Gwinnett’s New Blight Tax Could Make Neglected Properties Much More Expensive to Hold

Gwinnett County now has a new financial tool aimed at owners who leave unsafe or deteriorating properties unresolved: multiply part of their property-tax rate sevenfold.

The county’s Community Redevelopment Tax Incentive Program took effect Sept. 1. Properties formally designated as blighted can have the county General Fund millage rate multiplied by seven until the problems are corrected or the property is redeveloped.

That does not mean the owner’s entire property-tax bill becomes seven times larger. The penalty applies to the county’s General Fund portion. School taxes and the other portions of the bill are not multiplied.

What seven times the rate actually means

Gwinnett’s 2026 General Fund rate is 6.95 mills. Under the new program, a designated property would effectively face a 48.65-mill General Fund rate.

Georgia generally taxes property using an assessed value equal to 40% of fair market value.

Consider a commercial property valued at $1 million, with no applicable exemptions. Its assessed value would be $400,000.

At the normal 6.95-mill General Fund rate, that portion of the tax would be about $2,780 a year.

At seven times the rate, it would become about $19,460, an increase of roughly $16,680 a year.

For a $5 million property, the same calculation would push the General Fund portion from about $13,900 to $97,300.

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An old building is not automatically “blighted”

The ordinance is not simply a tax on dated shopping centers or buildings with empty storefronts.

Gwinnett’s Planning and Development Department must inspect a property and determine that it threatens public health or safety while meeting at least two qualifying conditions. Those can include an unsafe, abandoned or uninhabitable structure; inadequate sanitation or stormwater provisions; unsafe access; significant environmental contamination; repeated illegal activity; or unresolved code violations.

Property owners can appeal a blight designation to the county’s Board of Construction Adjustments and Appeals.

Occupied residential properties are excluded from the program.

There is also a substantial incentive to fix the property

The ordinance comes with a carrot as well as a penalty.

After qualifying remediation or redevelopment, the General Fund millage rate can be cut 50% for three years. An owner also can avoid both the higher tax and the later discount by obtaining county approval for a remediation or redevelopment plan and staying in compliance with it.

On that hypothetical $1 million property, the reduced General Fund rate would bring that portion of the annual bill to roughly $1,390 during the three-year incentive period.

Could this reach Duluth, Suwanee or Peachtree Corners?

That is where the new policy becomes particularly interesting for North Gwinnett.

Gwinnett contains older commercial corridors alongside rapidly redeveloping areas, including the broader Gwinnett Place area near Duluth. County officials specifically said the program is intended in part to help revitalize aging commercial corridors.

But the county has not publicly identified individual properties as the first targets in its announcement, so it would be premature to label any aging shopping center or vacant building as subject to the new tax.

There is another important geographic distinction. Gwinnett County Code Enforcement says its regular enforcement jurisdiction covers unincorporated Gwinnett County, not properties inside municipal city limits. That means a property with a Duluth or Suwanee mailing address is not necessarily inside that city; many such addresses are in unincorporated Gwinnett.

For residents watching an empty shopping center or long-neglected commercial building nearby, the important question is therefore not simply whether it looks rundown. The property must go through the county’s formal inspection and designation process before the sevenfold General Fund tax rate can apply.

For Gwinnett, the first properties placed into that process will offer the clearest indication of where the county intends to use its new redevelopment pressure.