There is no hotter topic than housing affordability in 2025, as costs have risen and the market has gotten tighter. In this piece, I’ll break down key elements of market dynamics, programs specifically designed for below-market housing, a survey of the last five years of action in Athens-Clarke County and some coming opportunities.
Why is housing so damn expensive? Well, it’s the same reason that used cars got pricey during the pandemic, and why eggs seem to be lined with gold today: that basic economic principle of scarcity. When there is not enough of something that is in demand, prices rise.
In the wake of the 2008–2011 recession, there was not nearly as much lending or construction as there had been in earlier years, yet people kept having babies, and as the economy recovered, the job market boomed in the Athens area with health-care and education jobs, and new and expanded biotech and manufacturing operations, along with the service industry work that always accompanies other job growth: stuff like retail, grocery stores, restaurants and breweries.
The regional scene is important to keep in mind, because most of us don’t think about city or county boundaries when they drop their kids off at daycare, head to work, pick up dinner or go to the doctor. We’re all just focused on getting to our destination. However, not all localities are similarly situated when it comes to residential opportunity. For example, Oconee County, which has grown lots of retail and medical support jobs in the last 25 years, has almost nowhere to live for the price point sought by the tech who just cleaned your teeth or the clerk who checked you out at Costco. The same is true of Jackson County, which has leveraged its 25 miles of frontage on I-85 for tons of manufacturing and distribution jobs. Folks in their thirties who were my students in Athens 20-plus years ago work at the Walgreens distribution center and the Kubota manufacturing facility there. They often drive back to Athens as the only place they can afford to live—and often in the house with their parents where they grew up. And of course, this is a national phenomenon, with more young people staying in their parents’ home after graduating college and getting a good job, but unable to afford rent (much less a mortgage) on their own.
As scarcity got worse nationally through the 2010s, one analysis three years ago found that Athens swung harder from available supply to scarcity than any other market in the nation. And we can be sure that there will continue to be new housing needs, given the growth in the industries noted above. Just in biotech, we have added several hundred jobs (including important research and development positions) at vaccine manufacture Boehringer Ingleheim, and had our largest-ever economic development catch with Meissner, whose nearly complete facility making the equipment necessary for production of therapeutics and vaccines will employ 1,700 people. (And in a long-sought win for Athens, we have developed a biotech pathway at the Clarke County School District’s Career Academy, so local kids will be in the pipeline for these jobs, which hold an average salary of over $80,000 a year and start in the $50,000 a year range.)
Understanding Market Forces
With an eye toward this issue of scarcity, there is a rare agreement among policy analysts about the solution: create more housing so it isn’t so scarce. While climate change, health-care system design and public education are areas of fierce debate about the best public policy approach, nearly everyone agrees on the question of housing. From conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, to nonpartisan shops like Brookings, to the Pew Charitable Trusts, almost every analyst notes that digging out of our scarcity of housing requires… more housing!
And the facts are clear: In markets where more housing is built, prices across the market stabilize or decline. Minneapolis and Austin are both recent examples. In these cities, a greater variety of housing options have been introduced, along with related relaxation of parking regulations and lot-size limitations. Much of this recent work simply hearkens back to the pre-“Brady Bunch” era of neighborhood development, which you can see all over town in Athens’ older neighborhoods, from the century-old home next to me divided into four units, to the carriage house suites behind many homes in Five Points, to the small apartments mingled through Cobbham, Boulevard and East Athens. (For what it’s worth, I’m not crazy about the “ending single family zoning” messaging around density increases, which to some listeners evokes local policymakers going after June Cleaver with the meat cleaver. I’d rather have us talk about a greater variety of home styles.) Even the housing industry trade publications that cheerlead for more profits are crying over the places where a housing boom has cooled prices.
This also impacts what happens to existing housing stock that neighbors a boom in construction: prices there also slow their escalation. If you live across the street from one of these new developments, it is very likely that your rent will not go up as fast, or that it will drop.
Now, to be clear, the “location, location, location!” cry of real estate agents going back to the dawn of time still applies. You are unlikely to find a big price reduction on Milledge Circle, because that’s a hot spot where you can find a big house in walking distance to fancy food and drinks.
But the bottom line is that newly hired nurses, lab techs, student assistants and bartenders won’t simply disappear if new housing is not built, they will just be part of a bigger group competing for the same housing, like a countywide game of musical chairs. And they (or their real estate agents) are likely to out-compete Athenians with lower wages by finding a grandmother willing to sell her property for big money as she moves into assisted living. Or, they will drive in from Gwinnett County, where they will clog the highway and burn time they could be spending with their kids, going to the gym or binge-watching Netflix. Better to have them live in the community where they work and contribute to our social fabric.
“What about the kids?” you might ask. Ah yes, the University of Georgia students, 42,000 strong and growing. Both the lifeblood of Athens and the bête noire of Commissioner Melissa Link. Well, the same principle applies to student housing: If you don’t have enough of it, the whole community is stressed. UGA has added about 500 students a year for the last three decades, and while living in a building full of undergrads was not my jam even when I was 20, the purpose-built student housing from recent years is largely close to campus, provides significant tax revenue that we can use for youth development, public safety and other purposes, and it is pretty inexpensive to service from the perspective of public expenditures (roads, fire protection, etc.).
Current Options
Every so often, it is tempting as a policymaker to think about living in a command society like China in which we can wish something to happen, and it happens. That is what some friends and neighbors would like to see when it comes to housing affordability. To bend the market to our will sounds like a great idea, but it is as likely to happen as little green people landing in a UFO on my driveway.
Instead, if we want to see housing that is designated as below current market price, we need to subsidize that housing or offer incentives. There are a bunch of subsidy types that federal, state and local governments use. Some longstanding tools are limited by congressional allocation, while others are pretty new to the scene.
Traditional public housing of the sort that you know locally through Nellie B, Parkview or Rocksprings Homes, among others, is a long-gone relic of the 1970s and earlier that still exists as bricks and mortar, but has not been an expanding part of the affordable housing inventory in the U.S. since the Nixon era. The Athens Housing Authority has about 1,250 units and 2,800 residents, including a couple of hundred units that are part of the Columbia Brookside redevelopment of the former Jack R. Wells (“Pauldoe” to locals) neighborhood, a mixed-income neighborhood that saw a tripling of the population, along with a steep decline in crime, when it was built a decade ago.
Federal housing vouchers are used at private properties that accept them. These may be private properties that sometimes feature tenants with vouchers and those who pay cash for market prices; other times these are used at properties that mostly or exclusively rent to voucher recipients. Think Rolling Ridge and Clarke Gardens. In Athens, most housing vouchers are managed by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and there are around 70,000 vouchers available statewide. Some states feature “source of income” regulations that require any private owner to honor a housing voucher that can be redeemed for cash, but Georgia hasn’t gotten on that train yet (talk to your state legislators).
The largest contributor to recent affordable housing inventory in the U.S. is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC, pronounced “lie-tech”) program, which sets aside some or all units for income-limited residents, generally through both up-front funding and ongoing use of vouchers for residents. It is a convoluted system in which federal tax credits (sometimes matched by state tax credits) are offered to third-party investors who buy credits from housing developers to lower their tax burden. It was introduced in the President Reagan/House Speaker Tip O’Neal era as part of the 1986 Budget Act. As complex as it is, many affordable housing advocates would like to see its reform—an advocate for the program upon its inception recently told me that it was thought at the time to be a transitional program to something better.
This program can be used for new development, as well as for rehabilitation of older units. When units are built or renovated, a designated period of affordability begins, usually 15 or 30 years. As you will see below, this is the program with the biggest bang for the buck in Athens today.
There are also active home ownership programs operated by the Athens Land Trust, Habitat for Humanity and the Athens Housing Authority. Each of these operates slightly differently, with ALT’s designated to remain permanently affordable, Habitat’s supported by volunteer labor, and AHA’s funded through the Federal Act I program. At the most, we see five to 10 of these added to the market every year. Particularly because the “Gratuities Clause” of the Georgia Constitution limits state and local government giveaways (“gratuities”) to individuals except in very limited circumstances, most of these programs are funded with federal or nonprofit dollars.
Recent Investments
Let’s take a look at the last few years of investments and incentives directed by the Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County designed to encourage affordable housing. Recently we worked with a consulting group to develop an Affordable Housing Investment Strategy that can guide future work. A key takeaway about current conditions is that nearly 9,000 families in Athens earning under $35,000 a year are rent-burdened, paying more than the recommended 30% of income for housing costs. I highly recommend reading the report in full to get a full portrait of our current situation and future possibilities.
Inclusionary Zoning: The inclusionary zoning ordinance approved by the commission in 2022 has two elements that support affordable housing: onsite affordable units in most zoning classifications and the option of paying into the Affordable Housing Special Revenue Fund in the Commercial Downtown zone, with both options providing a developer with density increases (allowing more bedrooms per acre than the code otherwise allows). The onsite affordable component has so far been used infrequently (it was used by a LIHTC project described below); it may be that the incentives need to be adjusted, or that the tool is challenging for developers doing projects with traditional lending. The Commercial Downtown pay in-lieu feature has also been used, and has contributed $1,965,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund so far, with other proposals in the pipeline to bring more money into that fund.
There were two pilot projects that preceded the IZ code and set the stage for it, one of which was the redevelopment of the former Varsity property on the corner of West Broad Street and Milledge Avenue. The developer bought nearly the entire city block for a mixed-use residential/retail complex, and in an earlier plan that did not come to pass, would have demolished the older homes on Reese Street, including the Mack-Burney House that was home early in the last century to pioneering Black professionals. Instead, we were able to interest the developer in an increase in density on the bulk of the property in exchange for converting 10% of the property to permanently affordable units. These older structures have now been renovated by the Athens Land Trust.
The for-profit portion of this project is also a demonstration of how challenging the national lending and construction environment is right now, as all the zoning permission was granted in January 2019, and the new construction is just now underway, six years later.
Another project that preceded formal adoption of the IZ code is the Atlas project on Lexington Highway, which received a significant density increase above the prior zoning in exchange for having 15% of the units cost-controlled.
Tax Allocation Districts: One of the uses TAD dollars from designated zones, in which increases in property value can be re-invested in the property, is for affordable housing. The first approved use of this tool two years ago was redevelopment of the Georgia Square Mall, which will have about 100 units set aside for residents who earn 60% of the area median income (around $40,000/year). As noted in discussion of the Varsity redevelopment above, the current lending and building environment is challenging, so it is not surprising that it is taking the developer time to get this underway. Over time, this could be an important mechanism, especially for places where there is public land (East Athens) or development opportunities (Lexington Highway).
Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects: In the last three of these cases, the project required zoning approval, and in every case, featured the Athens Housing Authority as a partner with a private LIHTC developer.
• Lakewood Hills: 74 apartments for senior tenants on Barnett Shoals Road. Construction is complete and leasing underway.
• Space Kroger: 192 units with 305 bedrooms on Highway 72 under construction.
• Atlanta Highway: 68 units of senior housing adjacent to the Atlanta Highway Target, approved May 2024.
• Lexington Flats: 144 units, approximately 230 bedrooms, approved October 2024.
SPLOST: The 2020 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum included $44,500,000 for affordable housing.
• North Downtown Athens Redevelopment: The former Bethel Midtown Village has been purchased from the private owner who helmed one of the most poorly maintained large complexes in Athens, which is being demolished and rebuilt in phases, with the first phase now leasing. Ultimately, this mixed-income project will triple the density of the area, allowing for full return of the former residents, who have vouchers that are “site-based,” meaning that they are attached to this land, unlike some other redevelopment projects that create permanent displacement (many of the Atlanta redevelopments of the ‘90s and ‘00s, for example). In addition to SPLOST funds, this project is supported by some ARPA dollars, as well as LIHTC credits and the Public Utilities fund.
• Remaining money for additional projects is about $3.2 million.
• The earlier 2011 SPLOST package featured $500,000 for public infrastructure to support affordable housing, and $226,000 of that was allocated for support of an Athens Land Trust home on Dublin Street that is nearly complete.
CDBG and HOME: These are the two annual funds that flow to ACC through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Community Development Block Grants fund a series of community services, public infrastructure and development projects, including affordable housing, while HOME is exclusively for affordable housing construction. In the last 10 years, about $5.2 million has been spent on 36 new owned homes, 31 new rental homes and a few renovations of existing homes.
ARPA: The commission allocated $14 million of the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds received during the Biden administration to affordable housing, which funded several projects.
• Ten single family homes from the Athens Land Trust.
• Two single family homes from the East Athens Development Corp.
• Ten single family homes from Habitat for Humanity.
• Repair of 12 existing homes by Athens Land Trust.
• Repair of 39 existing homes by the Athens Community Council on Aging.
• Development of 10 rental units for rehabilitating clients of Acceptance Recovery Center.
• The Athens Justice and Memory Project, composed of former Linnentown residents and supporters, recommended $1.25MM for home repair and down-payment assistance in low-income census tracts.
Public Utilities Fund: It is now policy to waive water and sewer connection fees for affordable units, which has been applied to the last several years of projects listed in this section. For example, the LIHTC units behind Space Kroger saved $872,000 through this program.
Affordable Housing Special Revenue Fund: This fund receives dollars from the tax-exempt Athens Housing Authority’s payment in lieu of taxes sent to the unified government every year, as well as fees from the inclusionary zoning program and sometimes general fund dollars (the primary fund for local government operations, which consists of property taxes, the 1% Local Option Sales Tax, and other fees and charges for services).
Coming Opportunities
As mentioned at the start of this piece, housing costs stabilize across a market when new housing is built. The Future Land Use Plan currently under revision will be an enormous opportunity, and it is targeted for commission approval in mid-2025. This will presage new zoning code text, which could involve gentle density throughout the county, such as accessory dwelling units and townhomes. It could also mean more concentrated density on key corridors like Atlanta Highway, which features hundreds of acres of underutilized parcels built out in the 1950s–’80s. (My favorite redevelopment poster child on the corridor is the 18-acre parcel of single-story retail that continues to feature the Blockbuster Video marquee on the corner of Athens West Parkway.) Corridor and “node” density (think intersections like Atlanta Highway and Mitchell Bridge, or highways 72 and 29) can also have the benefit of creating more walkable spaces for existing and future residents, and make transit work more efficiently and effectively.
The Government Operations Committee of the commission is currently developing a revised Land Bank Authority, which is a local government unit that can acquire properties that are in legal limbo, sometimes owned by multiple family members spread over several states. Savvy private developers employ real estate agents and attorneys to do this work for them in the for-profit world, and a land bank is a way to ensure that properties can remain affordable instead. A land bank can do “friendly condemnations,” paying the owners for the property and getting a clean title to the land, while eliminating back taxes. Some cities use this in conjunction with a local housing authority or have a dedicated unit that works on these properties. Peer communities like Macon have far more of abandoned or highly distressed housing stock than Athens has, but every lot counts when it comes to providing affordable places for people to live.
The use of existing public land for affordable or mixed-income developments is another prospect, and has already been kick-started with the coming movement of the Transit Maintenance Facility from Pound Street to a hub near the Olympic Drive Post Office. This will take several years to come to fruition—the new facility needs to be funded and built first—but is a model for how to use existing assets held by the public. Similar opportunities exist at a modest scale in other places, such as the county-owned parcels at the corner of Hancock Avenue and Harris Street. A plan to develop such properties will be part of my recommendation to the commission for the coming fiscal year.
In sum, everyone agrees that we have more work to do. The hundreds of affordable homes that we have funded or incentivized are great steps forward, as are the new neighborhoods that are under construction as we speak, but they are clearly not enough. It can be frustrating for affordability advocates or commercial builders alike to know how long it takes to get a project from concept to execution (even pre-tariff madness, a topic for another day). Still, every step forward is important, and creates the opportunity for someone to lay their head under a rooftop and be part of the Classic City that we love.
Kelly Girtz is the mayor of Athens-Clarke County.
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Why Housing Costs So Much and What the Athens Government Is Doing About It
There is no hotter topic than housing affordability in 2025, as costs have risen and the market has gotten tighter. In this piece, I’ll break down key elements of market dynamics, programs specifically designed for below-market housing, a survey of the last five years of action in Athens-Clarke County and some coming opportunities.
Why is housing so damn expensive? Well, it’s the same reason that used cars got pricey during the pandemic, and why eggs seem to be lined with gold today: that basic economic principle of scarcity. When there is not enough of something that is in demand, prices rise.
In the wake of the 2008–2011 recession, there was not nearly as much lending or construction as there had been in earlier years, yet people kept having babies, and as the economy recovered, the job market boomed in the Athens area with health-care and education jobs, and new and expanded biotech and manufacturing operations, along with the service industry work that always accompanies other job growth: stuff like retail, grocery stores, restaurants and breweries.
The regional scene is important to keep in mind, because most of us don’t think about city or county boundaries when they drop their kids off at daycare, head to work, pick up dinner or go to the doctor. We’re all just focused on getting to our destination. However, not all localities are similarly situated when it comes to residential opportunity. For example, Oconee County, which has grown lots of retail and medical support jobs in the last 25 years, has almost nowhere to live for the price point sought by the tech who just cleaned your teeth or the clerk who checked you out at Costco. The same is true of Jackson County, which has leveraged its 25 miles of frontage on I-85 for tons of manufacturing and distribution jobs. Folks in their thirties who were my students in Athens 20-plus years ago work at the Walgreens distribution center and the Kubota manufacturing facility there. They often drive back to Athens as the only place they can afford to live—and often in the house with their parents where they grew up. And of course, this is a national phenomenon, with more young people staying in their parents’ home after graduating college and getting a good job, but unable to afford rent (much less a mortgage) on their own.
As scarcity got worse nationally through the 2010s, one analysis three years ago found that Athens swung harder from available supply to scarcity than any other market in the nation. And we can be sure that there will continue to be new housing needs, given the growth in the industries noted above. Just in biotech, we have added several hundred jobs (including important research and development positions) at vaccine manufacture Boehringer Ingleheim, and had our largest-ever economic development catch with Meissner, whose nearly complete facility making the equipment necessary for production of therapeutics and vaccines will employ 1,700 people. (And in a long-sought win for Athens, we have developed a biotech pathway at the Clarke County School District’s Career Academy, so local kids will be in the pipeline for these jobs, which hold an average salary of over $80,000 a year and start in the $50,000 a year range.)
Understanding Market Forces
With an eye toward this issue of scarcity, there is a rare agreement among policy analysts about the solution: create more housing so it isn’t so scarce. While climate change, health-care system design and public education are areas of fierce debate about the best public policy approach, nearly everyone agrees on the question of housing. From conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, to nonpartisan shops like Brookings, to the Pew Charitable Trusts, almost every analyst notes that digging out of our scarcity of housing requires… more housing!
And the facts are clear: In markets where more housing is built, prices across the market stabilize or decline. Minneapolis and Austin are both recent examples. In these cities, a greater variety of housing options have been introduced, along with related relaxation of parking regulations and lot-size limitations. Much of this recent work simply hearkens back to the pre-“Brady Bunch” era of neighborhood development, which you can see all over town in Athens’ older neighborhoods, from the century-old home next to me divided into four units, to the carriage house suites behind many homes in Five Points, to the small apartments mingled through Cobbham, Boulevard and East Athens. (For what it’s worth, I’m not crazy about the “ending single family zoning” messaging around density increases, which to some listeners evokes local policymakers going after June Cleaver with the meat cleaver. I’d rather have us talk about a greater variety of home styles.) Even the housing industry trade publications that cheerlead for more profits are crying over the places where a housing boom has cooled prices.
This also impacts what happens to existing housing stock that neighbors a boom in construction: prices there also slow their escalation. If you live across the street from one of these new developments, it is very likely that your rent will not go up as fast, or that it will drop.
Now, to be clear, the “location, location, location!” cry of real estate agents going back to the dawn of time still applies. You are unlikely to find a big price reduction on Milledge Circle, because that’s a hot spot where you can find a big house in walking distance to fancy food and drinks.
But the bottom line is that newly hired nurses, lab techs, student assistants and bartenders won’t simply disappear if new housing is not built, they will just be part of a bigger group competing for the same housing, like a countywide game of musical chairs. And they (or their real estate agents) are likely to out-compete Athenians with lower wages by finding a grandmother willing to sell her property for big money as she moves into assisted living. Or, they will drive in from Gwinnett County, where they will clog the highway and burn time they could be spending with their kids, going to the gym or binge-watching Netflix. Better to have them live in the community where they work and contribute to our social fabric.
“What about the kids?” you might ask. Ah yes, the University of Georgia students, 42,000 strong and growing. Both the lifeblood of Athens and the bête noire of Commissioner Melissa Link. Well, the same principle applies to student housing: If you don’t have enough of it, the whole community is stressed. UGA has added about 500 students a year for the last three decades, and while living in a building full of undergrads was not my jam even when I was 20, the purpose-built student housing from recent years is largely close to campus, provides significant tax revenue that we can use for youth development, public safety and other purposes, and it is pretty inexpensive to service from the perspective of public expenditures (roads, fire protection, etc.).
Current Options
Every so often, it is tempting as a policymaker to think about living in a command society like China in which we can wish something to happen, and it happens. That is what some friends and neighbors would like to see when it comes to housing affordability. To bend the market to our will sounds like a great idea, but it is as likely to happen as little green people landing in a UFO on my driveway.
Instead, if we want to see housing that is designated as below current market price, we need to subsidize that housing or offer incentives. There are a bunch of subsidy types that federal, state and local governments use. Some longstanding tools are limited by congressional allocation, while others are pretty new to the scene.
Traditional public housing of the sort that you know locally through Nellie B, Parkview or Rocksprings Homes, among others, is a long-gone relic of the 1970s and earlier that still exists as bricks and mortar, but has not been an expanding part of the affordable housing inventory in the U.S. since the Nixon era. The Athens Housing Authority has about 1,250 units and 2,800 residents, including a couple of hundred units that are part of the Columbia Brookside redevelopment of the former Jack R. Wells (“Pauldoe” to locals) neighborhood, a mixed-income neighborhood that saw a tripling of the population, along with a steep decline in crime, when it was built a decade ago.
Federal housing vouchers are used at private properties that accept them. These may be private properties that sometimes feature tenants with vouchers and those who pay cash for market prices; other times these are used at properties that mostly or exclusively rent to voucher recipients. Think Rolling Ridge and Clarke Gardens. In Athens, most housing vouchers are managed by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and there are around 70,000 vouchers available statewide. Some states feature “source of income” regulations that require any private owner to honor a housing voucher that can be redeemed for cash, but Georgia hasn’t gotten on that train yet (talk to your state legislators).
The largest contributor to recent affordable housing inventory in the U.S. is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC, pronounced “lie-tech”) program, which sets aside some or all units for income-limited residents, generally through both up-front funding and ongoing use of vouchers for residents. It is a convoluted system in which federal tax credits (sometimes matched by state tax credits) are offered to third-party investors who buy credits from housing developers to lower their tax burden. It was introduced in the President Reagan/House Speaker Tip O’Neal era as part of the 1986 Budget Act. As complex as it is, many affordable housing advocates would like to see its reform—an advocate for the program upon its inception recently told me that it was thought at the time to be a transitional program to something better.
This program can be used for new development, as well as for rehabilitation of older units. When units are built or renovated, a designated period of affordability begins, usually 15 or 30 years. As you will see below, this is the program with the biggest bang for the buck in Athens today.
There are also active home ownership programs operated by the Athens Land Trust, Habitat for Humanity and the Athens Housing Authority. Each of these operates slightly differently, with ALT’s designated to remain permanently affordable, Habitat’s supported by volunteer labor, and AHA’s funded through the Federal Act I program. At the most, we see five to 10 of these added to the market every year. Particularly because the “Gratuities Clause” of the Georgia Constitution limits state and local government giveaways (“gratuities”) to individuals except in very limited circumstances, most of these programs are funded with federal or nonprofit dollars.
Recent Investments
Let’s take a look at the last few years of investments and incentives directed by the Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County designed to encourage affordable housing. Recently we worked with a consulting group to develop an Affordable Housing Investment Strategy that can guide future work. A key takeaway about current conditions is that nearly 9,000 families in Athens earning under $35,000 a year are rent-burdened, paying more than the recommended 30% of income for housing costs. I highly recommend reading the report in full to get a full portrait of our current situation and future possibilities.
Inclusionary Zoning: The inclusionary zoning ordinance approved by the commission in 2022 has two elements that support affordable housing: onsite affordable units in most zoning classifications and the option of paying into the Affordable Housing Special Revenue Fund in the Commercial Downtown zone, with both options providing a developer with density increases (allowing more bedrooms per acre than the code otherwise allows). The onsite affordable component has so far been used infrequently (it was used by a LIHTC project described below); it may be that the incentives need to be adjusted, or that the tool is challenging for developers doing projects with traditional lending. The Commercial Downtown pay in-lieu feature has also been used, and has contributed $1,965,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund so far, with other proposals in the pipeline to bring more money into that fund.
There were two pilot projects that preceded the IZ code and set the stage for it, one of which was the redevelopment of the former Varsity property on the corner of West Broad Street and Milledge Avenue. The developer bought nearly the entire city block for a mixed-use residential/retail complex, and in an earlier plan that did not come to pass, would have demolished the older homes on Reese Street, including the Mack-Burney House that was home early in the last century to pioneering Black professionals. Instead, we were able to interest the developer in an increase in density on the bulk of the property in exchange for converting 10% of the property to permanently affordable units. These older structures have now been renovated by the Athens Land Trust.
The for-profit portion of this project is also a demonstration of how challenging the national lending and construction environment is right now, as all the zoning permission was granted in January 2019, and the new construction is just now underway, six years later.
Another project that preceded formal adoption of the IZ code is the Atlas project on Lexington Highway, which received a significant density increase above the prior zoning in exchange for having 15% of the units cost-controlled.
Tax Allocation Districts: One of the uses TAD dollars from designated zones, in which increases in property value can be re-invested in the property, is for affordable housing. The first approved use of this tool two years ago was redevelopment of the Georgia Square Mall, which will have about 100 units set aside for residents who earn 60% of the area median income (around $40,000/year). As noted in discussion of the Varsity redevelopment above, the current lending and building environment is challenging, so it is not surprising that it is taking the developer time to get this underway. Over time, this could be an important mechanism, especially for places where there is public land (East Athens) or development opportunities (Lexington Highway).
Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects: In the last three of these cases, the project required zoning approval, and in every case, featured the Athens Housing Authority as a partner with a private LIHTC developer.
• Lakewood Hills: 74 apartments for senior tenants on Barnett Shoals Road. Construction is complete and leasing underway.
• Space Kroger: 192 units with 305 bedrooms on Highway 72 under construction.
• Atlanta Highway: 68 units of senior housing adjacent to the Atlanta Highway Target, approved May 2024.
• Lexington Flats: 144 units, approximately 230 bedrooms, approved October 2024.
SPLOST: The 2020 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum included $44,500,000 for affordable housing.
• North Downtown Athens Redevelopment: The former Bethel Midtown Village has been purchased from the private owner who helmed one of the most poorly maintained large complexes in Athens, which is being demolished and rebuilt in phases, with the first phase now leasing. Ultimately, this mixed-income project will triple the density of the area, allowing for full return of the former residents, who have vouchers that are “site-based,” meaning that they are attached to this land, unlike some other redevelopment projects that create permanent displacement (many of the Atlanta redevelopments of the ‘90s and ‘00s, for example). In addition to SPLOST funds, this project is supported by some ARPA dollars, as well as LIHTC credits and the Public Utilities fund.
• Remaining money for additional projects is about $3.2 million.
• The earlier 2011 SPLOST package featured $500,000 for public infrastructure to support affordable housing, and $226,000 of that was allocated for support of an Athens Land Trust home on Dublin Street that is nearly complete.
CDBG and HOME: These are the two annual funds that flow to ACC through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Community Development Block Grants fund a series of community services, public infrastructure and development projects, including affordable housing, while HOME is exclusively for affordable housing construction. In the last 10 years, about $5.2 million has been spent on 36 new owned homes, 31 new rental homes and a few renovations of existing homes.
ARPA: The commission allocated $14 million of the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds received during the Biden administration to affordable housing, which funded several projects.
• Ten single family homes from the Athens Land Trust.
• Two single family homes from the East Athens Development Corp.
• Ten single family homes from Habitat for Humanity.
• Repair of 12 existing homes by Athens Land Trust.
• Repair of 39 existing homes by the Athens Community Council on Aging.
• Development of 10 rental units for rehabilitating clients of Acceptance Recovery Center.
• The Athens Justice and Memory Project, composed of former Linnentown residents and supporters, recommended $1.25MM for home repair and down-payment assistance in low-income census tracts.
Public Utilities Fund: It is now policy to waive water and sewer connection fees for affordable units, which has been applied to the last several years of projects listed in this section. For example, the LIHTC units behind Space Kroger saved $872,000 through this program.
Affordable Housing Special Revenue Fund: This fund receives dollars from the tax-exempt Athens Housing Authority’s payment in lieu of taxes sent to the unified government every year, as well as fees from the inclusionary zoning program and sometimes general fund dollars (the primary fund for local government operations, which consists of property taxes, the 1% Local Option Sales Tax, and other fees and charges for services).
Coming Opportunities
As mentioned at the start of this piece, housing costs stabilize across a market when new housing is built. The Future Land Use Plan currently under revision will be an enormous opportunity, and it is targeted for commission approval in mid-2025. This will presage new zoning code text, which could involve gentle density throughout the county, such as accessory dwelling units and townhomes. It could also mean more concentrated density on key corridors like Atlanta Highway, which features hundreds of acres of underutilized parcels built out in the 1950s–’80s. (My favorite redevelopment poster child on the corridor is the 18-acre parcel of single-story retail that continues to feature the Blockbuster Video marquee on the corner of Athens West Parkway.) Corridor and “node” density (think intersections like Atlanta Highway and Mitchell Bridge, or highways 72 and 29) can also have the benefit of creating more walkable spaces for existing and future residents, and make transit work more efficiently and effectively.
The Government Operations Committee of the commission is currently developing a revised Land Bank Authority, which is a local government unit that can acquire properties that are in legal limbo, sometimes owned by multiple family members spread over several states. Savvy private developers employ real estate agents and attorneys to do this work for them in the for-profit world, and a land bank is a way to ensure that properties can remain affordable instead. A land bank can do “friendly condemnations,” paying the owners for the property and getting a clean title to the land, while eliminating back taxes. Some cities use this in conjunction with a local housing authority or have a dedicated unit that works on these properties. Peer communities like Macon have far more of abandoned or highly distressed housing stock than Athens has, but every lot counts when it comes to providing affordable places for people to live.
The use of existing public land for affordable or mixed-income developments is another prospect, and has already been kick-started with the coming movement of the Transit Maintenance Facility from Pound Street to a hub near the Olympic Drive Post Office. This will take several years to come to fruition—the new facility needs to be funded and built first—but is a model for how to use existing assets held by the public. Similar opportunities exist at a modest scale in other places, such as the county-owned parcels at the corner of Hancock Avenue and Harris Street. A plan to develop such properties will be part of my recommendation to the commission for the coming fiscal year.
In sum, everyone agrees that we have more work to do. The hundreds of affordable homes that we have funded or incentivized are great steps forward, as are the new neighborhoods that are under construction as we speak, but they are clearly not enough. It can be frustrating for affordability advocates or commercial builders alike to know how long it takes to get a project from concept to execution (even pre-tariff madness, a topic for another day). Still, every step forward is important, and creates the opportunity for someone to lay their head under a rooftop and be part of the Classic City that we love.
Kelly Girtz is the mayor of Athens-Clarke County.
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