Within the past five years, eleven separate tax allocation districts (TADs) have been created in the metropolitan Atlanta region. Currently, policy-makers in the City of Atlanta are considering the use of TADs to finance the proposed "Beltline" project. While TADs are a powerful tool in a localities' economic development arsenal, these policies are not without cost and not without risk. The sudden surge in popularity of this economic development tool generally has not been accompanied by any systematic assessment or set of policies to guide their evaluation or their use. Thus, this report sets out to familiarize local policy makers with:* How TADs work;* The potential benefits of TADs;* The potential risks and costs associated with TADs and how these might be distributed across different stakeholder groups; and* Policies to help minimize costs and risks
