in some areas have been controversial, opposed by school boards and other taxing jurisdictions that lose those taxes.

Though TAD projects take many forms, perhaps the best known example of a TAD is the Atlantic Station development near downtown Atlanta.

login to post comments