Annexation

Report: State Supreme Court rebuffs Atlanta on annexation

Atlanta Loop 10/04/2016

Atlanta City Hall. Photo by Bbenrath, obtained via Wikimedia Commons

Atlanta has lost its case for annexing an area of unincorporated South Fulton, WABE reported.

According to WABE, the state Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the city’s lawsuit. The city sued Fulton County, challenging a 1979 Constitutional Amendment creating the Fulton County Industrial District, WABE reported. The question concerned whether the amendment prevented annexation of the area.

“The city argued that the legislation was invalid, and a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the city. Fulton County then appealed to the state Supreme Court,” WABE reported.

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Annexation/ Beltline/ Transit

Departing Emory VP will head up university annexation effort, says CDC and CHOA on board

Dan Whisenhunt 09/21/2016

Michael Mandl spoke to the Druid Hills Civic Association on Sept. 21. Photo by Dan Whisenhunt

Emory’s plans to annex into the city of Atlanta are being spearheaded by a departing employee who has started his own company.

Michael Mandl, who is now head of Mandl & Co., spoke to the Druid Hills Civic Association on Sept. 21 and discussed the annexation effort. His new company has a contract through the university, according to the Emory Wheel student newspaper. Mandl has spent the last 13 years as Emory’s executive vice president for finance and administration. He formed the company with another departing Emory employee, Jack Tillman, the newspaper reported. Tillman has served as Emory’s associate vice president for corporate development.

During the course of the Sept. 21 meeting Mandl revealed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta are also interested in annexing into the city.

“Children’s Healthcare and CDC have individually said this is what they want to do, so the three of us are coordinating and working together,” he told the Civic Association.

Mandl told the Civic Association that Emory’s intent is to pursue annexation in an “open, participatory way.”

When Atlanta Loop attempted to interview Mandl after the meeting, he declined to comment and referred all questions to Emory’s public relations department.

In addition to confirming CHOA and CDC’s involvement with the project, Mandl confirmed one of Emory’s interests is participating in the Clifton Corridor light rail project. There’s a half-penny sales tax on the ballot this November to expand MARTA in Atlanta. The Clifton corridor would provide a transit pipeline to Emory’s campus. The corridor would link MARTA’s Lindbergh and Avondale transit stations.

“That was a factor in our positioning of that. Coinciding with MARTA leadership’s interest and the city’s interest in [extending] the Lindbergh route, it made sense to align our interests on that front,” he said.

Mandl also said there’s a long-term interest in joining Atlanta. He noted that as annexation and cityhood discussions bubbled up in DeKalb County a couple of years ago, Emory remained officially neutral about joining a new or existing city.

“Time passed and as we began to think about Emory’s long-term future in the context of Metro Atlanta, what Atlanta is trying to become is a global city,” he said. “What Emory aspires to be is a global institution. We thought it was wise to revisit our decision and see if anything changed.”

He said Emory believes its success is tied with the success of Atlanta. “The more seamless the metro area is, the better,” Mandl said.

Mandl also made it clear Emory isn’t trying to push other neighborhoods to annex into Atlanta. There’s concern that other neighborhoods like Druid Hills would feel pressure to petition to join Atlanta as well instead of being in an isolated patch of unincorporated DeKalb County.

One of the residents at the meeting asked if the University would use its clout to “help us equalize the senior tax exemption between unincorporated DeKalb and the city of Atlanta.” That has been a major sticking point in previous discussions about the neighborhood joining Atlanta.

“It’s probably not something we would be excited, interested and energetic about participating in,” Mandl replied. “I’m not clear that should be our role, is the simple answer.”

State Sen. Elena Parent also attended the meeting and asked what Mandl and Emory would do to avoid alienating DeKalb County. She said the annexation could make building the Clifton Corridor more difficult if DeKalb County declines to cooperate. She said the half-penny tax won’t be enough to build the full line.

“What I’m nervous about is that Emory’s now losing leverage with DeKalb County,” she said.

She asked what Emory would do to “help us get DeKalb County to come to the table.”

“We can’t decide for some commissioners in DeKalb what their attitude toward Emory is going to be,” Mandl said.

He added that Emory would still be in DeKalb County if the annexation is approved.

“We’re not leaving DeKalb County,” Mandl said. “We still have significant employment of people in DeKalb. Our campus is in DeKalb County.”

Mandl said the university is currently in the “diligence phase with the city,” exploring the potential consequences of moving into the city of Atlanta. He didn’t have a specific timeline for the annexation.

“But if things go well and there aren’t any big obstacles it could happen as early as December and as late as sometime next year,” he said.

Annexation/ Beltline

DeKalb County leaders discuss possibility of Emory annexation ‘domino effect’

Dan Whisenhunt 08/22/2016

DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader discusses a map that shows all of Emory University's parcels near the city of Atlanta. Photo by Dan Whisenhunt — DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader discusses a map that shows all of Emory University’s parcels near the city of Atlanta. Photo by Dan Whisenhunt

Emory University’s announcement that it would pursue annexation into Atlanta caught many by surprise, and it could inspire neighboring residents to ask to move into the city as well.

On Monday, Aug. 22, DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader held a meeting about Emory’s annexation proposal at the Central DeKalb Senior Center, drawing a large crowd and several members of the news media. The university did not have a representative speak at the meeting.

There were many questions, including what impact this annexation would have on surrounding neighborhoods. Emory has deferred to individual neighborhoods on those decisions, though a map shows these neighborhoods may feel pressure to petition the city as well.

Emory has said its primary interest is having an Atlanta address. What it hasn’t said publicly, and what may be the more significant driver of this is effort, is what having an Atlanta address will do for the university. There’s a half-penny sales tax on the ballot this November to expand MARTA in Atlanta. One of the possible projects would be the Clifton Corridor light rail project, providing a transit pipeline to Emory’s campus.

Emory hasn’t submitted a petition yet, but people in the room said their connections at Emory communicated that the petition could be submitted by the end of the year.

Atlanta City Councilmember Alex Wan attended the meeting. He doesn’t know of Emory’s specific plans or timeline, but said getting the annexation done with by the end of the year would provide an advantage in terms of funding the light rail project. He said if the referendum passes in November, the city would negotiate a memorandum of understanding with MARTA in early 2017.

“Politically our focus should be on whatever is in the city of Atlanta limits,” Wan said, noting it would be hard to justify building the Clifton Corridor to voters if Emory were still in DeKalb County.

As far as a counter-offer from DeKalb County to keep Emory unincorporated, Rader said the county isn’t in a position to quickly act to counter whatever Atlanta may be offering, like approving its own sales tax referendum to pay for the corridor.

“To the extent that this appears to be immediate I don’t think the county was going to be able to act immediately,” Rader said.

Rader displayed a map that had Emory’s parcels shaded in yellow. Emory has said its annexation plans are only about Emory, but the map shows it could create pockets of unincorporated DeKalb County within Emory’s campus. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is smack in the middle of Emory’s properties, as well as some residential properties, like Harwood Condominiums.

Marshall Orson, a member of the DeKalb County School Board, said despite Emory’s claims that its annexation won’t affect DeKalb County Schools, he said there are some taxable properties on Emory’s campus. Most of the university’s property is tax exempt, however.

“The larger issue here for us is that if Emory were successful in this effort, you’d be essentially cutting off two parts of Druid Hills from each other,” Orson said. “That is going to create an enormous amount of pressure on people to look about changing jurisdictions. As a school district, I think we’re quite vulnerable to this pressure.”

Rader said his primary concerns about annexation are the zoning jurisdiction for the property, which would be different than the neighborhoods surrounding Emory if the annexation is approved, and fire protection. The county fire department has a station that serves Emory University.

Emory is pursuing annexation via the petition method and will most likely use the 100 percent method, meaning it won’t require approval by voters. It’s still unknown if the university has enough contiguous property to the city of Atlanta to annex via this method, but the assumption is Emory would be able to annex if adjacent property owners were also willing to sign the petition. The main portion closest to the Atlanta city limits is along Briarcliff Road, according to a parcel map Rader provided.

In an earlier statement provided to Decaturish, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed signaled the annexation plan could encompass more than Emory and include the CDC.

Many questions about Emory’s push to annex remain unanswered. It’s not clear who at the university is making this push. The university recently named a new president, but Emory’s potential annexation into Atlanta has been discussed for years. So too has the Clifton Corridor project, state Sen. Elena Parent noted.

“I was briefed by MARTA on the Clifton line last week what I can’t figure out is all of this is still years away,” Parent said. “There’s no decision what is going to happen. There’s no decision on a total funding mechanism.”

The “why now?” questions will have to wait. Emory appears to be moving quickly. Rader said the purpose of his meeting was to get a sense of how the community feels about annexation so the county can decide how it will respond.

“Our ability to challenge annexation is narrowly constrained and that is a topic for another day,” Rader said. “What we’re most interested in is your information and your input on what the county might do in order to preserve your interest.”

Annexation/ Beltline/ Business

Emory pursuing annexation into the city of Atlanta

Dan Whisenhunt 08/19/2016

Main Quad on Emory University’s primary Druid Hills Campus, including the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the right. Photo obtained via Wikimedia Commons

This story has been updated.

Atlanta Loop has confirmed that Emory University is officially pursuing annexation into the city of Atlanta.

“We’re looking at annexation,” a spokesperson for the University said. The spokesperson also confirmed that the university is pursuing annexation via the petition method, which means it will not require an act of the Legislature or approval by voters in a referendum.

In an official statement released on Aug. 19, the university said, “Emory University, like neighboring communities, has been considering and evaluating annexation options for several years. Currently, Emory is beginning the process to annex its campus into the City of Atlanta.”

The university said its annexation plans won’t affect schools in the DeKalb County School district, something that was a possibility with prior plans pursued by residents of the neighborhoods around Emory. The previous Atlanta annexation proposal, proposed by Together in Atlanta, suggested annexing Briar Vista and Fernbank Elementary Schools, as well as Druid Hills High, into the city.

“Annexation of Emory into the City of Atlanta will not affect school districts, since neighboring communities like Druid Hills will still be self-determining regarding annexation,” the university said.

Emory says it plans to join Atlanta fit with how the university has always marketed itself.

“Emory’s annexation into the city of Atlanta has always been viewed as one of the most viable, long-term options and one that provides consistency and alignment relative to the University’s marketing and branding initiatives,” the university said. “Emory already promotes its location as Atlanta, is known internationally as being located in Atlanta, routinely recruits faculty and students to Atlanta, and has an Atlanta address and zip code.”

The statement adds, “The prestige of Emory as an international university and Atlanta as a global city are inextricably linked.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Kasim Reed said the door is open for any community that wants to join Atlanta. The spokesperson’s statement, which was emailed to Atlanta Loop, suggests the annexation effort will be larger than the university itself, and might include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Mayor Reed welcomes all communities who choose annexation into the City of Atlanta,” the spokesperson said. “If successful, the annexation of this vital corridor would present the rare opportunity to bring a world-class teaching and research institution, strong neighborhoods, hundreds of thriving commercial and industrial businesses and the leading national public health institute of the United States into the city of Atlanta.”

When Atlanta Loop asked for a clarification about the scope of the potential annexation being considered, the spokesperson said, “We’re not going to say anything beyond what’s in the statement.”

DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader distributed a letter regarding a meeting about the topic set for Monday, Aug. 22. Rader’s letter references another possible motive for Emory’s annexation push.

His letter says, in part, “There are indications (such as Atlanta’s inclusion of an Atlanta portion of Clifton Corridor Light Rail in the MARTA half penny referendum this November) that Emory might see annexation as advantageous.”

Here is the full letter:

Commissioner Rader would like to convene the leadership of unincorporated neighborhoods surrounding Emory University. While there is no privileged information to share, his interest is in education and feedback on the potential for Emory University to petition for the unilateral annexation of their DeKalb County properties into the City of Atlanta. They are entitled to do so under the “60% or 100% method” (with petitions bearing the signature of annexing properties) under existing state law, and there are indications (such as Atlanta’s inclusion of an Atlanta portion of Clifton Corridor Light Rail in the MARTA half penny referendum this November) that Emory might see annexation as advantageous.

Properties and neighborhoods adjacent to Emory would be eligible to join such a petition, but Emory could also move unilaterally, and neighborhoods need to contemplate that contingency.

The following neighborhoods are within this sphere of influence:

Victoria Estates Civic Association
Clairmont Heights
Druid Hills Civic Assn.
Emory Parc Manor
LaVista Hills
Mason Mill Civic Assn.
Merry Hills
North Druid Hills Residents Assn.
Woodland Hills

As a leader of your neighborhood civic association, please join Commissioner Rader for a meeting on Monday, August 22 (this coming Monday!) at 6:30pm at Central DeKalb Senior Center, 1346 McConnell Drive, Decatur, GA 30033.

Please plan to attend this meeting, and if you are unable to be present, please ask someone on your association board to attend in your place.