Yes, You Can Build Your Way to Affordable Housing

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

So, how do you rationalize lower rents in the denser, faster growing parts of metro Atlanta?

Less demand.

But also, keep in mind that the Atlanta portion is not just Midtown. It includes areas of very low-income housing such as the areas directly west of downtown and the southern parts of the city. The suburbs do not see quite this level of low-income housing. And the suburbs are also growing somewhat and there is demand to live in many of their new offerings.

Are there factors that result in higher rent / lower affordability being correlated with more density? Absolutely.

Almost exclusively.

Does that mean density causes higher rent / lower affordability? Nope.

Do laws that limit density increase affordability? Nope. They make things less affordable.

In theory, but the most affordable places to live, pretty much anywhere, are not the densest places.

[arjay57]

Brookhaven just keeps getting denser but the prices don't seem to be coming down.

Another 12+ homes per acre development.

https://www.reporternewspapers.net/2...ns-lenox-park/

[arjay57]

Here's another example of how they increase density but eliminate affordable housing and replace it with luxury housing.

Hedgewood Homes is proposing to build 35 townhomes at 69-97 Delmont Drive NE and 82-128 Sheridan Drive NE in Buckhead. The project requires demolishing a 22-unit residential project near Atlanta International School and Garden Hills Elementary School.

***

The townhomes would be built near Atlanta International School and Garden Hills Elementary School. Prices would range from $800,000 to $1.5 million.

The project requires demolishing 22 units on Delmont Drive that rent for $1,500 a month. Rents at this low price are rare in Buckhead, where more than 90% of the workforce commutes from outside the district due in large part to lack of affordable housing.

Full article: Controversial Buckhead townhome project breezes through zoning committee
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/...e-housing.html

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Brookhaven just keeps getting denser but the prices don't seem to be coming down.

Another 12+ homes per acre development.

https://www.reporternewspapers.net/2...ns-lenox-park/

The problem we will face in suburban-type areas throughout Atlanta when demand grows and the area is built out, whether they are 5 minutes from Midtown, Buckhead or out in Cobb and Gwinnett, is that a few small developments on small properties are a drop in the bucket in terms of the total housing units for families.

We are often talking about 5% or less of the land acreage of that area that can potentially be redeveloped. The new developments are transitioning from 3-5 units per acre to 12 units per acre, but there is no path forward for the neighborhoods in the whole area to evolve into a denser area.

That is what you'd need to make a big impact in supply. It also can't be just one neighborhood. It would need to be widespread.

The economics of supply and demand would cause more home building and the creation of more units, if there weren't barriers and limitations to being able to build more units. Prices would come up to the cost of acquiring land and building new units. The problem now, is they can't build enough units via demand and can only redevelop on a few land plots that are more expensive to acquire.

They are limited to 3 acres there, 5 acres there, and 7 acres way over there, but a few thousand acres will never change from what they already are in just one area. Even worse, the residents of the existing area are limiting development to 12 units/acre over things like the apartment and condo buildings when they convince the city to not allow it. It limits how many new housing units can be built on those small spaces.

We don't do enough things to let well situated close-in neighborhoods to evolve into ways Chicago residential neighborhoods might more commonly be. They remain residential in character, small yards still exists, but houses are rebuilt taller, deeper, and allow for more households on the same lot.

We create more barriers to subdividing existing houses or allowing on-site rental units for basements and garages that can be rebuilt to for a small rental. The City of Atlanta has shown some movement on this last one for a few select neighborhoods.

[ronricks]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Here's another example of how they increase density but eliminate affordable housing and replace it with luxury housing.

We need the tax base and revenue. You don't build a successful city on affordable housing everywhere. Someone has to pay for all the infrastructure, schools, parks, etc.

[arjay57]

Here are some timely observations from Professor Mike Dobbins at Georgia Tech, regarding the City of Atlanta's proposal to drastically revamp the Comprehensive Development Plan.

Prof. Dobbins is one of the great gurus of urban planning and he has led urban design agencies in Atlanta, New York City, New Orleans, Birmingham, and UC Berkeley. He taught architecture for a couple of years at Tulane and had teaching assignments at Columbia, Birmingham Southern College, and UC Berkeley.

Read his full essay in the Saporta Report here: Atlanta’s proposal offers false hopes for housing affordability, breaks from ‘Atlanta City Design’
https://saportareport.com/atlantas-p...umnists/david/

Here's part of what he says:

Stop, look and listen. Atlanta’s misguided densification planning and zoning strategy is barreling down the tracks. It has many negatives – it will exacerbate the housing affordability crisis, destabilize neighborhoods and gut the NPUs ability to shape their neighborhood’s future.

Shunt it to a siding and build a better engine.

Let’s begin on common ground. Atlanta is a city of neighborhoods. It is a city in the woodlands. Most Atlantans, Black and white, affluent and low wealth, take pride in their neighborhoods. That pride reflects physical and social cohesion around shared values and commitment to betterment. Neighborhoods embody a sense of place, of belonging, an identity. Atlanta’s natural environment reinforces those social values. Most neighborhoods are heavily wooded and distinctively hilly.

Atlanta’s neighborhoods have a stronger voice than in most cities in shaping and projecting their futures through the Neighborhood Planning Unit system. Then-Mayor Maynard Jackson and his planning commissioner, Leon Eplan, set up the system in 1974 for the express purpose deepening democratization and strengthening local guidance for how the city should grow.

In the face of the present housing crisis, doing anything possible to conserve affordability and to plan and build for markets most in need is a city policy priority. To do this, the city needs zoning reform, but only as it interacts with the other factors that are causing the growing affordability gap, such as markets, land control, access to capital, technologies, among others.

Now to the ground that’s not so common – the proposed Comprehensive Development Plan. The city has put forward a top down, silver bullet strategy in its proposed CDP and attendant zoning proposals. The premise of the proposal is that if the city increases the supply of housing, there will eventually be enough units built for prices to drop, thus becoming more affordable.

The city is marketing its program vigorously, deceptively, and divisively. Claiming that the proposal will improve affordability, instead it does the opposite.

First, the city bases its proposal on false population projections. It assumes a 2040 population of 1.2 million people. The Atlanta Regional Commission, with its team of professional demographers aided by sophisticated digital technology, predicts that the city will have 800,000 people by 2050, so 400,000 fewer people than forecast by the CDP 10 years later. ARC’s projections have been pretty much on the mark for many years, with occasional fluctuations within reasonable margins of error along the way. Which numbers will the market accept? Probably not the city’s.

Continue reading here: https://saportareport.com/atlantas-p...umnists/david/