The Athens-Clarke County Commission approved a workforce development plan that will ultimately provide $3.3 million with the goal of empowering the local workforce to help them meet the needs of Athens businesses in the immediate and long term.
The workforce plan includes proposals from both the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and the Business Development and Workforce Support Task Force convened by Mayor Kelly Girtz and co-chaired by commissioners Tiffany Taylor and Carol Myers. The chamber’s proposal, dubbed “Athens Achieves,” was originally approved in June. It focuses on workforce development in a traditional sense, including job training, education and building pathways to employment. The plan developed by the county’s task force takes a different approach. It seeks to empower and support workers through “know your rights” training, improving child care, offering loans for small businesses and support for cooperative businesses and employee ownership.
Athens Achieves has changed somewhat since it was originally approved. It will now receive a total of $2.35 million, up from $1.9 million, to provide support for some Athens-area nonprofits such as Destined Inc., which may receive up to $300,000 for its “Read to Succeed” program for elementary school students. Other nonprofits funded through Athens Achieves include Education Matters, which may receive $75,000 to support career pathways for high school students, and the Athens Community Apprenticeship Program, which may receive $150,000 for apprenticeship training.
The remaining $925,000 of the $3.3 million package will likely go to various nonprofits that can meet the goals laid out by Girtz’s task force. For example, the Economic Justice Coalition is being asked to develop a train-the-trainer program on workers’ rights topics such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, including ways to fight wage theft, discrimination and sexual harassment. Other nonprofits that are likely to receive funding include Quality Care for Children, which would provide business coaching and community support to promote high-quality child care in Athens; the Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, which would help convert local businesses over to employee-ownership after the founding owners retire; and the Georgia Cooperative Development Center, which would establish a business purchasing and marketing cooperative to help small business band together for their mutual benefit.
Commissioners praised the plan, which passed unanimously by an 8-0 vote. “The businesses that will grow out of [this plan] will contribute to the community and create jobs into the future for decades,” said Commissioner Melissa Link.
Commissioners Ovita Thornton and John Culpepper recused themselves from the vote out of conflicts of interest due to their current service on the board of directors for the Economic Justice Coalition and the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, respectively. Since Culpepper’s vote was needed to pass the Athens Achieves plan back in June, that decision may not be legally valid, which is why the plan needed to be re-approved this month.
Despite universal approval for the plan, some commissioners expressed disappointment and frustration that it took so long to come together. The plan was initially conceived back in 2022 when socialist Commissioner Mariah Parker was able to pass a proposal for workforce support (as opposed to workforce development) in a split 6-4 vote over significant opposition. Parker resigned from office later that year. Around the same time, progressive commissioners Tim Denson and Russell Edwards lost their seats due to Republican gerrymandering, further undermining support for leftist economics. Some of Parker’s more left-wing ideas, like support for union organizing, ended up not being pursued, and the Chamber of Commerce developed its own plan in parallel to compete with Parker’s vision.
Due to various delays, Girtz’s task force ended up convening too late to allow for a robust process in which different proposals would be vetted and carefully selected for funding. Instead, the commission decided to fund the nonprofits listed above directly, without a formal proposal process. The funding comes from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and it must be allocated by the end of this year or returned to the U.S. Treasury.
“In the best of all possible worlds, at least from my perspective, we would have had this done early enough that we could have had a request-for-proposal process,” Myers said. “At this point, it was really a question of, how supportive are we of the goals of workforce development, versus following what would be a standard procedure?”
The nonprofits selected must submit a scope of services for their proposals by Aug. 16. If the commission gives its final approval at its September voting meeting, these programs will be funded through 2026.
Housing Approved: The commission voted unanimously to approve almost 600 new housing units spread across three developments in different parts of town.
The first of these is a new apartment complex near “Space Kroger” on U.S. Highway 29 that will add 330 units with over 500 new beds off McClung Road.
On the Eastside, the commission up-zoned a parcel off International Drive that includes The Reserve apartment complex, which previously held more units than the zoning code technically allowed. By changing the zoning designation fully to RM-2, The Reserve will come into compliance and allow the developer to build 24 new multifamily cottages aimed at graduate students.
Finally, the commission approved 198 new townhomes, 29 detached single-family homes and 11,000 square feet of commercial space on the far west side of the county off Cleveland Road.
While no one spoke in opposition to any of these developments at the meeting, some Cleveland Road residents were fiercely opposed to an earlier version of this development that included an 150-unit apartment complex. The apartment complex ended up being removed in the final version, but with it went the only guaranteed affordable housing in any of the developments.
“I personally had wished that [the apartment complex] stayed,” Houle said before the vote. “They were going to use our inclusionary zoning ordinance and give us some affordable units mixed in with their market rate units… But I also appreciate that that has gotten us to where we are, where we don’t have a line of people at the podium opposing it.”
The inclusionary zoning ordinance grants developers density bonuses and other perks if they set aside some of the units as affordable for someone making 60–80% of the area median income. However, it has been underutilized since its passage in 2022 for various reasons. In this case, nearby residents “complained relentlessly,” according to Houle, and were able to prevent the affordable units from being built.
Definition of Family: After business had concluded, Christian Smith, a UGA professor of higher education, went to the podium during public comment to ask for an exemption for owner-occupied homes in the definition of family ordinance. This ordinance—passed in the early 2000s due to complaints about parking, trash and noise problems coming from houses rented by college students— bans more than two unrelated individuals from sharing the same home in single-family zones.
“As it has been mentioned many times this evening, housing in Athens is very scarce and is becoming very unaffordable,” Smith told the commission. “The current ordinance is unintentionally perpetuating this problem. I bought a five-bedroom home last month, intending to live with others, not knowing about this ordinance… Our community does not benefit from me having empty rooms in the house that I live in.”
At the end of the meeting, Link, Houle, Myers and Thornton spoke in favor of creating an exemption for owner-occupied homes. “I stood at this podium 20 years ago asking for that exemption,” Link said. “The ordinance has been helpful in many of our single-family neighborhoods in keeping them from being completely run over with student housing… but it definitely has a negative impact on our affordable housing capacity.”
Link hoped that the matter could be considered in the future land use planning committee, which is currently meeting and should be offering policy recommendations this fall.
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