Mayor Kelly Girtz highlighted the steps Athens-Clarke County is taking to address housing costs during his annual State of the Community address.
This summer, the ACC Commission is expected to vote on the first update of the county’s future land use map in more than 20 years. The plan “needs to be forward looking, and consider the needs of today’s six- and seven-year-olds as much as today’s 60- and 70-year-olds,” Girtz said.
The population is expected to grow by 30,000 over the next 25 years, much of it driven by new medical and biotech facilities like Meissner and Boehringer Ingleheim.
“We need to ensure people can travel four or five miles to work, not 40 or 50 miles,” Girtz said. “I expect this will mean some gentle changes across the [future land use] map, with more concentrated density along corridors like Atlanta Highway and at key intersections, such as exits along the Highway 10 Loop.”
Girtz also touted the redevelopment of the College Avenue apartment complex Bethel Midtown Village into The View at Noda. Apartments in the first phase of the new mixed-income community—one-third public housing, one-third subsidized and one-third market rate—recently started leasing.
“This will take one of the most underresourced neighborhoods in town and transform it into one of the most desirable,” he said. “By increasing density, we will maintain at least as many affordable units and prevent displacement.”
In addition, the Athens Housing Authority is partnering with private developers to build hundreds of new affordable units near Athens Tech and on Lexington Road, Atlanta Highway and Epps Bridge Parkway. The ACC government is also restarting its land bank authority to clear titles and eliminate back taxes on properties that could become affordable housing, as well as looking at county-owned properties where affordable housing can be built.
Pivoting to safety, Girtz said that when the public housing project Jack R. Wells Homes, better known as Pauldoe, was redeveloped as a mixed-income community, calls to police declined 60%.
Crime declined 3% last year after a 4% drop in 2023, “and we’re going to push even lower, because while the five murders in Athens may represent a historical low and is certainly preferable to the dozens of murders in our peer cities around Georgia, the only acceptable number for any of us is zero,” Girtz said.
For the first time in at least 18 years, all of the police department’s sworn positions are filled, with a diverse group of officers making up “a force that looks like the community,” Girtz said.
Expanded youth programs are also contributing to public safety, according to Girtz, who cited partnerships with the Boys & Girls Club on programs at public housing projects and at Georgia Square Mall, as well as with the Clarke County School District on elementary school sports and a new biotech pathway at the Career Academy. “For my entire time in Athens, this community has discussed the need to ensure that high wage and high growth professions are open to young residents who grow up here,” he said.
ACC is also hiring more medical personnel at the fire department—60% of its calls are for medical emergencies—and partnering with Piedmont Athens Regional on a mobile health clinic.
Traffic deaths remain stubbornly high, however, despite ACC’s Vision Zero program. “Sadly, many years have ended with more than 20 roadway deaths in Athens,” Girtz said.
$6 million has been allocated to redesign dangerous intersections, including Hawthorne and Oglethorpe avenues, he said, with improvements also coming to Chase Street, Prince Avenue, Newton Bridge Road, North Avenue and Lexington Road. The Georgia Department of Transportation is rebuilding the Loop 10 interchanges at Lexington Road and Atlanta Highway, and adding a safer roundabout on West Broad Street at Hancock Avenue. And the middle section of Firefly Trail is nearing completion.
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