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They aren’t forced to annex anything, if cities didn’t see a financial incentive they wouldn’t approve these annexations.
Right, but it's the developers with said financial incentive (tax revenue) that approaches these cities with desire for annexation first before cities actually try to annex land.
If people want to be upset at anyone, be upset at the counties for not being friendly enough for business and developers for being greedy.
Last edited by citidata18; 08-25-2018 at 02:44 PM..
This is only an issue because in Georgia, counties are pretending to be cities.
That's not really entirely fair.
In Georgia Counties are stuck taking on any of the civic services that cities don't provide and they are also stuck providing services that are unincorporated.
Cities only have to provide 3 services to be a city and many of these new "city-lite" concepts that have become popular on the northside merely take on zoning, police, sometimes parks.
Either way, they are the default government that takes on needs that aren't chosen by a city. To make matters worse, the job of the county gets harder when cities annex land for the purposes of preferential zoning and the county is left trying to work it into their plan for all other services, often transportation is the largest, but also potentially fire, health, parks, etc..
Right, but it's the developers with said financial incentive (tax revenue) that approaches these cities with desire for annexation first before cities actually try to annex land.
If people want to be upset at anyone, be upset at the counties for not being friendly enough for business and developers for being greedy.
It isn't just about who to be upset with.
It is what needs to change now for existing problems and what needs to change for the future.
At this point those developers are gone and have moved on and sold off the developments.
Some provision should be made by Eagle's Landing to help pay off the debt. At least a rightful portion. It's only right.
I've been struggling with this for awhile actually...
On one hand, you're right. At the very least I'd like to see the state step in and find a way to guarantee the bonds during the transition, while finding a way to leave the overall liability on Stockbridge.
The issue we are going to run into here is the bonds were mostly used to pay for things near the old town center, most notably the city hall.
The residents of the new potential city of Eagles Landing will need the potential financing, so they can build their own facilities too and Stockbridge will get to keep that city hall.
The problem in this situation is typically when cities take over county services or property in more normal cases there is a somewhat equitable way to do it as the territory of the new cities has some of the facilities (the residents helped pay for) and the new formed city can assume the liabilities of those properties too. It isn't always perfect. For example, the issue over the Emory annexation and North Druid Hills School property and items must be negotiated out.
The problem is all the city expenses, facilities, parks, etc.. were kept close to the original town center. This was the problem with the original rash of annexations. The city was trying to annex land and provide city-lite services to annexed areas, while building more near the town center.
This ultimately is why these conundrums being fought back and forth in this whole forum exist.
So Stockbridge spent money based on revenue from the whole area, but they made sure to place the resources near the city center and they will end up with them too.
What is worse is the new annexed development is often built / attracted developments by expenditures by the county or state, particularly in terms of transportation, and not the city.
So I am truly conflicted on this... I don't think it is as clear cut as they deserve an equal part of the debt, but to do this change we need to back-up the risk of the bonds appropriately.
In Georgia Counties are stuck taking on any of the civic services that cities don't provide and they are also stuck providing services that are unincorporated.
Cities only have to provide 3 services to be a city and many of these new "city-lite" concepts that have become popular on the northside merely take on zoning, police, sometimes parks.
Either way, they are the default government that takes on needs that aren't chosen by a city. To make matters worse, the job of the county gets harder when cities annex land for the purposes of preferential zoning and the county is left trying to work it into their plan for all other services, often transportation is the largest, but also potentially fire, health, parks, etc..
BU2 is lamenting the overall ridiculous place that Georgia allowed decades and decades ago, not current law. He has been in Texas and is seeing the ridiculous structure in Georgia with the counties acting like municipalities. Counties, not cities, are the reason there is an extra layer of government.
I have posted this same thing multiple times here, here I go again. Some years ago.... don't know who started it... I assume DeKalb or Fulton.... began providing municipal services like sewer and water and streets and sidewalks to developing areas instead of an incorporated city. Or let's use this word in place of city: MUNICIPALITY.
A person in the unincorporated part of a county away from an established community historically would deal with the rural forces his property left him to deal with. Water? Dig a well. Sewer? Septic. Other utitlities? Well Rural electric cooperatives came together to provide this. But somewhere in Atlanta's growth, neighborhoods started sprouting up outside the city limits of Atlanta and Decatur with a density that made them no longer rural areas and either Fulton or DeKalb decided to start providing what a county should not provide.... water, sewer, police, etc, etc. Had Georgia law been established properly back then, the county should never have gotten in this business. The state should have said, "hey, you want to develop this property and have streets, roads, sidewalks, sewer, water, etc, etc... then get annexed into an existing city and have them extend those service or incorporate and provide these services yourself."
This is the pattern here in Texas. Look at a map of Dallas Fort Worth.... anywhere you see developed land, it is in the city limits of either the two core cities or one of the suburbs. No large scale unincorporated build up run by county municipal services competing with municipal services run by cities. No overlapping. The counties never got in the business of providing municipal services, they just remained counties and did county business alone. The way it should be.
Now denizens of metro Atlanta have lived with these county services so long, it is status quo. But everyone here ought to realize it is based off an antiquated county system that should never have happened in the first place. This mess in Stockbridge is directly related to this. Eagle's Landing should never have developed outside a city limit.... either its own new city... or it should have been annexed in total by Stockbridge. There should never have been services run by Henry County that would allow this level of development to exist unless an incorporated Georgia municipality were running it.
Face it. Georgia counties F'd this up many many moons ago. Unravelling it is near to impossible now. But it will hold the region back and will continue to be a nightmare as counties have no business acting like cities when there are separate cities.... er, MUNICIPALITIES that should be providing MUNICIPAL services.
It is what needs to change now for existing problems and what needs to change for the future.
At this point those developers are gone and have moved on and sold off the developments.
As someone else posted, the issue with developments in unincorporated areas are probably too FUBAR to fix now.
But as far as the Eagles Landing development specifically, poeple knew what they were buying into when the community was established (for better or worse). I'm sure it was the developer(s) who went to the city to request for annexation before any homes were built, and I'm sure all of the paperwork the home buyers filled out made it clear that they would be residing within Stockbridge's city limits.
For them to now cry foul and try to get out of their obligations to Stockbridge (for whatever reason) is sleezy IMO.
Sad part is, all of this won't make one ounce of difference in the attractiveness of the community. Like the rest of Henry County, it is still viewed by most of Metro Atlanta as nothing more than a far flung bedroom community and warehouse paradise that's extremely vulnerable to problems bleeding over from Clayton County.
Last edited by citidata18; 08-25-2018 at 08:08 PM..
As someone else posted, the issue with developments in unincorporated areas are probably too FUBAR to fix now.
But as far as the Eagles Landing development specifically, poeple knew what they were buying into when the community was established (for better or worse). I'm sure it was the developer(s) who went to the city to request for annexation before any homes were built, and I'm sure all of the paperwork the home buyers filled out made it clear that they would be residing within Stockbridge's city limits.
For them to now cry foul and try to get out of their obligations to Stockbridge (for whatever reason) is sleezy IMO.
It isn't just the homeowner's that in those city limits though.
It is also the property owners just outside where they idea of coming together as a cohesive city in the immediate area where they live, work, play, shop, eat, etc... isn't possible without a large change.
The problem is it is often the commercial strips and tax-digest valuable industrial area that are targeted and you really need a helpful mix of those uses to make a functional city for the tax-digest. So what happens is another residential area can't become a city with their adjacent commercial district because some town several miles away annexed just that one strip for zoning privileges.
BU2 is lamenting the overall ridiculous place that Georgia allowed decades and decades ago, not current law. He has been in Texas and is seeing the ridiculous structure in Georgia with the counties acting like municipalities. Counties, not cities, are the reason there is an extra layer of government.
I have posted this same thing multiple times here, here I go again. Some years ago.... don't know who started it... I assume DeKalb or Fulton.... began providing municipal services like sewer and water and streets and sidewalks to developing areas instead of an incorporated city. Or let's use this word in place of city: MUNICIPALITY.
A person in the unincorporated part of a county away from an established community historically would deal with the rural forces his property left him to deal with. Water? Dig a well. Sewer? Septic. Other utitlities? Well Rural electric cooperatives came together to provide this. But somewhere in Atlanta's growth, neighborhoods started sprouting up outside the city limits of Atlanta and Decatur with a density that made them no longer rural areas and either Fulton or DeKalb decided to start providing what a county should not provide.... water, sewer, police, etc, etc. Had Georgia law been established properly back then, the county should never have gotten in this business. The state should have said, "hey, you want to develop this property and have streets, roads, sidewalks, sewer, water, etc, etc... then get annexed into an existing city and have them extend those service or incorporate and provide these services yourself."
This is the pattern here in Texas. Look at a map of Dallas Fort Worth.... anywhere you see developed land, it is in the city limits of either the two core cities or one of the suburbs. No large scale unincorporated build up run by county municipal services competing with municipal services run by cities. No overlapping. The counties never got in the business of providing municipal services, they just remained counties and did county business alone. The way it should be.
Now denizens of metro Atlanta have lived with these county services so long, it is status quo. But everyone here ought to realize it is based off an antiquated county system that should never have happened in the first place. This mess in Stockbridge is directly related to this. Eagle's Landing should never have developed outside a city limit.... either its own new city... or it should have been annexed in total by Stockbridge. There should never have been services run by Henry County that would allow this level of development to exist unless an incorporated Georgia municipality were running it.
Face it. Georgia counties F'd this up many many moons ago. Unravelling it is near to impossible now. But it will hold the region back and will continue to be a nightmare as counties have no business acting like cities when there are separate cities.... er, MUNICIPALITIES that should be providing MUNICIPAL services.
In that case I just disagree with you..
With all due respect things aren't as "F'd up" across the board as you make it seem.
I live in Gwinnett and it seems to have the perfect economies of scale for well run water, sewage, schools, etc..
The thought that there would be 30 or 40 towns providing all these services wouldn't be efficient.
Now things aren't perfect. The annexation standards leave much to be desired, but that alone is hardly a reason to chastise Georgia counties for not being like Texas.
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