The Atlanta Board of Education approved a resolution affirming its participation in two city of Atlanta tax allocation districts: the BeltLine TAD and the Perry-Bolton TAD.

The resolution was the result of nearly two months of negotiations between the Atlanta Development Authority, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. and Atlanta Public Schools. While the issue of school district participation in TADs was considered by the courts and voter referendum, property taxes assessed by APS were collected amounting to $6 million in the Perry-Bolton TAD and $12 million in the BeltLine TAD.

In response to the February 2008 Georgia Supreme Court decision that the existing constitution did not permit school districts to participate in TADs, the voter referendum in November 2008 amended the state constitution to allow school districts to participate in TADs. On April 22, Governor Purdue signed House Bill 63, affirming the will of the voters to reenact the Redevelopment Powers Law and grant school districts the ability to participate in TADs. As a result, APS has once again chosen to participate in the BeltLine and Perry-Bolton TADs.

Under the resolution approved in June by the Board of Education, all of the retroactive school district tax increment collected in the BeltLine and Perry-Bolton TADs will be released to APS, and the BeltLine may have access to $6 million of that. This agreement will help APS meet its needs in the short term and maintain momentum for the BeltLine project and the Perry-Bolton area in northwest Atlanta.

ADA now turns its focus to the city’s final four TADs. ADA hopes that investment by the city of Atlanta, Fulton County and Atlanta Public Schools can lay the foundation to turn around the areas in and around Greenbriar Mall, Turner Field, Lakewood Fairgrounds, Fort McPherson, Bowen Homes, Bankhead Courts and Atlanta Industrial Park, which have suffered decades of disinvestment.

The final four TADs, sometimes referred to as the Commercial Corridor TADs, will operate as pay-as-you-go TADs, which opens the door to small-scale and mid-size projects. Bond issuances may be used in addition to pay-as-you-go when the scale of a project would support such financing.

“These areas of the city need every incentive available in the toolkit,” says Cheryl Strickland, Managing Director of TAD Programs at ADA. “Without the help of APS, we can’t guarantee anything will happen, which would be a shame. It’s about equitable investment and equitable development.”

Over the next 25 years, these four TADs have the potential to create 16,000 new jobs, add 5.7 million square feet of commercial space, yield more than $255 million in new sales tax revenue, grow property tax revenues in the districts by 70 percent and attract a staggering $5 billion in new private investment.

TADs are a national redevelopment best practice, and they are playing a major role in Atlanta’s revitalization, according to a study released in 2007 that provides a first look at finances and growth rates for Georgia’s tax districts. “They promote redevelopment in areas that were underutilized, and they’re doing it in a way that lets new development – not the average taxpayer – pay for the public projects needed to make the development happen,” says Jim Durrett, executive director of the Livable Communities Coalition.