Representative Mike Jacobs

Click here for telephone numbers and e-mail addresses to contact the DeKalb County commissioners about the GM redevelopment plan. Please see below to read my recent article on the subject.

Drive north on Peachtree Road and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard through Brookhaven, Chamblee, Doraville and into Dunwoody and the view is startling. Shopping centers are empty like the ghost towns of the Wild West.

Town Brookhaven is finally sprouting major anchor stores, but is having trouble filling its smaller retail store fronts. Chamblee Plaza? Nearly empty. The new “Super H Mart” center adjacent to the GM site? It’s nearly empty, too.

The CoStar Group, a national real estate analysis firm, says the vacancy rates of retail, shopping centers and offices in North DeKalb are at catastrophic levels when you compare them to the national average. With so many empty store fronts, why would county officials push so hard to use our tax dollars for a supersized mixed-use project at the site of the former GM plant in Doraville?

Consider this:

- In the North DeKalb zip codes 30319, 30338, 30340, 30341, 30346 and 30360, the vacancy rate for shopping centers is 23 percent compared to 14 percent in DeKalb County as a whole and 10 percent in the City of Atlanta.

- The vacancy rate for North DeKalb office buildings is 24 percent compared to 18 percent in the county overall and 20 percent in the City of Atlanta.

- Retail vacancy rates are 17 percent in those zip codes, 11 percent in DeKalb overall, and 9 percent in Atlanta, according to CoStar.

The county’s elected officials are considering using a special allocation of $36 million in federal stimulus bonds on the 165-acre GM site with visions of creating another Atlantic Station. These bonds come with a high price tag to the taxpayers. DeKalb officials would use the stimulus bonds as a $36 million “gift” to an out-of-state developer, New Broad Street of Florida.

Worse yet, county taxpayers would have to pay the principal and a majority of the interest on these bonds. It’s very likely that means higher property taxes for you and me because the county doesn’t otherwise have the money to make the payments.

In ordinary times, the developer wouldn’t have to rely on county taxpayers. There would be more private investment to help finance the project. But these are no ordinary times. We’re in the midst of the worst commercial real estate market in memory. Private investors don’t want to provide the financing for an overly ambitious mixed-use project consisting of shopping, apartments and offices. The county wants the taxpayers to step in and do what private investors won’t do: bear the risks of this project.

If a new restaurant, retail shop or gas station, for example, wants to open for business, investors take the risk whether it prospers or fails. The same should be true for this project. DeKalb taxpayers are not a bank. They are not in the business of providing corporate welfare to jump start a project the private sector would never finance.

This is the most ambitious project we’ve ever seen county officials attempt to tackle, and it comes during a deep recession. It is not the taxpayers’ job to finance the next Atlantic Station and add to the already glutted market a new supply of retail and commercial space.

The definition of insanity, according to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We should heed the lessons of the “real estate bubble” and steer clear of risking taxpayer funds for further overdevelopment. After the bubble has burst, don’t use our tax dollars to create another bubble!

There are two final things to consider:

1. The GM site ultimately will be redeveloped if the county does not intervene. It’s arguably the most valuable parcel of available commercial property in the county. It’s on a major highway (I-285), a major north-south artery (Peachtree Industrial), and a MARTA station. In better economic times, something that private investors and market forces will support will be built there. I’m confident of that.

2. These particular stimulus bonds are supposed to be used for public infrastructure projects, not for private development. When used properly, they are a cheaper way of financing these projects. The county already has a list of infrastructure needs a mile long, not the least of which is the water and sewer system upgrades that they plan to fund with massive increases in our water bills. The bonds could be used to defray those costs. They also could be used for projects such as street repairs, new sidewalks, intersection upgrades, and parks.

The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners will vote on this matter next Tuesday, August 24.

Commissioner Elaine Boyer has pledged to vote against it. I encourage you to contact the other six county commissioners (Rader, Johnson, Barnes-Sutton, May, Gannon, and Stokes) and urge them to vote “no” as well. In particular, Commissioner Jeff Rader appears not to have taken a position as of yet. You can find the commissioners’ telephone numbers and e-mail addresses by clicking here.

When a county commissioner talks about spreading “risk” and “cost,” taxpayers should run in the other direction.

Those words were quoted from a recent edition of the DeKalb Neighbor (click for link) in which Commissioner Jeff Rader talked about the potential redevelopment of the Doraville GM plant: “We … need to spread risk and cost of this to other stakeholders. [Otherwise] the county will have to service the debt and use taxpayer funds to pay back that money.”

The GM redevelopment is a project that taxpayers need to be watching closely. Very closely.

New Broad Street, the developer of Florida’s Celebration community (click for link), is proposing a partnership with DeKalb County where the developer and the county will acquire the GM site and build a supersized mixed-use center with condos, apartments, retail stores, office space, and hotels. The county is proposing to use a special allocation of federal stimulus bonds known as recovery zone bonds to help finance the redevelopment of the GM site. The “benefit” of using these bonds is that the federal government subsidizes 45 percent of the interest.

However, the remaining principal and interest on the bonds would have to be paid out of the county treasury. That’s our tax dollars the county is gambling with. Whenever you read news stories that the county is thinking about shutting down recreation facilities and judges are reading the Riot Act to the CEO and county commissioners about the judicial budget (click for links), you have to wonder what the county is thinking when they consider using the very same tax dollars for risky development projects.

Some officials in the county government are going so far as to talk about increasing our property taxes to help pay for the bonds to redevelop the GM site. That should be a complete non-starter.

When Commissioner Rader was talking about spreading “risk” and “cost,” he was talking about the county’s efforts to shake down the Doraville City Council to use the city’s funds to help pay for the project, because the GM plant is located inside the City of Doraville. That’s still using tax dollars. It’s robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Doraville would be right to say no.

The DeKalb County Development Authority would be responsible for issuing the bonds to help pay for the New Broad Street project. Generally speaking, in DeKalb County, the use of our tax dollars to support the projects of a quasi-governmental authority requires a voter referendum. This referendum requirement is the result of a law I authored in 2007. As part of this year’s House Bill 203 (click for link), however, the General Assembly granted the county a one-time exemption for the stimulus bonds now being proposed for the GM site.

The reason for the exemption is that the stimulus bonds had a June 30th “use them or lose them” deadline. It would have been impossible to hold a referendum under this time constraint. The consequence of not meeting the deadline would be that DeKalb’s allocation of stimulus bonds would be reallocated to other local governments in Georgia. Those local governments would then be able to use the bonds for infrastructure projects like improvements to roads and sewers. Infrastructure is the real purpose of these particular stimulus bonds, not risky development projects. DeKalb either has obtained or is attempting to obtain an extension of the June 30th deadline.

Furthermore, I considered it an important safeguard that the county commission would have to conduct an open public vote on an intergovernmental agreement to spend our tax dollars to repay the stimulus bonds. This safeguard exists whether or not the referendum requirement applies to these bonds. The county commission has not yet voted on an intergovernmental agreement to use our tax dollars to repay stimulus bonds for the New Broad Street project at the GM site. In addition, the commission would have to vote to approve any property tax hike that is proposed for this purpose.

The commissioners absolutely should oppose such an agreement or tax increase. The county is in no position to bear the “risk” and “cost” of a supersized development project using our tax dollars. In a recent article in the Dunwoody Crier (click for link), Commissioner Elaine Boyer appeared to suggest that a majority of the county commission is prepared to reject a tax increase for the GM redevelopment plan.

To make sure this happens, your county commissioners need to hear directly from you. You can find their contact information at web.co.dekalb.ga.us/boc/contact.html if you would like to voice your opposition.

In case you missed it, the DeKalb County Commission axed the CEO’s proposal for a property tax hike in the county budget they passed on Tuesday, February 23. The budget was adopted by a unanimous 7-0 vote. Click here to read an AJC story about it.

The commissioners managed to fund most areas of public safety and the courts at 2009 levels. In this economy, that isn’t too shabby.

In order to ensure that a millage rate increase is avoided (the county millage rate is set in June), approximately 550 county employees will have to take early retirement. Early retirement is less expensive for the county than paying out unemployment claims, which is why they aren’t doing layoffs, at least not at this point.

If I may editorialize for a moment: It is troubling that CEO Ellis is willing to propose a property tax hike without batting an eyelash. Fortunately, the county commission did the hard work of trimming the budget to the point that raising property taxes might not be necessary. If all goes as planned, good work!