City of South Fulton supporters on Thursday celebrated its victory in a decade-long battle to annex the lucrative Fulton Industrial Boulevard area.
Officials gathered outside city hall, which is now within the city limits thanks to HB 445.
“Finally,” said South Fulton Mayor Bill Edwards, “we’re home.”
The bill adds to South Fulton most of the previously unincorporated stretch of road, filled with warehouse and shipping hubs along with the few hundred people who live in motels.
Officials standing in the city hall parking lot highlighted that businesses along the roughly 7-mile span of road employ 28,000 people. Tractor-trailers whizzed by behind them.
Ben Brasch
Ben Brasch
As the city continues to gear for servicing the area, the sheriff’s office will temporarily help police the district, which has plenty of crime including 11 homicides in the last three years, according to South Fulton Police Chief Keith Meadows.
When asked why the city would want an industrial area with blight issues, Edwards said: “I’m not going to lie, the money looks good.”
He said he expects the land to bring roughly $9 million of additional tax revenue every year into the nascent city.
City officials wanted the land when South Fulton incorporated in 2017, and so did the city of Atlanta. But there was a 1979 amendment to the state constitution prohibiting any city from annexing the district.
Multiple failed bills and a veto from then-Gov. Nathan Deal prevented South Fulton from getting the land. Legal efforts involving South Fulton and Atlanta to get the district went all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed the annexation bill on Monday, his final day to take action on legislation.
Rep. Debra Bazemore, a Riverdale Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said she “screamed to the top of my lungs” when she got the text from Kemp’s deputy chief of staff saying it was official.
Bazemore said it was a long process that still took negotiating with those who represent Atlanta.
The plan is for the area of Fulton Industrial north of I-20 to join the city of Atlanta. Rep. Roger Bruce, a South Fulton Democrat, said Thursday he plans to sponsor legislation to accomplish that next session.
That land contains the money-making area around the Fulton County Executive Airport at Brown Field that includes restaurants and distribution companies.
That would also mean the airport would stand as the only remaining unincorporated part of Fulton County, which is a far cry from the early 2000s — before Sandy Springs spurred the cityhood movement that left all but the few miles of Fulton Industrial under the control of a municipality.
In attendance Thursday was Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts who, along with Edwards, held up unlit cigars for the audience to see.
“This is for tonight,” Pitts said with a grin.
Edwards responded: “This is the first one he ever bought me.”
Credit: WSBTV Videos
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