TADs encourage development in blighted areas by freezing tax payments for a period of time. Instead of paying higher taxes when property values rise, developers use the money to pay down project costs. Cities, counties and school districts choose whether to participate in TADs. The tool has helped challenging projects such as Atlantic Station and was part of the financing plan for Atlanta’s Beltline of parks and transit. But in February, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the state’s constitution prohibited TADs from funneling school tax money to redevelopment. Tuesday’s ballot question asked voters to amend the constitution and again allow TADs to tap school money, which represented roughly half the tax subsidy TADs offered.

Kaid Benfield, calling the Beltline one of the country’s best smart growth projects, writes about the project, which had been set to use up to $1.7 billion in TAD funds over several years, and appears set to use the funds now again, with local re-approval:

The 6500-acre BeltLine TAD has received overwhelming support from the community and votes of approval by the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta Public School Board, and the Fulton County Commission.  The majority of the BeltLine TAD funds will be used to invest in land acquisition, multi-use trails, green space, transit, transportation improvements, affordable workforce housing, and school facilities.  Some BeltLine TAD funds will be used for developer infrastructure, primarily for environmental brownfield cleanup, or to jump-start development in underdeveloped areas.

With this barrier removed, the funding will now need to be re-approved by the Atlanta Schools and City Council.

Sometimes it’s hard to separate the identity of a San Francisco neighborhood from its park. After all, what would the Mission District be without Dolores Park, or North Beach without Washington Square? As San Francisco’s newest neighborhood, Mission Bay, continues to grow, it is also beginning to find its unique personality. Neighbors say an intricate part of that process has been the opening of new parks in the area – additions that come even as the city faces increasingly difficult financial times.

The 8 current and 41 acres of planned Mission Bay parks and surrounding neighborhood is a project of the San Francisco Redevelopment Authority. (Many such authorities around the country are building parks – stay tuned for an article from the Center for City Park Excellence next month.) The funding source in Mission Bay is tax increment financing, along with developer set aside requirements. (The authority will maintain the parks also.) Then there’s the concern worth mentioning, as the article points out, that building new parks is exciting, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t needs in the existing parks in the city. But overall, the message is that these new neigbhorhoods — the walkable and livable infill, or smart growth — must include parks if they are to have personality.