Atlanta has too many blighted neighborhoods and too little affordable housing. Now, a raft of research has been released to inform policy makers who want to address the challenges.
Tag: Housing
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s moment? Convergence of housing people can afford plus access to transit
By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, professor of the practice of planning at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture and a former commissioner of planning and community development for the City of Atlanta
Against the backdrop of an antagonistic and often toxic campaign season, two opportunities are emerging that could begin to lift Atlanta out of its wealth gap, the city’s own divisive and persistent stain.
Posted inColumns
Ron Terwilliger: U.S. housing policy in need of reform to help lower-income renters
Part-time Atlantan Ron Terwilliger has become one of the leading voices for federal housing policy reform in the country.
Terwilliger, retired chairman and CEO of Trammel Crow Residential, is now spending much of his time working on philanthropic causes primarily focused on providing housing for the working poor.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta buys apartment building, plans to provide affordable housing
Atlanta has purchased an apartment building and plans to rent units at reduced prices to workers who earn less than the median income, according to Mayor Kasim Reed’s office and legislation approved by the Atlanta City Council.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Breaking cycles of poverty: How not to cluster the poor in broken neighborhoods
Metro Atlanta could be the poster child for housing policies that, intentionally or not, have concentrated lower income households in non-white neighborhoods that aren’t pleasant places. The U.S. Supreme Court and the Obama administration intend to change the way policies are implemented, and the policies themselves.
Posted inColumns, David Pendered, Main Slider
New apartments at Centennial Olympic Park latest indicator of heated rental market
The reason behind the construction boom of rental apartments in metro Atlanta is evident in the numbers – rent rates were up by a record-setting, year-over-year 7.8 percent, and investors are earning returns of up to 7.75 percent, according to data in a recent report from CBRE Research.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Local initiative to address foreclosure crisis receives national Housing Visionary Award
Piece by Piece, a regional initiative to address metro Atlanta’s foreclosure crisis, received a national award Thursday for its comprehensive approach that brings together 155 public and private partners.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta budget predicts development cycle to expand over next 12 months
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 predicts the construction cycle will expand in the upcoming 12 months. A similarly rosy outlook on development also is evident in a report released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta Habitat for Humanity taps BeltLine’s Lisa Gordon as president/CEO
Lisa Gordon, who helped navigate the Atlanta BeltLine through the waning days of the great recession, will now serve Atlanta Habitat for Humanity as president/CEO, habitat’s board announced Tuesday
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Homebuilders say market flat; wages forecast to rise 2-3 percent: Latest report from Federal Reserve
Two sectors of the economy of special importance in metro Atlanta present a mixed bag of indicators in the Federal Reserve’s latest “beige book.” The picture becomes even murkier once the state’s unemployment rate is counted.
Posted inColumns, David Pendered, Main Slider
Housing crisis: Attention refocuses on aiding families, neighborhoods
Nearly six years after the official end of the Great Recession, a lot of work remains to be done in metro Atlanta to help families recover what for many is their greatest source of wealth – home values.
Posted inColumns, David Pendered, Main Slider
Atlanta’s new housing strategy renews focus on homes affordable to low- and mid-income workers
Atlanta has created a five-year housing strategy that aims to spur $100 million in new residential investments and raise the city’s population by 42,000 residents.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Metro Atlanta’s home rentals, sales, construction a mixed bag
A recent study shows housing in metro Atlanta is much cheaper to buy than rent, just as a new report suggests the national housing market may be poised for an upswing.
Posted inDavid Pendered
A final frontier in Atlanta: West End could grow new homes, shops, while sheltering current residents
West End may be an ideal candidate for redevelopment in this unusual era of the economy.
The newly released study of West End by Georgia Tech students sees opportunities in situations that would have been clear threats to redevelopment before the great recession. The report suggests that West End is ripe for new investments in retail and residential.
These ventures could both stabilize and benefit from the redevelopment of a stretch of Northside Drive, an historic industrial corridor that begins at the tip of Buckhead, passes Atlantic Station and the future Falcons stadium, and ends in the vicinity of West End and Fort McPherson.
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
New partnership intends to help develop affordable homes in region
More money is soon to be available for developers who need loans for projects in metro Atlanta neighborhoods still reeling from the housing crisis and, in some cases, woes that preceded the crisis.
The additional capital is to flow from a new partnership between Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Inc. and The Reinvestment Fund.
“Some metro Atlanta submarkets are slowly rebounding from the great recession, while others are experiencing considerable growth,” ANDP President/CEO John O’Callaghan said.
Posted inDavid Pendered
New report on Atlanta’s housing stock matches Richard Florida’s findings on location of class, wealth
A new report by Atlanta on the city's housing stock confirms a view of the city documented in March by urban demographer Richard Florida – Atlanta is split in half, with strong neighborhoods to the north and vulnerable ones to the south of a dividing line that passes near the Georgia Tech campus.
One interesting finding in the city’s report is that Buckhead isn’t listed as an exceptional investment area. Instead, that designation is reserved for an area that stretches south from I-85 through Morningside and Poncy-Highland toward Druid Hills. The Buckhead area is ranked as strong or trending.
Atlanta says this report on the city’s housing is the first-of-its-kind study of 285 neighborhoods. It’s intended to enable policymakers to promote equitable residential development throughout the city. The city has scheduled two community meetings to discuss the study’s results – on Monday and Thursday evenings.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Atlanta Council looks for ways stadium deal could be required to help residents, nearby neighborhoods
In about three weeks, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s staff expects to deliver to the city council the meat of the legislation that will enable the city council to vote to help fund a new Falcons stadium.
Given the level of support for the new stadium voiced by several councilmembers, its evident some of them will spend the next three weeks figuring out how to ensure that community benefits agreements are created to help city residents and the neighborhoods around. Such concerns were a major issue at the council’s four-hour work session Wednesday.
Falcons President and CEO Rich McKay assured the council several times that team owner Arthur Blank is committed to being a good civic partner. McKay emphasized that Penny McPhee, president of the Blank Foundation, will oversee that outreach effort.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Noel Khalil’s Moment was when Herman Russell offered to hire him at half his salary and he happily agreed
When Noel Khalil moved to Atlanta in 1983, chasing development deals on the affluent north side of Atlanta seemed as natural to him as it was unusual to the white men who dominated the industry in that part of town.
After closing a few deals in the northern suburban counties of Atlanta, Noel was surprised when the secretary of Atlanta’s most prominent African-American developer called to say her boss, Herman Russell, wanted Noel come to his office for a meeting.
