English believes by instating the plan, there can be a reversal in this problem across the city.
“The plan represents the largest investment in affordable housing in Atlanta’s history, the largest investment in transit in Atlanta’s history and the largest investment in increasing access to healthcare and fresh food in Atlanta’s history,” English said. “This has exponential benefits to not just people living in those communities, but across the city. When we tackle poverty head on, we see higher rates of school proficiency, lower rates of crime and our economy gets stronger.”
Boyd believes the plan represents a broader-scale battle against political leaders ignoring inequalities throughout the nation.
“In the context of our national political conversation, political leaders are trying to ignore racial differences, economic disparities and systematic issues that have divided Americans,” Boyd said. “I think it’s really pivotal that Dickens is standing up to make this statement now and to try to put this into action because these next two and a half years are really critical in where we go as a county.”
However, a large critique of the proposed plan is that after the current TADs expire, the funds are supposed to go towards supporting Atlanta Public School. On top of this, while the mayor’s office predicts that the extensions of the TADs would bring in $5.5 billion, the actual cost of the listed projects in the plan amount to around $14.7 billion. Atlanta City Council Member Kelsea Bond believes this plan may take too much away from funds that could be spent on improving public school education in the city.
“I am personally skeptical of extending the TADs for the reason that it does take funding from our public schools,” Bond said. “The TAD extension plans to raise over $5 billion and about half of that revenue would have otherwise gone back to APS. It’s really the public schools that would be missing out here disproportionately.”
Bond believes that instead of funding the plan through TADs, the city should increase taxes in wealthier areas.
“My counterargument is that we have luxury commercial properties and high rises all around Midtown and the rest of the city that are underappraised by Fulton County,” Bond said. “Studies have shown that we are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue because we’re not taxing very wealthy property owners. I would rather see us taxing the ultra wealthy as opposed to taking funding from public schools.”
However, English explained that the mayor’s office chose TADs as a source of funds because of their scale and the fact that they don’t raise taxes.
“TADs represent the biggest opportunity of funding that doesn’t raise taxes on anybody at all,” English said. “Building 20,000 units of affordable housing over an eight-year period costs $7 billion. TADs represent the largest public financing tool that can bear the cost.”
English believes the development plan represents a continuation of Atlanta’s legacy as a city.
“Somewhere written on paper said Atlanta was a city too busy to hate,” English said. “That moniker isn’t just handed down from one generation to the next. It must be earned. This is the problem of our time.”
Fairlie Mercer is a senior and this is her third year writing for The Southerner. She currently serves as an Editor-in-Chief and is excited for her second year as an editor. Outside of journalism, she enjoys hanging out with friends and dance.
