As Tyler Perry prepares to purchase most of Fort McPherson, the Atlanta Regional Commission on Wednesday provided a $60,000 grant to update a 2004 master plan for the surrounding area.
Tag: ARC
Posted inDavid Pendered
Atlanta plans $200,000 study to help Turner Field neighborhoods
Atlanta is poised to ask the ARC to help fund a $200,000 study intended to help guide the redevelopment of neighborhoods surrounding Turner Field.
The ARC would provide $160,000 and the city’s match of $40,000 would be provided by the city and by Invest Atlanta, the city’s development arm, according to legislation that’s due to be adopted Monday by the Atlanta City Council.
Posted inDavid Pendered
ARC board defers decision on seating developers, votes to allow public comment during board meetings
The issue of whether the ARC board should seat citizen members who are developers who lead self-taxing-and-spending entities called CIDs gained some clarity Wednesday.
The ARC again released at its monthly meeting a response that cites two legal opinions and a ruling from a former state revenue commissioner. The opinions say, essentially, developers are not precluded from serving on the board of the Atlanta Regional Commission even if they serve on a board overseeing a community improvement district.
Posted inDavid Pendered
ARC: Atlanta gains more residents in year than decade; no housing news
The city of Atlanta added more residents in the past year than it did during the entire first decade of the 2000s, according to an unofficial report from the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Atlanta’s gain of 4,100 residents was part of a 10-county population increase of 52,700, calculated from 2013 to 2014. ARC planners said in a statement the increase is a, “sure sign that the economic recovery is continuing.”
ARC’s latest report does not examine the housing supply or construction industry. The city of Atlanta had a glut of housing after the last decade, with more than 37,000 units added to serve a city population that rose by 3,500 residents, according to an ARC report from April 2011.
Posted inDavid Pendered
ARC board debates barring CID board members from ARC’s board as new rep from DeKalb County takes office
Competing visions of who can serve as a citizen member of the board of the Atlanta Regional Commission emerged Wednesday as the board works to update its bylaws.
Fayette County Chairman Steve Brown has asked the board to create two rules: Term limits for citizen members; and to bar citizen members from service on the ARC board if they serve on the board of a community improvement district – the self-taxing districts that have popped up around the region.
The ARC board’s bylaws working group agreed to consider Brown’s suggestions. The issue raises sensitive political issues, given that ARC Chairman Kerry Armstrong is a citizen member who serves as chairman of the North Fulton CID.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Tactical urbanism, lifelong community on display on Sweet Auburn Avenue
The tangible elements of a lifelong community, one comfortable for the disabled and well as the aging, are on display through Sunday along Auburn Avenue, in downtown Atlanta.
The two-block demonstration project is coordinated by the Atlanta Regional Commission, which has focused the past five years on informing metro Atlantans that the region is graying faster than many realize.
The concept ARC calls a “lifelong community” in a handbook of the same name also has taken the name “tactical urbanism” over the past few years. It’s a branch of the “new urbanism” concept that swept the region during the last decade, when new apartment buildings offered retail on the ground floors and alleys regained popularity.
Posted inDavid Pendered
New report: Atlanta’s sprawl among nation’s worst; ARC’s Doug Hooker says ranking ‘a look back in time’
ARC Executive Director Doug Hooker is pushing back against a new national ranking by Smart Growth America that shows metro Atlanta is one of the worst regions in the country when it comes to sprawl.
Hooker cites a 2013 report by Chris Leinberger, a land use strategist and developer, that announced metro Atlanta is, “experiencing the end of sprawl.” Leinberger’s study observed that walkable urban development now accounts for most of the development in metro Atlanta.
Posted inDavid Pendered
New airport business alliance similar to successful economic development program in Gwinnett County
The newly formed Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance bears a striking resemblance to Partnership Gwinnett, a public-private initiative that has created a strong record of economic development in Gwinnett County.
Each entity was formed to attract jobs and investments to their respective areas. One distinguishing point is that the aerotropolis alliance was convened by the Atlanta Regional Commission, whereas Partnership Gwinnett is based at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Traffic relief, transit upgrades funded in ARC’s five-year spending plan
A new plan due for initial adoption Wednesday by the ARC board shows the extent to which $7-plus billion can go toward improving metro Atlanta’s transportation network.
Planners talk up the will-do projects contained in this five-year spending proposal, rather than lofty visions in the Atlanta Regional Commission’s long-range transportation plan. The ARC’s 2040 plan update is up for adoption, as well.
This strategy of focusing on the five-year plan addresses some realpolitiks: Regional traffic is building after the recession, while transportation funding remains scarce; A vote to adopt a regional transportation plan will show ARC’s board is not immobilized by disagreement over who should be elected as a citizen board member.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Smallish transportation projects advance as Sierra Club outlines thoughts on regional mobility
Additional federal funding for a new bridge across I-75 in north Cobb County and a stormwater project along Ponce de Leon Avenue in DeKalb County were among six transportation projects approved Thursday in a proposed amendment to the region’s long-term transportation improvement program.
Simultaneously, the Atlanta Regional Commission has started the competition among local governments for the region’s estimated $29 million a year in federal funding for projects that reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality. The filing deadline is Sept. 27 for this new round of federal funding.
Collectively, the projects represent the type of recalibration that is surfacing a year after metro Atlanta voters rejected the 2012 transportation sales tax and its $8.5 billion in planned mobility improvements. In a sense, this approach shares similarities with “framework for transportation progress” outlined by the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Public transit outlook remains case of: “Better the devil you know”
The landscape of public transit has become clearer in metro Atlanta and elsewhere in Georgia, at least for the next year – not much will change.
The state Senate essentially gave MARTA’s new GM, Keith Parker, a year to get settled into the job and devise plans to curb costs and raise revenues. The Senate stalled expansive legislation, which the House had approved, to privatize segments of MARTA and otherwise retool its board and operations.
Gov. Nathan Deal prevailed in his effort for the state to fund Xpress, the regional bus service overseen by GRTA. Finally, the planning process continues to advance for helping people take public transit to their medical appointments, and other critical destinations, in metro Atlanta and throughout Georgia.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Metro Atlanta split in half by class; wealth creators reside in northside, say new studies by Richard Florida
Richard Florida’s latest research shows metro Atlanta has become a tale of two regions and likely will continue on that trajectory.
The wealth-generating creative region begins near downtown Atlanta and spreads north along Ga. 400 through Roswell, with outparcels scattered across mainly the northern suburbs. Future wealth generation seems most likely to occur in north Atlanta and close-in suburbs, in Florida’s scenarios.
Florida’s work seems to support policies such as efforts by ARC and its partners to promote community development around Atlanta’s airport and MARTA stations. Likewise with the community benefit agreements that are part of Atlanta’s requirements for supporting a new Falcons stadium.
Posted inMaria's Metro
Poverty in metro Atlanta’s suburbs growing faster than in the city
Metro Atlanta’s profile is changing with a dramatic growth of poverty in the suburbs.
Several recent studies point to reality challenging the perception that the poor are concentrated in the central city while the middle-income and higher-income populations are living in the suburbs.
“In Atlanta, since 2000, the number of poor people living in suburbs grew by 53 percent,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, who was in Atlanta presenting her findings. By comparison, the number of poor people living in the City of Atlanta grew by 24 percent.
Posted inMaria's Metro
Fayette Chairman Steve Brown — who has criticized the Atlanta Regional Commission — joins its board
One of the most vocal critics of the Atlanta Regional Commission attended his first board meeting on Jan. 23 as a new board member.
Steve Brown, the recently-named chairman of the Fayette County Commission, was an outspoken critic of last summer’s regional transportation referendum, also known as the T-Splost.
The referendum failed, thanks partly to Brown and the Tea Party’s strident opposition to it and its project list.
Posted inDavid Pendered
ARC’s first reorg in a generation aims to meet region’s emerging needs
The Atlanta Regional Commission is embarking on its first reorganization in a generation, in order to meet the demands of the post-recession paradigm that’s emerging from the public and private sectors.
Silos of expertise are to be replaced by collaborative teams. An example of the new approach would be for ARC planners to examine mobility rather than transportation – a shift that frames the issue in a fashion that begs for broader solutions.
“Because we are changing in so many ways as a region, ARC realizes we have to be more adaptable to help local governments solve more problems,” said Doug Hooker, ARC’s executive director.
