Atlanta Solutions For Affordable Housing

Sweeping Zoning Reform

Atlanta Georgia is bracing for massive growth and undergoing a sweeping reform of their housing regulations to address racial isolation, to invite inclusion and to address the affordable housing crisis, allowing more types of dwellings and ending exclusionary single-family zoning.

Radical changes to second unit regulations include allowing an ADU on a flag lot, corner lot, ADUs to be sold separately and allowing basement apartments, garage conversions and reducing minimum lot size requirements and getting rid of parking requirements.

Join A Neighborhood Planning Unit ( NPU )

The City of Atlanta is divided into twenty-five (25) Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs), which are citizen advisory councils that make recommendations to the Mayor and City Council on zoning, land use, and other planning-related matters. Enabling residents to express concerns and provide input helps the City in developing plans that best meet the needs of each neighborhood.

Let Your Voice Be Heard

Monday, December 28, 2020
7:00 PM 8:30 PM

Join NPU-Z for the monthly meeting. This is a chance for you to let your voice be heard on all things community

City Of Atlanta Announces Housing Affordability

Racial Equity Initiative Dec. 3rd, 2020

Atlanta- Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative which tells the story of the past, present and potential future of zoning and its impact on housing in Atlanta. The initiative is administered by the City’s Department of City Planning. Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative proposes policy-based solutions to Atlanta’s housing affordability challenges and aligns with the goals and action items of the Mayor’s One Atlanta Housing Affordability Action Plan.

“The Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative builds on our Administration’s One Atlanta Housing Affordability Action Plan, addressing systemic racism and working to ensure affordable housing for all,” said Mayor Bottoms. “For too long, housing policies have excluded those who are most vulnerable, particularly communities of color. We are taking bold actions to reverse these policies and close the homeownership gap and rental affordability for legacy residents of Atlanta.”

The proposals in the Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative are a result of more than two years of research and analysis aimed to specifically implement key elements related to the impact of land-use and zoning in the Mayor’s action plan. Since 2010, Atlanta has increased in population every year totaling more than 84,000 new residents. The city currently has a population of just over 500,000, but as the region is expected to grow by nearly 3 million over the next several decades, the City of Atlanta’s population should grow to 1.2 million. Atlanta City Design: Housing addresses the impact of significant population growth on the city’s housing market.

The research and analysis of the Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative stem from the Atlanta City Design. “Our city is growing, and we can leverage that growth to be a better city that is more equitable, inclusive and accessible to live in,” said Tim Keane, the City of Atlanta’s Commissioner of City Planning. “Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative outlines ways this growth can be designed specifically for Atlanta’s landscape, distinctive physical characteristics and unique neighborhoods.”

The proposed zoning policies in the analysis target structures of racism and discrimination that have limited housing affordability and exacerbated inequality in Atlanta. These policies seek to increase immediate and long-term affordability for Atlanta residents and directly address the structures of discrimination that still exist in Atlanta’s zoning and land-use policies.

“Atlanta is facing rapidly rising housing costs in large part due to the exclusionary policies of the past that still exist and are impacting the city today,” said Joshua Humphries, Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development in the Department of City Planning.

Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative Highlights

Atlanta City Design Housing

A look into how housing policy shaped Atlanta’s design, how that design impacts the city’s residents, and ways to design it for everyone.

The Design Of A City Can Either Foster Inclusion Or Exclusion.

The design of a city can uplift communities and provide opportunity for all of its residents, or it can be built to ensure that some residents reap the economic benefits of a city while others are excluded from that economy.

The history of a city, its problems, and its potential future can often be understood by observing the physical ways a city is designed: where its jobs are located, how its transit infrastructure has been built, the location of healthcare centers, the siting of highways and stadiums, and the type of housing options that exist.

These physical markers tell a story about what a city values and about the ways a city has been designed for inclusion or exclusion.

The Journey To One Atlanta

When Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms started her term in office in 2018, she unveiled a bold vision for the future of Atlanta. The Mayor announced the creation of the first ever One Atlanta office to lead the City’s efforts in “working towards a more affordable, resilient and equitable city.”

The vision of One Atlanta is rooted in the idea that cities are not predisposed to equity, affordability, and resilience, they have to be built by design to foster these ideals. Most fundamental of all elements of city design is how a city houses its residents, particularly its most vulnerable residents. That’s why the Bottoms administration focused on housing as a top priority from day one.

Mayor Bottoms' 2019 One Atlanta Housing Affordability Action Plan highlighted the role of effective and impactful decision making and policies city in ensuring long-term housing affordability in Atlanta.

The plan looks critically at the ways Atlanta has been designed, the ways that design has perpetuated race and class segregation in implicit and explicit ways, and proposes bold action to ensure that Atlanta’s future is inclusive for everyone. The plan sets a goal to create or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units in the Atlanta by 2026.

Achieving such an ambitious goal will require a comprehensive approach to housing, bringing together philanthropy, incentives, housing innovation, and improved land-use and design to allow growth to be an asset to the residents of Atlanta. Progress toward accomplishing the goal of creating and preserving housing for residents across income levels is what the journey to One Atlanta is about.

The plan calls for bold zoning reform to allow more affordable housing types and stronger neighborhoods to address issues of inequality exacerbated by the City's zoning code.

Zoning has long been used as a way to exclude and to segregate communities, and Atlanta is no exception. Zoning reform is needed to allow the city to rectify the exclusionary practices of its past (and present) and allow for different housing types and local economies to thrive throughout the city.——This housing affordability action plan requires us to think critically about how to improve the production and accessibility of housing in Atlanta by addressing an outdated zoning code that was designed for exclusion.

The plan calls for the expansion of affordable housing types throughout the city, from adding additional housing units on single-family properties to adding new affordable housing near transit. It directly addresses the ways that affordable housing types have continued to be limited by Atlanta’s zoning code.

The Atlanta's City Design

In 2017, the City of Atlanta adopted The Atlanta City Design into the City’s charter. The Atlanta City Design looks critically at the city’s history and charts a vision for the city’s future, focusing on the ways that planning and design can help us achieve the Beloved Community. The residents of Atlanta are the central figure in The Atlanta City Design, something that is often conspicuously missing from most planning documents. The central goal of the work is to create a better Atlanta, together.

The Atlanta City Design is based on two core premises about Atlanta and our future:

“The first premise of the Atlanta City Design is that the city is going to change; that not changing is not an option; that our change will involve significant growth; and that if properly designed, growth can be a powerful tool for shaping the Atlanta we want to become” – The Atlanta City Design

“The second premise is that almost always, more people are better than fewer; that a diverse population is better than a homogeneous one; and that the most strategic scenario for growth includes everyone.” – The Atlanta City Design

Atlanta's City Design And Latest Projects

The vision of The Atlanta City Design is fundamental to the work of Atlanta City Design Housing. Drawing from City Design, this project spends a good deal of time talking about design and the impact of design on a city’s residents. We use the term design broadly throughout and refer to many things as products of design. We believe that cities take shape through a broad collection of actors using a variety of design tools. The design tools range from financial to architectural to legislative. They impact the safety of a pedestrian at an intersection and the access to good jobs and education for a young family. This project attempts to view all of the ways that various actors designed Atlanta through their wide-ranging tools and how those design decisions still impact Atlanta today.

Department Of City Planning

By The Numbers

The City of Atlanta is at a new peak in the residential population and surpassed 500,000 residents in 2019. New residents and new money are pouring into Atlanta. In 2019, the city saw an increase of about 9,000 residents and median household incomes have risen by over 35% since 2010. This continues a decade long trend of growth. Since 2010, the city has increased in population every year totaling about 85,000 new residents.

Atlanta- A Better Future Together

Exclusionary single-family zoning continues to contribute to racial isolation in the city today.

The amount of land reserved for exclusionary single-family housing is negatively correlated with racial diversity today. In the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the City in 2018, the median percent of area dedicated to single-family homes was 15.6%. Conversely, in the City’s least racially diverse neighborhoods, the median area that was dedicated to single-family housing was 78.4%. This striking difference, and the statistically significant negative correlation between single-family zoning and racial diversity, demonstrates how this exclusionary zoning policy is related to the lack of racial diversity in many of the City’s neighborhoods.

End Exclusionary Single-Family Zoning

Exclusionary single-family zoning was created as a means to economically exclude lower income residents from neighborhoods and was used in combination with racist lending practices to exclude communities of color. This aligns with Initiative #3 of the Housing Affordability Action Plan to revise the zoning code.

Atlanta should amend the City's zoning code to allow more housing flexibility in the existing exclusionary single-family zoning areas designed for race and class discrimination.

Today, nearly 60% of the city is still zoned exclusively for single-family zoning. Atlanta’s future depends on policies of inclusion and exclusive single-family zoning is anything but inclusive. The first step toward making Atlanta a more inclusive place to live should be to end exclusive single-family zoning by allowing an additional dwelling unit in all existing single-family zoned areas in the city.

This could be done by amending the zoning code to allow an additional dwelling unit in all of the existing single-family areas.

This single zoning amendment would unlock 60% of Atlanta’s land to contribute to the city’s growth without substantially changing the character and feel of the neighborhood. By allowing a 2nd unit on properties throughout the city, the zoning code would align with the historic two-family development pattern found in much of the city. It could be designed to allow for the development of a variety of additional and subtle housing options, ranging from basement apartments to recessed 2nd units, most of which tend to be much cheaper to live in than a single-family home.

This Could Allow For A Variety Of Options.

Over/Under

Receased 2nd Unit

Basement Apt.

Garage Conversion

The additional unit is located on the top floor, while the primary dwelling in on the main level.

The additional unit is recessed from the primary structure but still oriented toward the street.

The primary dwelling sits closer to the street with the additional unit set slightly further back.

The basement of a single-family home becomes an apartment.

These often have entrances on the side or back of the primary dwelling.

A repurposed garage as an additional dwelling unit, sometimes on the side, back, or basement of a home.

The ability for property owners to create an additional unit on their property would also enable them to economically benefit from the city's growth.

Allowing for the development of a 2nd unit on current single-family properties would also create opportunities for wealth creation for property owners. By turning their basement into an apartment or converting the back of their home into an additional unit, homeowners could generate new revenue off of their property while creating a new unit for the growth population. This is type of wealth generation opportunity is key to ensuring Atlanta grows in ways that benefit its residents.

Make Accessory Dwelling Units Easier To Buy

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are detached structures with a housing unit often built in backyards. They are currently allowed in certain areas with limitations. Making them easier and more accessible to build can increase production of this more affordable housing type. Expanding ADU allowance furthers the Housing Affordability Action Plan’s initiative to implement the ADU ordinance.

ADU Allowance Was Expanded In Several Zoning Categories In 2018, But Implementation Has Been Somewhat Limited.

Since the passage of the ADU ordinance in 2018, there has been a lot of interest in the development of ADUs by homeowners and developers alike. Unfortunately, implementation of these accessory housing units has been challenging for many. Most challenging has been the ability to finance the construction of this new housing type in the Atlanta market.

Financing ADUs Has Proven To Be Particularly Challenging.

Accessory Dwelling Units in the Atlanta market often find limited financing opportunities in the city’s traditional financing market. The housing type is relatively new to the Atlanta market, making traditional lenders wary of the risk and unaware of the potential pros/cons of the housing type. The potential for revenue generation and added property value are unknowns in the market, so access to capital has been limited to more affluent homeowners and developers that can front more of the cost.

Another challenge in financing ADUs has been the inability to collateralize the ADU like a traditional single-family home can be collateralized. This is because the ADU is unable to be sold or have the value separated from the primary home. This limits access to capital for homeowners looking to build ADUs and also limits the function of the ADUs as exclusively a tool for rental housing development.

Allowing ADUs To Be Sold Separately Could Open Up Financing Options And Create Affordable Ownership Opportunities.

Amending the zoning code to allow ADUs to be bought and sold separately from the primary home could allow for ADUs to be easier to finance because it would allow them to be collateralized. This could help low- and moderate-income homeowners get the financing they need to build an ADU on their property. It could also expand options for how a homeowner builds wealth through an ADU. It the homeowner would like to build and rent an ADU, they still can.

But this would also allow the homeowner to build an ADU (with greater access to capital) and sell it to generate profit upfront and avoid the extra work of becoming a property manager for their rental ADU.

Allowing ADUs to be sold separately would also generate new, more affordable homeownership opportunities. Adding this new housing type to the homebuyer market would introduce a more affordable ownership option and make homeownership more accessible to many Atlanta residents. This type of added housing choice would help Atlanta to have a healthier and more comprehensive housing ecosystem, where residents across income levels could choose from a variety of rental and for-sale housing options.

This Could Be Done By Allowing Something Called 'Flag Lots

The ability to sell and finance ADUs could be accomplished through a zoning code allowance for fee-simple lot subdivisions. Fee simple subdivisions allow for a ‘parent lot’ to be subdivided into two separate lots but still retain the lot requirements for the parent lot. In the case of fee-simple subdivisions for ADUs, the lot could be subdivided to allow for the primary structure and the ADU structure to be sold separately, but the lot regulations for the parent lot would still govern the relationship between the primary home and the ADU. This would ensure that the ADU maintains its relationship to the primary structure and other zoning requirements like floor area ratio and lot coverage would not exceed the original allowance of the parent lot.

ADU On A Flag Lot

ADU On A Corner Lot

Flag lots like this would allow ADUs to be sold separately from the primary home.

Flag lots are often called such because the shape of the lot looks like a flag. It typically has a narrow ‘pole’ section that give the lot access to the street and a larger ‘flag’ part toward the back of the lot.

Corner lots often have backyards that abut a side street. Allowing for these lots to be subdivided and developed for ADUs could help to create an additional homeownership opportunity similar to flag lots.

The added benefit of allowing this type of fee-simple subdivision is that it would also contribute to adjacent blockface, filling in a vacant street frontage with a new ADU.

This Is Already Allowed For Duplexes In Atlanta.

Currently, the City of Atlanta allows these types of fee-simple subdivisions in the limited areas of the city that still allow duplexes. The current fee simple subdivisions allow for each side of a duplex to be sold separately.

The lot requirements of the original ‘parent lot’ still exist and govern both lots, but this allows for each side of the lot to be collateralized and sold, creating two ownership opportunities on the lot. Allowing fee-simple subdivisions for ADUs would be a naturally expansion of what the City already does for duplexes.

Loosening Some Of The Current Zoning Restrictions To Could Also Make ADUs More Accessible And Cheaper To Build

The current ADU code limits the size, height, and use of unconditioned space (i.e. garage, porch) in ways that can make development somewhat inflexible to the varying needs of property owners. Updating the zoning code to allow for a more form-based code that gives property owners the flexibility to build their ADU to fit the needs of their property could lead to increased production and affordable housing options.

There Are Also Several Areas Of The City Where ADUs Are Still Not Allowed

ADUs are currently limited to R4, R4A, R5 zoning areas (and a few special districts). This restriction limits homeowner’s ability to benefit from the wealth-building opportunities afforded by ADUs and perpetuates economic exclusion through zoning in certain areas of the city. Expand ADU allowance to all of the existing single-family areas of the city would maximize property owners’ flexibility and increase housing options while conserving the character and built environment of these neighborhoods.

Reduce Minimum Lot Size Requirements

Single-family zoning has long been intended to extend economic exclusion through higher cost properties. Reducing lot minimums would advance the Housing Affordability Action Plan’s initiative to revise the zoning code.

While We're At It, We Should Also Consider Getting Rid Of Parking Minimums For All Other Zoning Categories.

Parking minimums are not only costly and inflexible for residential properties, they also drive up costs and limit optimal land-use for businesses like retail, restaurants, and bars. Commercial zones in the city often have high parking minimums that require a significant portion of the property be reserved for parking. Removing parking minimums on commercial properties could reduce the cost for businesses and make better use of the land.