BLAKELY, Ga. (WALB) - The city of Blakely is raising taxes for people who own blighted properties to quote, “fund the city’s efforts to extinguish blight in the city.”

According to city leaders, this is a project that will get some of the blighted properties that are scattered around the town cleaned up or sold, something that is not attractive to investments.

“Quality of life is one of those top five things that businesses do look for when they are looking at communities to relocate to or open up in,” said Susanne Reynolds, Director of Early County Development Authority.

During this week’s commission meeting, the city voted to charge property owners an increased ad valorem tax, on top of the current millage rate in the city, if their property is considered “blight.”

“It is something that will help encourage property owners to fix up those properties to encourage the investment that is so needed in SWGA,” Reynolds said.

The tax ordinance puts an increase on the property tax mill rate to hold people accountable — to encourage owners to fix their vacant properties, which are an asset to the community.

City leaders said this will provide residents in the city to have a better quality of life.

Residents across Blakely said the blight has become an eye sore across the city. They hope if the city can clean up the blight, it will create opportunities for better things.

“I do pass by a lot of abandoned homes that could be fixed up. Clean them up, Fix them up! And let somebody be able to stay in them,” resident Terry Alexander said. “These young kids are running around here, and they have nothing to do, no recreation. We need to bring something here that can capture their attention and bring them off the streets.”

Before the tax increase goes into effect, the city said it will have an inspection on the property to determine if the property is Uninhabitable, unsafe or abandoned structure.

“This will not affect somebody’s primary residence. This is something that will alleviate some of the code enforcement challenges. This is the thing that will encourage others to get on board to help us revitalize a community that is right on the tipping point of booming,” Reynolds said.

The city said the properties need to be remediated.

“We’ve seen how this blight tax does encourage investment and doing right by your community as a whole,” Reynolds said. “We want to work with people remediating these properties and then getting businesses in, creating jobs and having a stable workforce for our city.”

The Development Authority has incentives to help businesses. Renyolds said this will alleviate vacant properties, and there is remediation that comes along with it.

The following types of residential structures will see the increase:

• vacant
• properties used for purposes other than as a primary residence
• blighted commercial or industrial structures
• brownfields
• unlikely properties to be used on undeveloped land

The property tax for those that own blighted properties will see an increase go into effect in the 2026 fiscal year.

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