Ed Hall is one of the many participants of the Legacy Resident Retention Program (LRRP), a resource to help longtime homeowners living near the Atlanta BeltLine stay in their homes by covering the costs of property taxes through the 2030 tax year. As the program protects the most legacy homeowner residents of any program in Atlanta, many of the participants have been open about the amazing opportunity that this presents for them and their future.
Hall, who is a resident of the Beecher Donnelly Community, says this program is the “single most important public initiative in the history of Atlanta,” as it has a chance to improve your quality of life and the value of your property.
Hall spoke with rolling out about his experience in the LRRP and why people who are eligible should join.
When did you join the Legacy Resident Retention Program?
I’m going to ballpark it and say this is my third year of the program. I just remember it hit just in time because where I lived was ground zero for fake mortgages in the 2008 crash. That meant my neighborhood became a ghost town. All these people got pushed out and lost their homes. [There were] so many vacant places, and I was living between two vacant houses for years. That’s when the BeltLine came in, and this was the reason for the Legacy Resident Retention Program. They knew it would cause property values in proximity to the BeltLine to escalate, so they created this program. Somebody encouraged me to join, and I got in. For years, I was paying $25 a year in property taxes. I think that was the least I ever paid. It might have been one that was under $20, but we’re talking ridiculous property tax bills. Now, add some zeros there. I don’t think it’s $2,000, but it’s in that ballpark.
How important is home ownership?
It’s crucial. You have no control over what the owner of a home wants to charge to rent it to you and whether they want to continue renting it to you. They have the option to rent it to somebody else, sell it, or demolish it if they want to. Those are all your choices when you own, and again, the LRRP is keeping me in my house because that’s extra money [in addition] to my mortgage.
What does it take to be a legacy resident?
You have to have been in the neighborhood for X number of years before the current date and possibly before the start of the program. At this point, if you’ve been there for a long time and you’ve just never heard of the program, that’s when you want to investigate it. I don’t know that you could have moved into the neighborhood since the program started and be eligible for the program because it hadn’t been going that long.
