Older Atlanta homeowners may get tax relief

Proposal aimed at those 65 or older who’ve owned home at least 30 years, are current on property taxes.

In increasingly gentrified cities, residents are often at risk of losing their homes. In Atlanta, senior citizens who’ve lived in neighborhoods for decades are particularly at risk.

To mitigate this problem, the city is asking Atlanta Board of Education and the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to work with it to create a tax relief program that would help senior residents stay in their neighborhoods.

Gentrification occurs when new investments and other changes to communities lift property values but also lift property taxes and other costs to live there. The changes can force longtime residents out of neighborhoods.

Atlanta City Council passed a resolution Monday asking for

the tax relief program. The proposed program would be aimed at any residents 65 or older who have owned their property for at least 30 years and are current on their property taxes, according to the resolution.

The market value of the home must have tripled between the current and previous tax year for homeowners to be eligible. Details of how the program would help those who qualify must be worked out among the city, county and school officials.

The council’s move comes six months after a study indicated displacement of residents is high in major U.S. cities such as Atlanta. In that study, by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Atlanta ranked seventh for the highest number of displaced black residents. The request also comes two months after a federal study ranked Atlanta the fourth

fastest gentrifying U.S. city from 2000 to 2014.

A similar program has been created in Philadelphia called Longtime Owner Occupants Program, or LOOP. The program is looked at as a way to mitigate gentrification and avoid displacing older residents.

Invest Atlanta, the city’s development arm, already has a Heritage Owner-Occupied Rehab program that helps lower-income residents remain in their home by offering forgivable loans to make

improvements to their homes. Priority is given to residents 55 or older, veterans, disabled heads of households and those who have lived in their homes for at least 15 years.