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Report of Legal Panel December 9 1 1968 In brief, the achievements and activities of the Legal Panel in the year to date have been as follows: (1) Advocacy, drafting, and passage by the Atlanta School Board of a local constitutional amendment to allow the City of Atlanta , through its local School Board, to lease school buildings for a term longer than that of the City Councila The research on this project was done by Freeman Hutton and the Chairman of this Committee, and was presented by the Chairman to the School Board on June 28, 19680 The School Board passed the concept of leasing school buildings from private developers for a long-term in principal, and directed Mro A. C. Latimore, the school board attorney, in conjunction with the Legal Panel to draft the specific local constitutional amendmento The advantage of this local constitutional amendment would be that school facilities could be provided in a low-cost housing project in the form of rental payments over a term of years, thus alleviating the need of the School Board to construct a school f acility at high initial costs, and thus providing the project with necessary community facilitieso The most oft-used excuse in opposition to zoning property for low-cost housing is that no school facilities would be available; an objection which would become moot after passage of the constitutional amendment, in that the School Board would lease with litt l e dimi nution in its bonds' credit . Upon compl et i on of the draft i ng, the amendment will t hen be s ubmitted to the School Board sometime in early 1969, for formal appr oval so t ha t it can be readied for the 1970 Legislatur e a nd subs equent referendumo As a practica l ma tter, the leasing arrangements in Urban areas wil l probabl y be r equ i r e d to conta in an option to purchase vested in the School Board , to c i rcumvent HUD requirements, in that City credi t agains t Federal Funds could only be allowed in structures which were a public faci l i t y ; a ccording t o Mr. Neil Zittrauer, of t he Departme nt of Housing and Ur b a n Developme nt , Renew~l Assistance Administration a · (2) The Legal Panel, through its Chairman, drafted the Packa ge Zoning Proposal, presented to the Board of Aldermen on August 2 , 1 9 6 8, a nd assis ted in the publ i c i ty surrounding the pres e nt a tion of s aid proposal on August 2, 19680 (3 ) The Legal Panel, through its Chair ma n, ser ved on a n Ad Hoc Committee, r ev i ewing the total pur poses of the Committeea This Ad Hoc Committee reviewed a report of Colone l Jones, da t e d February 7, 1968, and made its comments to t he full Housing Resources Committeeo (4) Mro Freeman Hutton delivered a report on the Housing and Urban Development Ac t of 1968a At the conclusion of the report , Mro Hutton was charged with the responsil:ility of working with Mro Bill Gates to compile a detailed analysis of the Act and its affect �2 on Housing Resources Committee activitieso The Legal Panel is presently working on Housing Code - enforcement, inability of certain slum dwellers to obtain building permits in nonconforming areas of the City, as well as its continued analysis of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, and continued participation in the .School Board amendment involving leasingo Archer D. Smith, III Chairman, Legal Panel �