On Nov. 12 Atlanta Beltline officials will break ground on the long-awaited Westside Trail, and a new chapter in southwest Atlanta begins. It's a future some locals are viewing in frontier boom-town terms, filled with a mix of exciting opportunity and concerns about potential displacement. Some residents are concerned about losing some neighborhoods' history and that communities could be hurt by real estate speculators snatching up affordable homes. That could mean property values rise so high that some residents, including renters and seniors, get displaced. NPU K officials have been trying to help some seniors find property tax relief. More needs to be done, says Dan Immergluck, a Georgia Tech planning professor whose research found that the announcement of the Beltline a decade ago spurred rising property values and taxes and displacement. He told Creative Loafing that a property tax refund program — known in some places as a "circuit breaker" — should be instituted to protect current homeowners from potential steep rises in property taxes.
