A discussion about a large housing development on the Eastside at an Athens-Clarke County Commission meeting last week brought up a familiar topic—affordable housing.
The second phase of the Lakeshore development off Barnett Shoals Road would include up to nearly 800 housing units, a mix of apartments, duplexes, townhouses and single-family homes of varying sizes close to the North Oconee River Greenway and a new library soon to be built near Carriage Court.
But it will be a market rate development, which did not sit well with some commissioners.
Eastside representative Carol Myers, who supports the project, said that the developer declined to participate in the county’s inclusionary zoning program, which offers additional density or relief from minimum parking regulations in exchange for a designated 10–20% of units as affordable for residents who make less than Athens’ median income.
“They don’t need more density, and working with the [difficult] topography has a cost,” Myers said.
Commissioner Ovita Thornton called it “a beautiful project” but added, “I keep thinking, when are we going to get to the folk who can’t afford to live in these places?”
She said the inclusionary zoning policy is not working and should be revised. “I want [developers] to make money, but I don’t want you to make money leaving other folk on the street,” she said.
“Even people who work full-time seven days a week won’t be able to afford to live in here,” added Commissioner Tiffany Taylor.
Commissioner Melissa Link said that increasing the supply of housing will eventually bring down prices. The plans for Lakeshore originally date back to 2004, but like many developments it was halted after the housing crash and recession that started in 2008. Many projects also paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. The local housing supply is still playing catchup, as the population has continued to grow steadily.
“I wonder if this had been built out on schedule 15 years ago or whatever, we might not be in as much of a housing crisis as we are right now,” Link said. “This has a lot of that ‘missing middle’ [small cottages, townhouses and duplexes] that we have studied and said we need. We know that housing costs are driven by housing availability. I like the diversity of housing here. Yeah, we’re not going to see affordable housing here, but by enabling the construction of more housing on the market, the law of supply and demand kicks in.”
Taylor was skeptical and asked for a list of communities where housing costs fell because new housing was built. One example is Minneapolis, which ended single-family zoning in 2017. Over the next five years, the housing stock grew 12% and rents fell 4% during a time period when rents rose by 22% nationally.
“When you increase the supply to meet that demand, it’s like supply-side progressivism as a political philosophy. You’re able to prevent major jacks in the rent,” Mayor Jacob Frey told NBC News in 2024.
Closer to home, rents in Atlanta have also fallen by 4% due to a multifamily building boom, CNN reported last year. Cities like Miami and Austin, TX saw similar declines.
According to data from the website Apartment List, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Athens is $1,231 a month, down $200 from its peak in mid-2022 and about the same as this time last year. Rents rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic as remote workers in big cities sought more space, and the University of Georgia admitted more students without adding on-campus housing. (Since then, UGA has built one new dorm and is planning another.)
“We put a lot of money for affordable housing in our budget,” Myers said, pointing to the $5 million “strike fund” the mayor and commission created last year. That fund will enable the ACC government to buy residential properties as they come on the market to turn into affordable housing. But so far, the county has not used it.
The commission also briefly discussed whether to claw back federal American Rescue Plan Act funding from two nonprofit affordable housing providers that have not spent it yet. Because ARPA funding has to be spent or returned to the federal treasury by the end of 2026, ACC included language in contracts allowing it to reallocate unspent grants if certain benchmarks are not met.
In 2023, the commission awarded the Athens Land Trust $2.7 million to build 10 affordable houses for purchase, and the East Athens Development Corp. received $800,000 for two rental homes. However, they have made little progress because the ALT’s executive director and construction manager left a short time apart, and EADC had a hard time getting builders insurance. Both county staff and commissioners were satisfied with the groups’ plans to get those projects back on track, and commissioners indicated they would vote unanimously to let them continue at their next meeting Mar. 4.
The commission is also likely to vote unanimously to raise parking rates at downtown parking decks from $1.50 to $2 per hour, along with extending the free time period from the first half-hour to an hour. The Athens Downtown Development Authority asked for the rate hike because, after the commission raised the rate from $1 to $1.50, it discovered that its payment machines do not accept coins. New equipment would cost $80,000. The higher rate would bring in a net $313,000; 60% goes to ACC and 40% to the ADDA. Since the county usually charges a higher rate for on-street parking to encourage drivers to use the decks, a street parking rate hike is likely coming in July as part of ACC’s next annual budget.
Commissioner Patrick Davenport asked about the impact on downtown service workers. Many business owners pay for employees’ parking, Mayor Kelly Girtz said, adding that, “If you’re looking for free parking downtown, you just have to be savvy enough to find it. There’s quite a bit north of Dougherty Street.”
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