TAD Amendment Passing is Bad for Atlanta (Sandy Springs, Dunwoody: apartments, rental)

[BringBackCobain]

Originally Posted by DeaconJ

The TAD amendment is not only for residential development...it is to promote development of all kinds, and residential is only one type.

Let me see if I understand you...affordable housing = low-income residents = section 8 eligibility = ghetto? I thought a big part of the 20% affordable housing units were aimed toward police/teachers/civil servants who aren't considered low-income but can't afford the high price of housing in the city...and, I thought the developments that have been completed (Centennial Place for one) were very successful. I haven't heard anything about them becoming "ghetto".

First of all, I know how TADs work.

And yes, you understand me correctly. Of course the agenda being pushed is code named "affordable for civil servants". The problem is these people can afford market rate apartments in many parts of the city. They dont need subsidies, and probably do not take them. Also, age has to do with it, and it has only been 10 or so years since CP was completed.

[BringBackCobain]

Originally Posted by south-to-west

I really don't think you understand the nature of TADs.

Yes, I do. I do not think you notice how they are being used to push a political agenda.

Originally Posted by south-to-west

First of all, TADs alone do not require every new residential development to have affordable housing. However, developers who opt to receive TAD funding for infrastructure improvements such as parking decks and street lamps are often required to allocate a portion of the proposed units as affordable which means that the units have to be priced in a range affordable to households that earn 80% of the area median household income.

Did I say otherwise? The problem is a lot of these apartments are in gentrifying areas, and the median household income is still quite low. Therefore, you do not have to earn that much to get one, and often you can be on section 8 and still afford one. The problem is these new investments add nothing to the emerging areas, they simply replace old low class apartments with new ones.

Originally Posted by south-to-west

Often times, these households include public service workers such as police, firemen, and teachers.

Second of all, apartments aren't inherently terrible for a community. Not every household sees homeownership as the principle means for investing their money. A lot of times, people opt to rent in an area where housing prices are high, but their jobs and services are located nearby. Affordable does not mean Section 8.

In regards to Atlantic Station, it was the inflated housing market and rampant speculation that caused the over-supply of units. Everyone thought the gravy train of cheap mortgages would continue and many ended up losing their butts as a result.

TADs remain the most effective measure of redevelopment and economic development in Georgia in that it can be used as a mechanism to bridge the funding gap in making a project that would have a positive impact on a community financially feasible. Thank God that the amendment passed.

You are wrong about AS. The apartments were charging expensive market rates, but were also required to offer section 8. Thus, you had normal income people living with the section 8 people, and all the negativity associated with them (loud, noise, crime, drugs). Those normal people have since moved out, and those apartments cannot get anyone to rent the market units, so they have had to lower rents, inviting more low income people to live there.

I am not against TADs. I am only against thier use to require affordable housing in a city that has an excess of supply. Want affordable? Move to an emerging area. It is not a god given right, or constitutional right, for a lower income person to be able to live in a new development.

Atlanta needs more middle class housing. This city is so poor, obviously we do not need more subsidized housing.

[J2rescue]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

I am worried that the TAD amendment allowing use of school funds has passed. It will be bad for Atlanta. This is why:

The power structure of Atlanta is worried because it is becoming expensive to live in the city, due to high demand. This means a diverse population, and one that does not necessarily cater to the political interests that have run this city since white flight occurred. If the demographics shift to a high income city instead of a poor, distressed city, the current political machine that has been in power since the 70's knows thaty they will be challenged.

Thier solution? Pass TADs that require 20% of units in a housing development to be "affordable". Affordable for condos means cheaper than the market rate of the whole complex. This is not the problem,
because usually riff raff could not buy a home anyway.

The problem with TADs lies with the aprtments. In Atlanta tad’s, 20% affordable apartments = section 8 eligibility. This means that they will accept section 8 vouchers from renters. These complexes they are building will essentially be 20% ghetto. No normal people are going to want to live in the regular units, and eventually the whole complex will turn ghetto. This is exactly what has happened at ICON and Park District in Atlantic Station.

This scheme was a brilliant way for the power structure to keep their power. They are licking their chops at the Beltline, which will add 5,000 affordable housing units, and more than 5,000 low income residents. Let us pray that the market turns around and these are not all apartments, because all the progress and diversity Atlanta has gained in the 2000's will be wiped out.

I do not think the voters realized this. Hopefully the city will survive this flood of subsidized housing. Otherwise, it will turn into Atlanta of the late 20th Century with a ghetto on every streetcorner (think bowen homes, East Lake Meadows, etc.)

I can appreciate this great concern for diversity but the effort to inlcude affordable housing in the city's growth is actually about diversity. In this case, its diversity in terms of income level as opposed to what people look like (I realize people around here seem to be obsessed with this).

Furthermore over 5000 apartment units have been started in the city in the last year and a half alone. The area of Old 4th Ward near the Beltline alone will have 5000 housing units. Atlantic Station alone will have 5000 housing units. I think we can accomodate 5000 affordable housing units around the Beltline.

Even if they were 100% section 8 which they are not, it would be a tiny percentage of the city's housing stock. In short, this diabolical plan you've described is not worth losing sleep over.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by J2rescue

I can appreciate this great concern for diversity but the effort to inlcude affordable housing in the city's growth is actually about diversity. In this case, its diversity in terms of income level as opposed to what people look like (I realize people around here seem to be obsessed with this).

Furthermore over 5000 apartment units have been started in the city in the last year and a half alone. The area of Old 4th Ward near the Beltline alone will have 5000 housing units. Atlantic Station alone will have 5000 housing units. I think we can accomodate 5000 affordable housing units around the Beltline.

Even if they were 100% section 8 which they are not, it would be a tiny percentage of the city's housing stock. In short, this diabolical plan you've described is not worth losing sleep over.

And hopefully, economic diversity is the wave of the future...

[VJP]

I love you guys accusing EACH other of pushing political agendas while attempting to further your own. Hypocrisy is awesome.

To all of you who are new to this TAD argument, can you search? We do this topic every two days....or have since just before the 4th.

[gt6974a]

Originally Posted by DeaconJ

Yes, let's call Centennial Place "unsuccessful" because of an alleged break-in when you weren't even a resident. Let's burn it down! Get the torches and gather the townspeople!

It happened 2 weeks after I moved out, my old roommates were still there. And they got broken into twice, as well as several other residents.

[gt6974a]

Originally Posted by aries4118

You've relayed this story several times on this forum...

Weren't you living there in the late 90's/very early 2000's?

Break-ins happen...

I consider Centennial Place extremely successful...especially if you knew/experienced what was there before you arrived at Tech in 1996 (post-Olympics).

Centennial Place is basically like any other relatively safe intown neighborhood now.

The Techwood Homes was not. North Avenue was like a Berlin Wall...never, ever cross to go south. No one, I mean no one, would ever dream you could walk downtown from Tech by way of Techwood Drive and/or Luckie Street as late as early 1996. We were all in such shock when we could do this starting in late 1996...and especially by 1997/1998.

02-03, Before there I was in Home Park and on campus. Crime there as well but not as bad.

Yes it was much worse pre-olympics, as was Williams Street where Tech Square is now. There's actually a unit of Techwood homes as a 'historical' building as it was the first welfare housing in the country.

Centennial also has the two high tower ghetto slubs as 'bookends'

I don't agree with your lightness of the situation by saying 'Break ins happen'. No one should settle nor allow for this behavior, especially those around Grant Park right now getting hit every day.

[Huckleberry3911948]

interesting that section 8 people are usually good renters. but they almost always bring in their kids. and that means gangbangers.
enforcement would fix that but the will to enforce is just not there. disbursing section 8 on a wider plain seem to reduce the problem but concentrations of section 8 seems to be fatal to any city.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by gt6974a

02-03, Before there I was in Home Park and on campus. Crime there as well but not as bad.

Yes it was much worse pre-olympics, as was Williams Street where Tech Square is now. There's actually a unit of Techwood homes as a 'historical' building as it was the first welfare housing in the country.

Centennial also has the two high tower ghetto slubs as 'bookends'

I don't agree with your lightness of the situation by saying 'Break ins happen'. No one should settle nor allow for this behavior, especially those around Grant Park right now getting hit every day.

I didn't mean to make light of the break-in situation(s). I apologize.


About William Street...wow. I use to look over (and drive through) there all the time and imagine the potential. People at Tech use to think I was crazy when I use to talk about the potential over there. One person (on a Student Gov't Committee no less!) remarked, "Tech has no serious plans of expanding across the interstate..." People were saying this in the late 90's. Now look at it! Love it. Tech is now the campus and Midtown is now the neighborhood I wished it would have been when I attended there. Sigh.

I was a FASET Leader for when your class entered in 1996 by the way...the really late post-Olympic October start date!

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

Yes, I do. I do not think you notice how they are being used to push a political agenda.



Did I say otherwise? The problem is a lot of these apartments are in gentrifying areas, and the median household income is still quite low. Therefore, you do not have to earn that much to get one, and often you can be on section 8 and still afford one. The problem is these new investments add nothing to the emerging areas, they simply replace old low class apartments with new ones.



You are wrong about AS. The apartments were charging expensive market rates, but were also required to offer section 8. Thus, you had normal income people living with the section 8 people, and all the negativity associated with them (loud, noise, crime, drugs). Those normal people have since moved out, and those apartments cannot get anyone to rent the market units, so they have had to lower rents, inviting more low income people to live there.

I am not against TADs. I am only against thier use to require affordable housing in a city that has an excess of supply. Want affordable? Move to an emerging area. It is not a god given right, or constitutional right, for a lower income person to be able to live in a new development.

Atlanta needs more middle class housing. This city is so poor, obviously we do not need more subsidized housing.

Dude, you're talking to an urban planner who has helped set up TADs in Metro Atlanta as well as submit TAD funding applications on the behalf of developers in Metro Atlanta. Section 8 has nothing to do with TADs and when I talk about affordablility, I'm talking about affordable for-sale units, not apartments. Also, there are plenty of affordable housing apartment communities that break the mold and are fairly decent places to live, including some of the many Hope VI communities like Centennial, East Lake, and Carver.

Providing affordable housing is essential to maintaining a sustainable jobs-housing balance and ensuring that a significant number of households across the socioeconomic spectrum have great access to services. The worse thing you can do is isolate lower-income people--unless you favor the Latin American model of having sprawling shanty towns outside of the city. Also, you're enabling many people who serve the city or local government (teachers, policeman, fireman) the opportunity to purchase a home within the community they serve.

By the way, can you provide some proof that the apartment communities in Atlantic Station were required to accept Section 8?