The fear factor that cityhood proponents are banking on is that Norcross (and Duluth and Berkeley Lake) all border areas generally considered Peachtree Corners and all have higher tax rates than the proposed city of PC. Norcross in particular, has a tax rate north of 6%, and has made overtures to annex Tech Park, but they have made no such overtures to any residential areas. Berkeley Lake has not changed its borders since it incorporated in 1956, but in response to the threat of Peachtree Corners becoming a city and 'annexing' all the remaining land in SW Gwinnett, Berkeley Lake has recently offered to annex an office park and a bank along Peachtree Industrial near South Berkeley Lake Road. Initially the YES crowd was trying to claim that Berkeley Lake would annex more land to help pay for the pending repairs to the dam. A few weeks ago it was announced that FEMA and GEMA would pay for the repairs out of disaster relief funds. You may recall the dam was damaged by the heavy rain fall we had in September '09 that caused flooding in the Atlanta area. With that financial help, Berkeley Lake was relieved of the need to find $5 million to fix the dam, eliminating the threat of annexation. Duluth recently announced plans to annex part of an industrial park called Blue Ridge. The complex straddled the city's border, and the owners wanted to offer all their tenants the same level of police protection so they petitioned Duluth to annex the remainder of the park. Beyond that, Duluth has not made any efforts to annex any Peachtree Corners residential areas. I can find nothing to fear here.
Posted by Bob
