With a runup in home values sparking higher property taxes for many Georgia homeowners, there is a groundswell among state lawmakers in this election year to provide relief.
Georgia’s Senate Finance Committee plans a hearing on Monday on a bill limiting increases in a home’s value, as assessed for property tax purposes, to 3% per year. The limit would last as long as the owner maintained a homestead exemption. Voters would have to approve the plan in a November referendum.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington proposes doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption, a measure likely to cut tax bills by nearly $100 million statewide.
The right solution to this is relax building rules everywhere. Zoning should be harmful effects on neighbors only. Shade is not harmful (if you want a garden buy more land so it can’t be shaded by a sky scrapper) . Go a head and build a hog barn downtown if you want to - so long as you control the smell it is legal (there are other pollutants a hog farm can cause to also control). Building should generally be by right (I think it mostly is in Georgia already if you fit in the zoning rules, but those rules are too strict everywhere in the US)
A building is not historical just because it is old. That means kids should have to learn in school about the thing that happened there, and the building should regularly have tours for interested people.