TAD for Dummies – Part 2: How TAD Amounts Are Determined — and Why Some Are Much Bigger Than Others

Part 2: How TAD Amounts Are Determined — and Why Some Are Much Bigger Than Others

A plain-English guide for Columbus, Georgia residents

Quick Recap from Part 1

Part 1 introduced the basic idea of how a TAD generates money: property values go up, the new tax revenue above the original baseline is called the Tax Increment, and that increment flows into a special fund used to pay off redevelopment bonds. Part 2 goes deeper — explaining how that number is actually calculated, what guardrails prevent the system from being abused, and why some TADs generate dramatically more money than others.

Question 1: How Is the Amount of a TAD Determined?

There are two distinct things people usually mean when they ask this question: how much money flows into the TAD fund each year, and how much a developer is allowed to request from it.

Part A: The Math — How Annual Revenue Is Calculated

The amount flowing into the TAD fund each year is determined by a simple formula set by Georgia’s Redevelopment Powers Law and verified annually by the State Department of Revenue:

Current Year Tax Revenue − Base Year Tax Revenue = Tax Allocation Increment

Here’s what that looks like with real numbers:

Stage	Property Value	Annual Tax Revenue
Before the TAD (base year)	$1 million (vacant lot)	$40,000 → this is the Base
After development	$50 million (new mixed-use center)	$2,000,000 per year
The Increment (what goes into the TAD fund)	$2M − $40K	$1,960,000 per year

The city and school system keep their original $40,000 — always. The other $1,960,000 goes into the TAD fund, earmarked for redevelopment costs. Nobody loses anything they already had.

Part B: The Rules — How Much Can a Developer Actually Get?

TAD money isn’t handed out freely. The Columbus Consolidated Government has strict rules that prevent developers from gaming the system or asking for more than the public interest warrants. Here are the four main guardrails:

The Rule	What It Means in Plain English
The 15% Cap	TAD assistance cannot exceed 15% of the total project cost. A $100 million development can receive at most $15 million in TAD funds. The city can waive this cap only for massive, standalone infrastructure projects with extraordinary public benefit.
The “But For” Test	Developers must prove — with actual financial audits — that “but for” the TAD money, the project simply couldn’t happen. If a developer could make money without the TAD, they don’t qualify. The hurdle has to be real: toxic cleanup, buried utility lines, a parking deck the market won’t pay for, etc.
Developer Skin in the Game	The developer must commit their own money — cash or equity — equal to at least 15% of the total project cost. The city won’t backstop a developer who has nothing at risk.
The 1.20x Safety Margin	When the city issues bonds to fund a project, the developer’s projected annual tax increment must be at least 1.20 times the annual bond payment. If the bond costs $1 million a year to service, the projected new tax revenue must be at least $1.2 million. This 20% cushion protects the public from a situation where the TAD can’t cover its own debt.

Part C: Who Contributes to the Fund?

Your annual property tax bill isn’t one payment going to one place. It’s actually divided into slices, each going to a different taxing authority. In Columbus, the main slices are:

The City/County slice — Columbus Consolidated Government
The School slice — Muscogee County School District

For a TAD to reach its maximum funding potential, each taxing authority must sign an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) agreeing to contribute their slice of the new increment to the fund. When the Muscogee County School Board opts in, the total amount available grows substantially — and bonds can be paid off much faster.

💡 What happens if the TAD does better than expected?

If a TAD starts generating more money than the projections called for, Columbus policy requires that all the excess goes toward paying off the bonds early — not toward new spending. The faster the debt is retired, the sooner the full tax base is freed up for the city and schools.

Question 2: Why Are Some TADs So Much Larger Than Others?

The Uptown TAD has generated roughly $2.5 million in fund balances, while the 6th Avenue/Liberty District TAD sits at around $700,000. Both are real TADs operating in Columbus right now. So why the gap?

The short answer: a TAD only generates as much as the development inside it is worth. If a district attracts big, high-value commercial projects, the tax increment is enormous. If a district attracts smaller, community-focused projects, the increment is more modest. Three specific factors drive the difference:

Factor 1: The Scale and Density of Private Investment

TAD funds only grow when developers build things that dramatically raise property values. The type of project matters enormously.

Uptown TAD	Liberty District TAD
High-density commercial boom Uptown has seen a wave of major, tightly stacked developments: the multi-phase Riverfront Place project (over $250 million in total investment, including luxury apartments and the new Synovus corporate headquarters), boutique hotels, and mixed-use developments like Highside Market. Each one added millions in new taxable value all at once.	Community-focused, smaller scale The Liberty District TAD was created to preserve and revitalize a historically significant African American commercial and cultural corridor. Its projects — historic preservation, affordable housing, and smaller retail infill — are doing important community work, but they generate smaller, more gradual property value jumps than luxury towers and corporate campuses.

Uptown TAD

Liberty District TAD

High-density commercial boom
Uptown has seen a wave of major, tightly stacked developments: the multi-phase Riverfront Place project (over $250 million in total investment, including luxury apartments and the new Synovus corporate headquarters), boutique hotels, and mixed-use developments like Highside Market. Each one added millions in new taxable value all at once.

Community-focused, smaller scale
The Liberty District TAD was created to preserve and revitalize a historically significant African American commercial and cultural corridor. Its projects — historic preservation, affordable housing, and smaller retail infill — are doing important community work, but they generate smaller, more gradual property value jumps than luxury towers and corporate campuses.

Factor 2: Market Momentum — Was Private Investment Already Happening?

TADs don’t create demand out of thin air. They work best in areas where market interest already exists but is being blocked by a specific financial obstacle. Uptown and the Liberty District started from very different baselines.

Uptown TAD	Liberty District TAD
Already had momentum Uptown already had Columbus State University’s RiverPark Campus, a thriving dining scene, and major corporate anchors — including Synovus, which later moved its headquarters directly into the Riverfront Place development. Private developers were already lined up and eager to build. The TAD accelerated what the market was already trying to do.	Building from a harder start The Liberty District is doing the heavier, slower work of rebuilding a community that experienced decades of disinvestment. Attracting developers there requires more effort and the projects take longer to get underway. Less development means less new taxable value, which means a smaller annual increment — even though the TAD is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Uptown TAD

Liberty District TAD

Already had momentum
Uptown already had Columbus State University’s RiverPark Campus, a thriving dining scene, and major corporate anchors — including Synovus, which later moved its headquarters directly into the Riverfront Place development. Private developers were already lined up and eager to build. The TAD accelerated what the market was already trying to do.

Building from a harder start
The Liberty District is doing the heavier, slower work of rebuilding a community that experienced decades of disinvestment. Attracting developers there requires more effort and the projects take longer to get underway. Less development means less new taxable value, which means a smaller annual increment — even though the TAD is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Factor 3: Timing — How Long Has Development Been Happening?

Large developments don’t show up on the property tax rolls the moment a shovel hits the ground. There’s a lag — sometimes a year or more — before the tax assessor certifies the new value. So a district full of big projects that all opened recently might look modest on paper compared to one that’s been producing increment revenue for a decade.

In Uptown, large-scale projects have been opening continuously since the early 2000s, each adding to the cumulative fund. In the Liberty District, projects have been smaller and more staggered — so the “ramp-up” in certified property values is much slower.

The Bottom Line: Different Goals, Different Results

	Uptown TAD (~$2.5M)	Liberty District TAD (~$700K)
A Tale of Two TADs These two TADs aren’t competing with each other. They’re doing different things:
Primary goal	High-density commercial & residential growth	Historic preservation, affordable housing, community reinvestment
Type of projects	Luxury apartments, boutique hotels, corporate HQ, retail market	Affordable homes, historic building rehab, small retail infill
Property value jumps	Large and fast — millions at a time	Smaller and gradual — incremental gains
What success looks like	Rapid bond payoff, major tax base expansion	Community stabilization, preserved history, homes for real people

A larger TAD fund balance isn’t necessarily a better TAD. It just means different development happened inside it.