Are your deals in the proposed city of Greenhaven (SE DeKalb Co)?

Question

DeKalb County has been barraged with a number of new proposed cities, one of which is the (astonishingly boringly named) Greenhaven. This proposed city covers most of eastern & southern DeKalb County that's not already incorporated, would be the 2nd Largest city in Georgia!! (bigger than Columbus!!) and really doesn't make sense to me. I own three rentals in 30032, one of the included zip codes, and don't want my properties to be included in a gigantic new baby city. Cleaning up the county government is a much saner (if seriously challenging) way to go, in my opinion. If you feel the same way, you can sign a petition at change.org - I do not want my property address to be included in the proposed new city of Greenhaven.

Do you have strong opinions for or against this city movement? How do you think it will affect real estate investing in the area?

More info about the citihood craze and Greenhaven at

New cities - Greenhaven

DeKalb Residents Ready to Fight for New Cities

Do you have strong opinions for or against this city movement?  How do you think it will affect real estate investing in the area?

More info about the citihood craze and Greenhaven at

New cities - Greenhaven

DeKalb Residents Ready to Fight for New Cities

Anna Watkins · Answer

@Rick Baggenstoss  --  how about Watkinsville??  Wait, I think that one's taken . . .

According to what I've read, one of the goals of Greenhaven is to avoid the burden of DeKalb County's pension fund, which has fallen on South DeKalb since there've been so many citihood defections from North DeKalb and they apparently don't have to contribute to the county's pension.

Most of the reasoning is AGAINST the status quo in the county, and not TOWARD whatever would be gained by a new city.  As for funding -- will there be a Greenhaven Board of Education (with Decatur-level taxation)?  A Greenhaven Water District?  Fire Department? Whatever services will be provided will duplicate the (possibly shabby) services currently provided by the county, at a higher tax rate, with no guarantee that it'll be any better, more responsive, or less corrupt than what we've got now.  It's not going to be a small, manageable town like Pine Lake, or even Decatur.

Lynn Angus · Answer

@Anna Watkins We live in 30033 so will be potentially affected by LaVisa Hills. I'm not interested -- too much uncertainty and lack of transparency. Greenhaven isn't exactly the same, but the bottom line is, any city created within DeKalb County is still part of the county and will rely on and pay for county resources. Too convoluted, and it does nothing for fixing the problems in the county. 30033, 30032, and 30034 could be affected by various cityhood efforts.

Kevin Polite · Answer

@Jonathan Finucane Annexation became a toxic subject along with Cityhood this sessions and there were no annexation bills introduced or passed. I believe some individual streets may have annexed, but nothing large scale. With DeKalb state legislators all Democrats now I think that ship has sailed.

Jonathan Finucane · Answer

Is there any additional information or information or updates on east lake terrace being annexed by the COA?

Kevin Polite · Answer

This effort is still alive and is on the docket for sometime in the next Georgia legislature Jan-March. As an owner of rentals and investor in the proposed city I’m 100% against it. Most new cities in Metro Atlanta have been under 75,000. Greenhaven would have a population of 300,000. Kathryn Rice is the driving force behind this. She has run for DeKalb County Commissioner and lost and she was up for an appointment for the same position and rejected. Soon after she started her campaign for Greenhaven. All DeKalb County state legislators are against it so one year they got the rules changed and got a legislator from Columbus, 2 hours away. They have hired an expensive lobbyist, who is probably being paid for by Chm 2 Hill, a company that would make millions off of contracting this new city. They have run most new cities in Georgia for the first couple of years. I’m not thrilled with DeKalb government, but think Greenhaven would actually be much worse.

Check out Neighbors Against Greenhaven and Facebook Page Neighbors Against Greenhaven. Check out the videos from Imagine Greenhaven Videos from Imagine Greenhaven presentation.

If I thought it would increase values I’d be all over it, but the folks behind it, sadly, have no real vision, other than being power hungry. They have a slide in their presentation that shows one of their economic drivers features methane gas from the landfill. The economic viability study for Greenhaven was completed 4 years ago and hasn’t been updated. A large portion of Greenhaven’s Operating budget would come from franchisee fees from utilities. To be fair, I should mention I’m a member of N.A.G.

Noelle B. · Answer

@Anna Watkins Nothing is different - they are using the same bogus feasibility study that they introduced in 2015, despite the fact that there have been many annexations that have changed the tax base that the study was originally based on.  The Greenhaven folks are selling a pipe dream in hopes of creating jobs for their small clique.  My neighborhood, Gresham Park, has been trying to get them to remove us from the map since 2015, and we were told no.  The fact is that areas like ours are critical to making their silly plan work b/c of the burgeoning commercial development that has begun in our area (we are also 3 miles from EAV, did I already say that?).  The rest of unincorporated Dekalb is largely residential and lacks the commercial tax base necessary to support their ridiculous idea.  Even with cities like Sandy Springs and Brookhaven, at least there was an established commercial tax base that already existed to support incorporation.  Uni Dekalb does not have this.

Our strategy has always been inundating the legislators with emails and phone calls.  We also lobbied at the capitol in 2016.  We have word this year is a little different tho, b/c some of the legislators who are advocating for the bill to be pushed thru are hoping to benefit from consulting contracts that would result from creating the new city.  We were also told that many of the legislators aren't really concerned about how the residents feel unless they are constituents - so I urge you to reach out directly to your House and Senate Reps and let them know, and then get everyone you know to do the same.  We will also be lobbying at the capitol on crossover day (2/28), and there are other protests and Town Hall meetings that are being planned.  We have an official FB page called Neighbors Against Greenhaven - definitely join up there to get the latest updates.  We also have yard signs and buttons, etc.  There is a new 2018 petition (not sure what the rules are for BP so if you would like, I can DM you the links to everything).

I believe parts of East Lake were annexed (specifically the golf course and areas nearest to it).  For 30316, we have started a new petition to our Senate Rep Gail Davenport to let her know that we are in favor of annexation into COA.  It might be worth it to do the same for your area?  I have had to resort to taping flyers to mailboxes to get the word out....

Anna Watkins · Answer

@Noelle B. -- besides signing the Change.org petition, what other things can landlords do to defeat the Greenhaven proposal?  As far as I can tell, nothing is different from 2 years ago when I first posted against it.  I just haven't heard that anything in a city of Greenhaven will make life better for my tenants in Belvedere Park (and I'm hoping for the East Lake Terrace house to be annexed by COA eventually. What happened to that proposal??)

Rick Baggenstoss · Answer

@Anna Watkins   Belvedere Park, the city?

Anna Watkins · Answer

I just re-read my post, and realized the crucial keyword didn't get mentioned once!  Here it is -- Decatur, Georgia!

Are your deals in the proposed city of Greenhaven (SE DeKalb Co)?

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