DeKalb County property appraisers valued Carrie Henderson’s one-story, three-bedroom house at $32,000 last year.
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This year it was appraised at $82,500.
Now the 60-year-old Henderson worries about not being able to pay her property taxes — which she fears will more than double — and being forced out of her home.
“It will be very hard for me,” said Henderson, sitting on the front porch of a house she doesn’t want to sell because her mother lives across the street.
Similar stories are unfolding throughout Henderson’s Lynwood Park neighborhood in north DeKalb County. Believed to be the oldest African-American community in DeKalb, the area is experiencing an influx of new residents drawn to its location near the northern tip of the Atlanta city limits.
It’s an issue also playing out in several intown communities, such as Atlanta’s Kirkwood and East Atlanta, and Oakhurst in Decatur. Younger and often wealthier residents, weary of long commutes, move closer in, inevitably driving up housing prices and property taxes.
In Lynwood Park, modest homes like Henderson’s increasingly are dwarfed by new three-story houses priced in the $500,000 range.
Neighborhood residents say most of the older homes have risen in value from the $40,000 to $60,000 range to between $90,000 and $150,000.
Residents will begin receiving those higher tax bills later this year, once county commissioners approve new property tax rates on Tuesday.
Older Lynwood residents fear they’re being forced out, and they’re fighting back. A few weeks ago, several residents went to the county property appraiser’s office — armed with forms from about 120 homeowners — to appeal the initial assessments.
Community leaders say seniors make up about 85 percent of Lynwood Park’s homeowners, many of whom moved to the neighborhood years ago when sprawl forced them from other communities.
“We’ve been moved too many times, and we don’t want to move no more,” said Patricia Martin, 70, executive director of the Lynwood Park Community Development Corp., who has lived in the neighborhood since she was 7.
Now others are discovering the benefits of Lynwood Park, located close to several interstates and Perimeter Mall.
“We used to be the best-kept secret,” Martin said. “But not anymore.”
Martin has an idea to help longtime elderly residents. She wants a law that would allow residents older than 50 who have owned their home for more than 30 years to be exempt from paying property taxes.
If that is not feasible, Martin suggests that property taxes remain at the previous year’s rate for seniors. “They ought to get a break,” Martin said.
County officials are sympathetic. Rising property taxes for seniors was an issue mentioned at a recent meeting among elderly care providers to discuss ways to better serve DeKalb’s older residents.
“We know it’s an important issue for a lot of people, especially seniors on fixed incomes,” said Chris Morris, director of the county’s Human and Community Development Department.
DeKalb does allow limited property tax breaks for residents older than 62 with annual incomes less than $10,000. Some Lynwood Park residents have received those tax breaks, but they say it will have little impact because of the sharp rise in assessments. Other metro Atlanta communities also provide tax relief to senior homeowners.
Last fall, Henry County voters approved an increase in the homestead tax break that older homeowners receive on school property taxes. At age 70, paying school property taxes would be eliminated altogether.
Decatur allows elderly homeowners who fall behind on their taxes to pay in monthly increments. The city has another program allowing elderly homeowners to delay paying taxes on their house until they or their heirs sell it.
Lynwood Park’s history stretches back to the early 1930s, when the neighborhood was formed. Its name came from sandwiching together “Lynn,” the name of the man who sold homes to many of the families who still live in the area, and the “woods” that surround it.
It is still a heavily wooded area, with trees to give breathing space between homes. Children chase each other with water balloons on the grass outside the Lynwood Park community center.
Lynwood Park was home to maids and chauffeurs and butlers, according to longtime resident Cornelius Sawyer. Sawyer moved to the neighborhood from Bagley Park and founded St. Peter’s True Holiness Church, a tiny red-brick structure on Windsor Parkway, the road that separates Lynwood Park from the expensive homes of Brookhaven.
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Sawyer and his wife, Margaret, live in a ranch-style home on Antioch Drive with a long, winding marble staircase. Last year, their home was valued at $48,600. This year, it was appraised at $106,800.
Where would they go?
Across the street from their home, a new three-story house is being built with a garage. None of the other homes on Antioch Drive has a garage.
The Sawyers say they frequently get telephone calls from folks asking if they’re interested in selling. They’re not. “If we leave here, where are we going to go?” asked Sawyer, 84.
In 1995, worried about rising crime and homes falling into disrepair, Lynwood Park developed a revitalization plan. The Lynwood Park Community Project Inc., a nonprofit group, was created to market the neighborhood to low-income families who never have owned a home.
Since 1997, the organization, now called the Lynwood Park Community Development Corp., has sold 20 three-bedroom homes, mostly priced in the $100,000 range.