A city consultant could hold the key to making sense of a proposal to designate downtown Augusta as a “slum.”
The plan, developed by City Administrator Fred Russell and special city counsel Jim Plunkett, went over like a lead balloon when it appeared on a committee agenda. Commissioners and the public were surprised and disheartened by the designation, which most view as inaccurate given the increasing development downtown in recent years.
As commissioners grilled Russell about the plan at a recent meeting, in the audience was Matthew Kwatinetz, a consultant who came to Augusta with the development team for Starbucks’ soluble products plant.
After the meeting, Kwatinetz said the designation could prove to be a valuable tool for downtown, if handled properly.
So far, the move has been presented as simply a way to issue bonds at lower interest rates using Georgia’s Urban Redevelopment Law to remodel the Municipal Building.
Kwatinetz, who has consulted for Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s Augusta Regional Collaboration Project, said he’d worked with similar “but-for” designations elsewhere. Nearly all states have some form of law specifying that public money can be used in private development so long as the development wouldn’t take place “but for” the government investment, he said.
In Georgia, a government’s decision to designate an area as a “slum” affords it additional authority, including the power to use public funds to spur private development that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
via Designation could help downtown, consultant says | The Augusta Chronicle.
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