A move to create a new city out of the wealthiest and whitest areas of Atlanta gained a little more traction this week, after being blocked by Georgia legislative leaders last year.
Two bills that would simultaneously allow the Buckhead district to secede from the city passed a Georgia Senate committee on Friday and could go up for a floor vote as soon as Wednesday.
If approved by both chambers of the legislature and signed by Governor Brian Kemp, the measure would allow residents of the roughly 24 square mile (62 square kilometer) Buckhead area to vote in November 2024 on whether to leave Atlanta and create its own city.
While the Buckhead City movement has strong supporters in Burt Jones, the state’s lieutenant governor and president of the State Senate, the measures are expected to face resistance in the House.
Michael Smith, a spokesman for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, said City Hall “will continue to work with the Senate to stop this legislation before it has disastrous consequences.”
Pushed by the rural legislature and opposed by elected officials of Atlanta and the business community, the new city proposed to take with nearly a fifth of the population of Atlanta and about 38% of the tax revenue. It could affect Atlanta’s credit rating, as well as the rating for cities in Georgia. Moody’s Investor Service said in October that it maintained a rating of Aa1 in the city of approximately $650 million in outstanding public obligations and unlimited tax debt.
Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan scrapped that effort last year, sending the secession bill to a committee where all city Democrats opposed it. Former House Speaker David Ralston, who died last year, killed in the House.
Laws before the General Assembly put out the proposed new city charter, including the ability to manage everything from live chickens to pawn shops, and what the new city councilors will pay, which is roughly what the Atlanta councilors get now. It also determines what will happen to Atlanta’s assets within the proposed new city limits.
The proposal will allow Buckhead City to acquire Atlanta park land in its borders for only $ 100,000 per hectare, although the hectare in the neighborhood can command 10 times the amount. Atlanta must also divide all assets outside the city limits with the proposed Buckhead City limits or sell them and share the proceeds. That would include an 85-hectare plot in the south of the city that will now house a controversial police training center dubbed Cop City by opponents.
The Georgia legislature has allowed unincorporated areas around Atlanta to vote to form their own cities for nearly two decades. But only one voice remained, an affluent section of the small town of Stockbridge south of Atlanta. Residents of the subdivision rejected the partition in 2018.
Although rumblings about a potential Buckhead split have been going on for years, the effort picked up steam last year due to concerns about crime. In the year since the last push failed, crime has dropped in the police district that includes Buckhead, according to the mayor’s office.
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