From A to Z – Atlanta Civic Circle

This article was originally published on The Cost of Living Project

Here’s how the city of Atlanta is trying to build (or preserve) 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030

When it comes to affordable housing, Atlanta seems to be moving backwards. According to a recent study commissioned by the Urban Land Institute of Atlanta, major metro counties (DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett) lost 130,000 units costing less than $1,000 per month over the past five years. .

About 40% of the Central region’s affordable housing is in the city of Atlanta, where Mayor Andre Dickens has promised to build or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030. How he plans to achieve this and is does this work?

Okay, first: where are we right now?

According to the city’s affordable housing tracker, developers have completed 4,522 affordable housing units since 2022. About 60% of them are for residents earning 60% of the area median income (in 2023, it was $55,140 for a family of three), and about 25 percent goes to residents who earn 80 percent of AMI ($73,520 for a family of three). With an additional 4,972 units in the works, Atlanta is on track to produce 9,494 units of the promised 20,000.

We’re almost halfway there. How does the City encourage developers to build more?

One approach is inclusionary zoning, which defines areas in which new apartment buildings must set aside affordable housing. The city has three inclusion zones: around the BeltLine, between Northside Drive and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, and near Westside Park. If a developer wants to build 10 or more units in one of these zones, they must set aside a certain percentage as affordable: 15% of new units must be priced for households earning 80% or less of AMI, or 10 for cent should be set for households earning 60 percent or less of AMI. In one of the inclusion zones, developers can set aside just 5 percent of new units and attach them to households earning 30 percent of AMI or less.

An open records request to the Department of Planning showed that, as of the end of last year, 29 developments built in these areas had produced 742 affordable homes. Nearly 70 percent of these units are for people earning 80 percent or less of the AMI. The rest is for people earning 60% or less of AMI.

Here are some European-style public housing projects underway in Atlanta:

1. In the city centerthe old fire station on 10th Street near Juniper will be demolished and rebuilt with apartments above, similar to projects undertaken in cities like Washington, D.C. and Chicago.

2. Several sites in Thomasville Heightswhich once housed the dilapidated Forest Cove Apartments, has been rezoned to mixed-income apartments.

3. Shooting club parka former clay pigeon shooting range near Westside Park, will become mixed-income housing that will preserve the surrounding forest and provide park space.

What are the limits of inclusionary zoning?

According to the Urban Institute, an urban policy think tank, IZ may be “best suited to providing affordable housing to moderate-income households,” such as those earning 80 to 120 percent of AMI, as opposed to those who earn less.

Housing aimed at families earning 50% or less of AMI would provide the greater affordability this city sorely needs, but that is unlikely to happen. William McFarland, a member of the BeltLine Affordable Housing Advisory Council and vice chair of the City of Atlanta Housing Commission, says the city simply lacks the political will to force developers to set aside housing for low-income people. . This is partly because policymakers fear that requiring more affordable prices (such as housing reserved for people earning 30 percent of AMI) could make developers hesitant to undertake projects in these areas.

Another problem is that IZ has an expiration date: The BeltLine ordinance states that these units must simply remain affordable for 20 years, after which the developer can convert them back into regular units. “How much of this housing will be affordable,” McFarland asked, once the required deadline has passed? “Very little.”

So, what long-term solutions are we implementing?

The Atlanta Urban Development Corporation is a new tool in Atlanta’s housing kit that takes public land and turns it into apartments. By renting most of the units at market rate, AUDC aims to generate enough revenue to subsidize the rest. Its goal is to keep one-fifth of housing affordable for people earning 50 percent of AMI. The AUDC will also provide a longer time horizon: it plans to keep housing affordable for at least half a century.

The mayor’s senior housing adviser, Josh Humphries, and others came up with the idea after observing what European cities like Amsterdam are doing. These cities have government agencies that work with private companies to build affordable housing on public land; however, rather than relying on public money, they generate enough revenue through market-rate units to stay afloat. The model is known as social housing.

There is some disagreement over how many units per subdivision should be affordable and what their price level should be. McFarland wants to see half of the units set aside, although Humphries believes a closer third would make more sense, citing the high proportion of market-rate units needed to make the entire development sustainable.

What can we do in the meantime?

Atlanta needs more “missing” housing, primarily small multifamily buildings like triplexes and fourplexes. One way to get more is, well, to allow it in the first place. Right now, this is mostly allowed in neighborhoods marked for much higher density, where developers think they might as well build taller. The City of Atlanta is currently updating its comprehensive development plan, known as Plan A. This is an opportunity for the City to refresh its outdated zoning rules, make room for missing middle housing and , overall, to make building codes more accessible and flexible. As part of its plan, the City could also rezone certain areas to allow for things like accessory dwelling units (i.e., in-law apartments, free-standing structures on more traditional single-family residential lots). This could pave the way for more housing and denser neighborhoods.

All of these tools together could help alleviate Atlanta’s housing crisis, McFarland says: “That’s when you get a housing delivery system that can produce truly affordable housing.” »