City Council's Utilities Committee is reviewing drafts of two Chapter 130 fee or tax structures: 1) 21-O-0873 Revisions—Trip Generation Fees | 2) 21-O-0876 Revisions—Ad Valorem Taxes. 

Mark Your Calendar. The ACC's Utilities Committee has a telephone comment period November 29, 4-7 PM. Phone 404-330-6043. Use ID 151945. Comments will be reviewed in the November 30 meeting. Committee members and City Council members also accept emails. See announcement at https://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov/standing-committees/city-utilities/solid-waste-public-hearing

Five Talking Points

1) Along with many neighbors, I support repeal of the frontage fees and multi-family unit fees wrongly imposed since 2019 on owners of condominiums, apartments, townhomes, and institutional and commercial properties under the existing solid waste ordinance. 

2) Both draft ordinances propose burdensome and convoluted appeal provisions. These provisions wrongfully try to shield the City from accountability. Limitations on taxpayer appeals against the City are unacceptable. 

3) The Trip Generation Fees proposal extends all the flaws that now require repeal of the frontage fees version. The Trip Generation Fees version is unacceptable, as it would lead to new litigation.

4) The Ad Valorem Tax approach generally is the right approach to fair funding for “General Common-Good-Related Sanitary Services.”  On the other hand, some elements remain mysterious. 

5) The Ad Valorem Tax approach incorporates a new tax rate of 68.6 cents per mill across the City. The public and City Council are entitled to see how Public Works set that rate, and why the proposed structure would be fair. To show fairness of the new tax structure, my neighbors and I ask to see actual costs of supplying the common good services, as well as the projected future revenues yielded from that tax rate.  Is a property's appraised value the right base for common-good-services?