Home & Real Estate Focus on Affordable Housing

Westside Park building moratorium puts spotlight on rapid gentrification

By Collin Kelley Westside.

West Midtown. Upper Westside. West End. Westview. The influx of new development in these neighborhoods is cause for excitement, but city officials are worried that gentrification will push longtime and low-income residents out of their homes and widen the gulf of affordable housing.

The concern prompted Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to pump the brakes on the rapidly developing area around Westside Park by placing a 180-day moratorium on new building permits.

The mayor issued an executive order on Feb. 17 directing the Office of Buildings and the Office of Zoning and Development to “refuse to accept new applications for rezonings, building permits for new construction, land disturbance permits, special use permits, special administrative permits, subdivisions, replattings, and lot consolidations for non-public projects.”

The moratorium applies to the neighborhoods surrounding Westside Park – including Grove Park, Rockdale and Knight Park/ Howell Station – in an effort to address rapid gentrification occurring in the area. The Atlanta City Council endorsed the moratorium at its regular meeting the same day.

“A key pillar to the administration’s comprehensive affordable housing plan is ensuring long-term residents are not priced out of the neighborhoods they have built,” Bottoms said in a media statement.

“We know that every permit triggers some form of change in these communities, and it is of the utmost importance that development is carried out in a deliberate, fair and thoughtful manner.”

The moratorium will expire in 180 days and will not affect existing building permits or building permits required for emergency work.

During the moratorium, the mayor’s office said it will engage in a “robust community planning effort,” which will include all relevant city departments and agencies.

Formerly the Bellwood Quarry, Westside Park sits along the Atlanta BeltLine and will become the city’s largest park and include a massive backup reservoir in the old quarry pit.

The creation of the Atlanta BeltLine’s Westside Trail and its accompanying development

For those ready for what’s next

has already caused a spike in home prices, rent and property taxes. While new apartments and homes are offering more choice on the Westside, the majority of the developments have a common descriptor: luxury. Rent Jungle reports that the average rent for an apartment in Atlanta was $1,599 in January, while home prices start at $600,000 in the new West Town development in West Midtown, for example.

Of course, Westside isn’t the only neighborhood facing gentrification and an affordable housing crisis. City leaders have been wrestling with increasing rents and home prices for years as neighborhoods like Old Fourth Ward (which has some of the city’s most expensive rents and a new condo development, Ten Park East, announced prices at $2.1 million and up), Reynoldstown (the new Heritage on Memorial townhomes start in the $800s), and Summerhill become “hot” locations.

Home and rent prices along the BeltLine have come under strong criticism, which BeltLine CEO Clyde Higgs acknowledged during the Feb. 5 Fulton County Commission meeting.

“We’re making it a high priority,” Higgs said. “We added about $12 million for our affordable housing line so we could advance our housing goal, which is 5,600 units by the end of 2030, and our goal is about 250 units this year and next year. We actually exceeded those numbers in 2019. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

The Atlanta City Council took more direct action at its February meeting, adopting an ordinance prohibiting landlords from refusing to rent or sell a home based on the applicant’s source of income, including the use of government housing vouchers.

Councilmember Antonio Brown, the bill’s sponsor, believes that the legislation is first and foremost about equity.

“Our laws already protect you from housing discrimination based on things like age, gender, and race,” Brown said. “However, using a voucher as your source of income makes you just as much a potential victim of this kind of discriminatory behavior. I think it’s critical that we codify that there’s no place for that in Atlanta.”

Councilmember Amir Farokhi, who co-sponsored the legislation, feels the measure is an important step forward in addressing the city’s affordable housing concerns.

“This is an important, tangible step forward on equitable housing access. Removing barriers to access for would-be renters and buyers allows our neighborhoods to be economically diverse, which is a foundation for economic mobility. Everyone deserves to share in the benefits of our city’s growth,” Farokhi said.

The council also approved an ordinance authorizing the Department of City Planning to establish a building permit fee waiver program available to private sector entities pursuing an affordable housing development or development that includes a defined number of units set aside as affordable housing.

Council also passed an ordinance authorizing the city and Invest Atlanta to prioritize funding received via Community Development Block Grants and other sources for development projects that include affordable housing for the next five years.

On the same day Bottoms issued the executive order on Westside Park, she also issued an administrative order calling for the allocation of $100 million in bonds for affordable housing.

Over the last two years, the city has invested nearly $252 million in public funds to help build and preserve affordable homes and provide housing assistance for more than 3,500 individuals and families. Bottoms said the new funds will allow the city to do even more.

Last summer, the city released its Housing Affordability Action Plan, which includes strategies to achieve 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2026. The goal is to invest $1 billion from public, private, and philanthropic sources to create new or preserve existing affordable housing opportunities – $500 million in public resources and $500 million from community and philanthropic partners.

Bottoms directed Chief Financial Officer Roosevelt Council to conduct a financial evaluation to identify general fund resources to support the bond issuance, resulting in new funds for affordable housing.

“Our teachers, nurses, firefighters and other residents should be able to live in Atlanta without going broke,” Bottoms said. “The issuance of these Housing Opportunity Bonds will help make that possibility a reality.”