Democrat candidate for Georgia governor Keisha Lance Bottoms ‘absolutely loves’ an idea that would make it harder for Georgia families to buy homes, according to audio obtained by Breitbart News. At a campaign event in Macon, Georgia, on May 12, she expressed support for additional fees on new home purchases.
In the audio, a speaker said he had an environmental question and recited concerns over land and data centers.
In her response, Bottoms talked about Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
“For example, in Martha’s Vineyard when someone buys a home, they put money into what’s called a land bank. A percentage of whatever they buy they put into a land bank… There’s a model that can be replicated,” she said.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank was created in the 1980s in the ritzy enclave for purposes of conservation, an idea Bottoms apparently wants to take to working Georgia families. The median home price in Georgia has increased by 101.4 percent over the past 10 years.
The land bank is funded by charging a two-percent fee paid by the buyer of any property on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and is required to be paid in order to obtain the deed.
Bottoms said, “I absolutely love that idea.”
While serving as mayor of Atlanta, Bottoms launched an affordable housing campaign that pledged to spend over $1 billion and was criticized by Georgia State University professor of urban studies Dan Immergluck as “too vague.”
She was also criticized in 2020 by Alison Johnson, the executive director of Housing Justice League, over city-supported projects that displaced black residents and left “low-income and working-class people stuck in neglected, unhealthy housing.”
“Let the record show. Our city has been gentrified. Our black folks have been displaced out of our communities,” Johnson added.
Bottoms faces Republican businessman Rick Jackson to succeed outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp in November.
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