Gwinnett Daily Post

LILBURN - The nonprofit group trying to form Gwinnett's fourth community improvement district got things started in grand fashion Tuesday night.

It collected $305,000 in loans to get the effort under way.

The money came courtesy of supportive property owners in the proposed CID area and Lilburn's Downtown Development Authority.

"I'm giving this because I feel like I really count," said CPA Debra Haines of her $10,000 pledge.

She joined 11 others and the DDA who publicly voiced their support. Hundreds were in attendance.

Now it's time for the Lilburn Community Partnership to try to sign up the remainder of the approximately 437 commercial property owners in the proposed CID area, which would be directly adjacent to the Gwinnett Village CID zone.

LCP Executive Director Gerald McDowell said he believes the new CID could be formed by year's end.

"It's time to go to work now," McDowell said at the kickoff event's conclusion. "Now we'll be going to door to door of every commercial property owner in the proposed area."

That's 583 individual parcels with a value of $581 million.

What needs to happen for the CID to become a reality is the LCP needs to sign up 50 percent of those 437 commercial property owners plus one. In addition to that, those signed up need to constitute 75 percent of the total value. In this case, that's $436 million worth of commercial property, much of which is located along U.S. Highway 29.

McDowell said the main reason for trying to start another CID is to improve interparcel access after the proposed median goes in on 29.

He said so far they've got 60 owners on board whose property is valued at $42.3 million.

He also said they're proposing the CID tax to be an additional five mills, just like the other three CIDs. On a $1 million piece of property, that's $2,000 in additional tax per year for at least six years.

McDowell said so far he hasn't heard from one commercial property owner opposed to the idea because "they see the value in it."