Georgia Department of Community Affairs recently released a memo outlining amendments that the Georgia General Assembly made governing how annexation (and deannexation) of territory is documented and recorded with the State. Effective July 1, 2022, HB1385 requires municipalities that have (de)annexed territory to file a report identifying any property annexed with the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), the Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office of the General Assembly, and the appropriate county-level government. The requirement to file with the Reapportionment office is new. As a component of this report, the municipality must include a digital shapefile (i.e., a GIS file) of the (de)annexed area. This is also a new requirement.
In order to assist local governments in meeting the requirement to provide a GIS file when (de)annexing territory, the law now also requires Georgia’s regional commissions to assist any municipality in producing the required file if the local government, itself, lacks the ability to complete that task on its own.
Please be aware that, as a result of this new legislation, statute now provides that no annexed area shall be added to the state map until such report has been properly submitted to the Department of Community Affairs and the Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office of the General Assembly.
To file your annexation report with DCA, you must use our web-based, password-protected reporting system (http://apps.dca.ga.gov/annexations/). Note that faxed and mailed (de)annexation reports are no longer being accepted. Failure to properly report annexations and deannexations will prevent the territory from being moved in both state and federal records—this could impact collection and distribution of tax dollars, delineation of electoral districts, legal authorization to conduct local government services in the affected territory, and a variety of other important functions.
Any local government that has attempted to file an annexation report since July 1, 2022 without the required GIS file, notice to the Reapportionment Office, and/or other necessary materials should understand that no such filing is considered complete and valid until these requirements have been met. If you need assistance, please reach out via the email addresses below or directly to your RC.
For assistance filing annexation materials with DCA (including issues related to your password), please email GIS@DCA.GA.GOV.
For assistance filing annexation materials with the Reapportionment Office, please email ANNEXATIONS@LEGIS.GA.GOV.
For assistance producing the required GIS file(s), please reach out to your regional commission. If you are within the NEGRC region, email Mark Beatty, Director of Planning and Government Services, at mbeatty@negrc.org.
For more information on this topic, please visit DCA’s annexation webpage at: http://www.georgiaplanning.com/annex.htm.
