Hey Bonita,
I would be curious to know just how much of the original Athens that has been removed was financed by the University of Georgia?
I was born and raised here in Athens until I joined the Navy back in ‘81. When I returned home back to Athens in 2005, I was blown away with the growth. Now that I’ve been back for 18 years, I wish that the boom for the students would stop. Every time I turn around a new apartment/housing complex is going up. The university is growing, so I guess they need more housing. Well what about the citizens of this city [and] of Clarke [County]? We need housing, plus we need to step up and control so much growth of certain projects until we look at what we really have here in Athens, and that is a town to be proud of for what it was, not for what it is.
BW
Hey BW,
There are a few different reasons that the face of Athens is changing, but yeah, you’re right—most of them can be traced back to UGA. Specifically, it’s because of all of these sprawling apartment complexes and high-rises being built for students only. I remember when 100 Prince was in the works, and there was lots of talk about them being required to include a certain number of “affordably priced” units so that locals would also be able to avail themselves of such prime downtown real estate. I checked its website just now, and it’s got 2BR/2BA units going for $2,150 per month, which honestly made me want to jam my letter-opener into my eye. They were also supposed to have a small grocery store there, and it’s my personal opinion that they only ever courted Daily Groceries as a possible tenant to foster good will in the community and get their plans approved.
The whole 100 Prince/Daily Groceries fiasco had a big influence on my opinion of downtown development, and I suspect that these developers are no longer even pretending to want to provide affordable units. I don’t blame UGA students for needing a place to stay, but they are temporary residents of this town, and the city continues to put their needs before those of locals.
There’s not much hope for things changing for the better. Our state actually has a ban on rent control, not to mention how the median income in Athens ($61,000 a year) isn’t where it needs to be for someone to buy a house here. As reported by Blake Aued in the May 3 issue of City Dope, someone making that amount can only afford to pay $733 a month in rent, while our city’s median rent is actually about $1,214. I don’t make anything close to that median income above, and I’m starting to worry that I’ll never earn enough in this town to actually afford to buy a house here. If that’s the case, why not just take off? My childhood dream was to live in L.A. anyway, and people actually make decent money over there.
And that gets to another big problem: While rents and home prices increase exponentially in Athens, local workers aren’t making more money. Places that could be affordable housing are getting turned into Airbnbs. Apparently only 40% of residences in this city are owner-occupied. ACC is forever “accepting public input” about our local housing crisis, but I don’t see anything timely and tangible ever happening. I mean, why is it even legal for companies to buy low-income housing complexes and then refuse to take Section 8 vouchers? How do these people sleep at night knowing that they have literally caused people to become homeless just to double the rent for someone whose parents will pay it until they move out in two years?
This is a total bummer to say, but I don’t have a solution. In general, I would tell people not to give to someone who won’t give back to you. Feel like moving to somewhere with better wages? Cheaper housing? Maybe a brain drain will convince leaders to really do something about this. I really do hope that this situation will resolve itself before I retire, but I may be a homeowner somewhere else by then. Oh, well.
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