Stockbridge to Eagles Landing: leave our borders alone (McDonough, Camilla: homes, taxes)

[demonta4]

Stockbridge to Eagles Landing: leave our borders alone | News | mdjonline.com

The Georgia Legislature will not resume until January, but Stockbridge is fighting now against two state Senate bills affecting its borders.

City Director of Planning and Community Development Camilla Moore is encouraging residents to contact legislators on both sides of the aisle to oppose Senate Bills 262 and 263.

The bills, introduced in the 2017 session by District 17 State Sen. Rick Jeffares, R-McDonough, can be revived next year.


If enacted, SB 262 will change the Stockbridge map by adding and subtracting properties, while SB 263 will grant a charter to the city of Eagles Landing upon voter approval.

“Both bills need to die,” Moore said at a recent community meeting held by City Councilman Elton Alexander.

The reasons, she said, include an unprecedented plan to combine 3,136 deannexed parcels from Stockbridge with 3,072 unincorporated parcels to form the new city.

“Of all the cities that have been incorporated, not a single one went into an existing city to take its existing properties,” she told attendees at Eagles Landing First Baptist Church, which Alexander said is in the heart of the disputed territory.

Moore and Alexander also encouraged listeners to protest deannexation by signing petitions available at the meeting, on the Stockbridge website or by mail.

The city is not entirely against Henry County’s fifth city, Moore said, just not at the expense of 50 percent of its land.

“Stockbridge has no problems with Eagles Landing becoming a city,” she said. “Find another way to do it and your sister city, Stockbridge, will support you.”

If not, a higher authority – the U.S. Department of Justice, which determines if changes in voting will discriminate against voters – may find the new city “a serious challenge,” Moore said.

“What the city of Eagles Landing is proposing to do is to take away your right to vote for the individuals that you voted for,” she said about city council members. “What incorporation will do is that we will see disenfranchisement for 50 percent of you living in Stockbridge.”

Alexander said landowners may also face the prospect of paying city taxes for the first time.

“You got your tax assessment already this year,” he said. “Imagine putting another tax on top of that.”

But Vikki Consiglio, Eagles Landing Educational Research Committee chair, disputed the notion after the Neighbor contacted her for comment.

“Since the city of Eagles Landing has yet to be incorporated, how would anyone know if there would be a tax instituted?” she said. “The feasibility study has yet to be released and that within itself will show the feasibility of the city and if there will be any additional tax needed.”

Consiglio also pushed back against the disenfranchisement argument.

“The citizens of the proposed city map area will determine if they want a city of Eagles Landing,” she said. “Why would or should this be anyone else? Who would those citizens be disenfranchising?”

Committee educational forum organizer Suesan Townsend questioned Moore’s and Alexander’s participation, citing legal barriers to government employees or elected officials influencing elections.

“Does the city of Stockbridge have some special exemption to federal and state law?” she said.

And enter the next round of the cityhood movement. (Can somebody tell me why Eagle's Landing wants to incorporate. Is Henry County doing something wrong or is it like that city-lite Sharon Springs that tried to incorporate?)

[arjay57]

Good for Stockbridge for sticking up for itself.

[Gulch]

WTF?

[atler8]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Good for Stockbridge for sticking up for itself.

I live several miles west of Stockbridge & I'm over there quite often so I wish them good fortune in this fight.
Something tells me that I must be misreading something in this story because it sounds egregious beyond belief that the legislature could have the power to interfere in municipal affairs so as to strip away a major portion of the area of Stockbridge plus considerable population in order to create the new City of Eagles Landing.
If I really am understanding what is going on, this is potentially an abusive use of state legislative power way beyond what it should be and I'll call it what is is: a bunch of malarkey!


Thanks to the op for posting this startling development.

[cwkimbro]

I don't really care about this either way, but the situation is very interesting and merits a bit more attention.


There is an odd problem in Georgia. Annexations often are targetted to include as much commercial space as possible to raise revenue.


It usually happens in one of two ways: 1) a developer requests to be added to the city for favorably zoning standards or 2) a large commercial area is added to a small residential area that would vote favorably for being added to the city. The commercial area doesn't always have choice. The border is drafted by others and only residents vote.


So we end up in situations, like this where a City strings along for a ways from its downtown and sense of character as community and residential areas are uniquely gerrymandered to not be included in the city and stay unincorporated.


So what happens when the residents of those unincorporated spaces do want to be a city and what if they want more say over zoning practices in the commercial and industrial areas, literally next door to their homes?


It is not like Eagles landing doesn't have its own sense of place or character and the city likely needs the commercial properties in their backyard to be financially feasible as a city.


So to what extent to we prevent cities from forming, because existing cities have effectively gerrymandered existing commcerial/industrial spaces into their borders over long stretches?


Most of this was annexations that occurred between 2000 and 2010 to get favorable zoning.




Also of a concern, if we allow this to happen in the future, what protections should be offered of the residents affected already in Stockbridge (city proper)? If you are a parcel effectively being moved from one city to an other, should that be allowed to occur in a single city (new potential city)-wide vote? or should those parcels deserve the ability to vote themselves to their existing city or a new one centered on the area where they reside?