Two people from opposite ends of Atlanta are likely to lead completely different lives, Mayor Andre Dickens told a packed house at the King Center on Thursday.
Someone from the affluent northwest part of the city is more likely to do well in school, earn good money and live to nearly 90 years old, he said. People from southeast Atlanta, meanwhile, statistically make far less and often struggle to access housing, healthcare and fresh food. They also tend to die about 20 years sooner, he said.
Courtney English, Dickens’ chief of staff, said that’s no accident. It’s the result of nearly 100 years of systemic racism, redlining and intentionally diverting resources away from Atlanta’s underserved Black neighborhoods, he said.
“It should make you uncomfortable,” English told the crowded auditorium. “And for folks of moral fiber, it should also move you toward action.”
Credit: Shaddi Abusaid/ shaddi.abusaid@ajc.com
Credit: Shaddi Abusaid/ shaddi.abusaid@ajc.com
Dickens’ sit-down conversation with Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, was part an ongoing effort to rally support for his Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, which he hopes will help put an end to what he describes as Atlanta’s “tale of two cities.”
“It took decades of doing, so it’s going to take intentionality to undo it,” Dickens said, calling the city’s growing divide unsustainable. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
The mayor’s $5 billion development plan hinges on extending all eight of Atlanta’s tax allocation districts, also known as TADs, in which property tax revenue growth is used to pay for infrastructure improvements within the district’s boundaries. Dickens said TADs have been used to help build Atlantic Station, the Atlanta Beltline, North Point Mall and Camp Creek Marketplace.
He said he hopes to extend Atlanta’s TADS beyond 2050, long after most are set to expire in 2030. But reaping all the revenue from the extensions requires buy-in of the Atlanta City Council, the Fulton County Commission and Atlanta Public Schools. It’s unclear if his plan has the support needed to get across the finish line.
Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett was among those in attendance Thursday night. She served on the NRI oversight commission and previously expressed reservations about the sweeping proposal.
“I think we all agree that these neighborhoods need attention and need investment,” Barrett said. “I don’t think anybody disagrees on that. What we disagree on is how to go about it and how it should be paid for, and what the right mechanisms are to do that.”
Whatever the City Council decides later this month could influence how Fulton commissioners view the plan, she said.
King threw her support behind Dickens’ efforts. The youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King called it a way to continue her parents’ legacy of working to improve the “beloved community.”
“We’re tied together whether we like it or not, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not,” King told the crowd. “What makes us human is compassion, is care.
“It’s wanting for other people what you want for yourself.”
Critics, however, argue that extending the TADs will do little to thwart gentrification or address rising housing costs across the city. They also argue it would reduce funding for the public schools and communities that need it most.
Dickens said his NRI proposal “doesn’t take a dime away from APS,” and said the school system “does not lose anything that it has today.”
“If they get $1,000 for that abandoned, burned-out gas station or whatever that we want to renew and make a grocery store, they’re still going to get that $1,000 in property taxes,” Dickens said.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Atlanta Board of Education member Ken Zeff disputes that. Zeff also served on the commission that studied the TAD extension proposal and said in the commission’s report that extending the Beltline TAD alone would cost the school system an estimated $80 million per year. He also attended the mayor’s conversation Thursday night.
“Extending the TADs absolutely costs the school district money,” said Zeff, the school board’s vice chair. “We want preschool in every building; we want teachers to be highly compensated; and we put that at risk if we’re not thoughtful about how we partner in investment.”
Others have raised concerns that the reinvestment project is a backdoor way to offer tax breaks to Atlanta’s already wealthy developers.
Atlanta’s City Council voted 13-1 this week to accept the recommendations from the NRI Commission. The commission agreed the underserved neighborhoods need reinvestment dollars, but stopped short of recommending TAD extensions to do it.
Council member Kelsea Bond, who opposes extending the TADs, cast the lone dissenting vote.
Bond, who uses they/them pronouns, said they disagree with the idea of creating an independent nonprofit anchored by the Atlanta Committee for Progress to administer the NRI. Bond noted the group is headed by the wealthy CEOs of major corporations.
“I don’t really understand why we are entrusting billionaires with a project that is meant to close Atlanta’s wealth gap,” they said before voting no.
Dickens and King received a standing ovation after Thursday’s discussion, but not everyone in the audience seemed on board with the mayor’s plans.
Wykeisha Howe, a mother of eight living in Atlanta’s historically underserved Thomasville Heights community, said she remains skeptical. Her neighborhood is not part of a TAD.
“I didn’t agree with any of that,” said Howe, who added she fears even more of Atlanta’s legacy residents could end up being displaced.
“Where would they go?” she asked. “What’s going to happen to the people who are already there?”
Howe, who previously lived on Atlanta’s Westside, said she and her family were priced out in 2018. She then purchased her house in southeast Atlanta, a home she said she wouldn’t be able to afford today.
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