Vinings: How does Vinings' status as an unincorporated area affect residents and businesses?

[lorilove]

There are requirements in how many services you must offer inorder to be incorporated. Many areas like Vinings don't want to take on all that responsibility. In 2007, the State of Georgia failed to pass the Township Act. Townships are different than cities and is more ideally suited or Vinings. I don't know the status of that issue.

Georgia Township Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many of the North Fulton areas incorporated because they did not feel like they were being properly represented and that their tax dollars were being fairly allocated. There was a clear battle between North and South Fulton. You definitely see problems like this in large counties where the population is spread out over a wide area and there is a big disparity in economic conditions (like Fulton county).

[lorilove]

Another thought

To the best of my knowledge the City of Atlanta does not have any boundaries in Cobb County. I am thinking that would create a level of complexity if they tried to Annex Vinings.

I doubt Vinings would agree to be annexed by Smyrna unless they could keep their Atlanta address. I remember many moons ago that it was a BIG deal about this issue. You address is determined by the post office that services your area (or something like that). Because of Cobb County, I think technically Vinings would fall to Smyrna but they would have nothing of that and a special considerations were made (this was in the 80's or perhaps earlier)

[SmyrnaVinings]

Certainly the pro is a lower tax burden. Cons are you have less control over what happens within your unincorporated area, thus the push of the Vinings Vision process. Vinings doesn't really have the tax basis to support incorporating and this has probably been the single biggest issue holding up incorporation in the past. The issues of Fulton County drove Sandy Springs, Milton and Johns Creek to incorporate. I also can't imagine that Vinings would ever agree to be annexed by the city of Atlanta. They probably have more control now than they ever would under the city of Atlanta and would see their taxes spike. Who would want to sign up for that?

[FlyingFox]

Originally Posted by lorilove

I doubt Vinings would agree to be annexed by Smyrna unless they could keep their Atlanta address...

If Vinings were to be annexed by anyone, my guess is that they'd want to be annexed by Marietta so they'd continue to pay lower taxes.

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

millage rates for the following places:
37.44 - City of Acworth
30.31 - City of Austell
38.00 - City of Kennesaw
29.94 - City of Marietta
38.25 - City of Powder Springs
36.36 - City of Smyrna
27.19 - No Fire District
29.75 - Unincorporated (Mableton, Vinings, and friends)
43.86 - City of Atlanta, Fulton County ... just for comparison. Other cities in Fulton are more reasonable, but also have a lot less older infrastructure to babysit.

Source: Communities Magazine . Taxes

It's quite striking. Vinings and Marietta have millage rates of 29.75 and 29.94, respectively (I suppose that means Marietta manages itself efficiently). Then there's a big jump and Smyrna, Acworth, Kennesaw, and Powder Springs fall in at 36.25 - 38.25. WTF!!

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by FlyingFox

It's quite striking. Vinings and Marietta have millage rates of 29.75 and 29.94, respectively (I suppose that means Marietta manages itself efficiently). Then there's a big jump and Smyrna, Acworth, Kennesaw, and Powder Springs fall in at 36.25 - 38.25. WTF!!

Vinings is unincorporated. Just like Mableton, it has no "city" level of government to maintain.

Without doing a comparison of the services provided, we really don't know anything about how the aforementioned cities are managed. Smyrna maintains its own weather siren system independently of the Cobb County siren network, for example, and all residents receive garbage and recycling service from the city.

Is that also true in Marietta?

Marietta is also a little different from the other cities in Cobb County in that it maintains its own school district. The other cities mentioned are all part of the Cobb County school district. Since the school portion of properly taxes is a very large percentage, it's quite possible that Cobb County is itself responsible for the difference between Marietta and the other cities, and that would be a county matter.

We need to have a lot more info before passing any judgement, methinks.

[FlyingFox]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Vinings is unincorporated. Just like Mableton, it has no "city" level of government to maintain.

Without doing a comparison of the services provided, we really don't know anything about how the aforementioned cities are managed. Smyrna maintains its own weather siren system independently of the Cobb County siren network, for example, and all residents receive garbage and recycling service from the city.

Is that also true in Marietta?

Marietta is also a little different from the other cities in Cobb County in that it maintains its own school district. The other cities mentioned are all part of the Cobb County school district. Since the school portion of properly taxes is a very large percentage, it's quite possible that Cobb County is itself responsible for the difference between Marietta and the other cities, and that would be a county matter.

We need to have a lot more info before passing any judgement, methinks.

Well am I correct in saying that Vinings and Marietta have the lowest taxes in Cobb County? Both also seem to be the desirable places to live so my take is that whatever they are doing, they are getting it right.

[stvincent]

Originally Posted by FlyingFox

Well am I correct in saying that Vinings and Marietta have the lowest taxes in Cobb County? Both also seem to be the desirable places to live so my take is that whatever they are doing, they are getting it right.

Most of the city of Marietta is undesirable, actually. The parts of Marietta that are popular are in unincorporated Cobb County, i.e. East Cobb, the Kennesaw Moutain and Harrison districts of West Cobb, etc.

This is an old issue, Vinings would not be able to sustain itself as a city. Cobb would never allow Vinings to be annexed by Atlanta. Vinings would never allow Smyrna to annex it. And Marietta would clearly be the only beneficiary if it were to somehow snake down and around the city of Smyrna to make a land grab. Marietta is too far away for this to ever be feasible.

Vinings is fine just the way it is. As someone said earlier in the thread, Vinings is not lacking anything really remaining unincorporated at the moment. When there were meetings held on incorporation, I didn't understand even then what would be accomplished from it and if you know how tiny the community is, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that taxes would shoot up sky high to support everythinhg that would be needed.

What would you hope to gain from an incorporated Vinings? The schools would still be the same(GA Constitution)...that's the only thing I can think of that might make people take another look at incorporation, establishing private public schools like they do in Westchester County, NY like Bronxville where their graduating class this year was like 100 kids compared to Campbell's 500.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by FlyingFox

Well am I correct in saying that Vinings and Marietta have the lowest taxes in Cobb County? Both also seem to be the desirable places to live so my take is that whatever they are doing, they are getting it right.

Vinings is the same as most of Cobb County. It's unincorporated. Only ~20% of the suburbs in Cobb are part of an incorporated city.

My own local area (Mableton) just to the west of Vinings is the same way, as is the affluent northeastern part of Cobb County (East Cobb). So yes, Vinings is doing something right, but it isn't alone in what it's doing taxwise.

[FlyingFox]

I'm certainly not making an argument to incorporate Vinings. I bought into Vinings because of the low taxes and I'd like them to stay that way.

I'm simply making an observation about taxes and I didn't realize Marietta had such low taxes. But given that at guy was murdered yesterday in Marietta, I suppose it isn't as nice as I was originally led to believe:

Man killed at Cobb County apartment complex *| ajc.com