Unpacking Atlanta’s heated TAD debate
Atlanta is at a crossroads. Mayor Andre Dickens has unveiled an ambitious plan to pump billions of dollars into the city’s most underinvested communities — but his $5.5 billion Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative relies on extending the lifetimes of Atlanta’s eight tax allocation districts (TADs) until 2055.
A weeks-long Atlanta Civic Circle investigation found that the mayor’s goal to close the book on the “tale of two cities” — where unequal investment has long segregated Atlanta by race, wealth, and even life expectancy — relies on a public financing tool that has yielded vastly different results, depending on where you live.
The city’s wealthiest TADs — the Beltline, Westside, and Eastside — have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax increment revenue from property taxes over decades of operation, transforming neighborhoods through public-private development partnerships that often displace lower-income residents.
But the lower-grossing TADs — Perry-Bolton and the four corridor TADs (Campbellton Road, Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway/Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Metropolitan Parkway, and Stadium) have generated far less tax increment revenue. Consequently, they’ve funded fewer and smaller projects, leaving many poorer Atlanta neighborhoods still seeking revitalization.
We explored concerns raised by neighborhood, nonprofit, and city leaders, as well as Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County, over prolonging property-tax diversion to fund all eight TADs – and whether it would actually change the “tale of two cities” for residents.
📰 Read our deep dive here, and reach out to housing reporter Sean Keenan (sean@atlantaciviccircle.org) to share your thoughts.
Is Two Peachtree’s housing-focused overhaul stuck in limbo?
One of Atlanta’s most high-profile affordable housing efforts seems stuck in a holding pattern, with key questions about how the city will pay for it unanswered.
Atlanta officials celebrated the Two Peachtree project’s launch in early 2023, when the city bought the 41-story office tower from the state, with plans to turn the long-vacant office tower into a major mixed-use development just steps from MARTA’s Five Points train station. The ambitious conversion promises 287 rental units for households earning less than the area median income.
But last week, the Atlanta City Council cancelled legislation to pay $520,000 to an architectural design firm, Fitzgerald Collaborative Group, for the overhaul’s planning and design. Council members said the city’s economic development agency, Invest Atlanta, needs to first iron out details on how to finance the ambitious project.
Several council members told Atlanta Civic Circle this week that Invest Atlanta has left them in the dark on the project’s progress — and that they’re not sure how the city intends to pay for Two Peachtree’s gutting and retrofitting.
Read the full story here.
Will Congress rein in corporate bulk-homebuyers? Expert aren’t so sure.
The US Senate has overwhelmingly approved a sweeping bipartisan housing bill that aims to make housing more affordable by curbing investors’ outsize influence in housing markets nationally, boosting housing supply, and encouraging financing for first-time homebuyers, among other provisions.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act still must pass the House of Representatives.
The bill has been hailed for limiting institutional investors from buying more than 350 houses, by fining violators either $1 million or up to triple the excess homes’ purchase prices, whichever is higher.
While that’s a major development, Georgia State University geographer Taylor Shelton said carve-outs – such as allowing investors that already own over 350 houses to keep them without penalty — mean the legislation “won’t have much — if any — impact on the status quo of corporate ownership.”
Check out what Shelton and other experts told Atlanta Civic Circle.
“Anti-squatting” bill heads to governor’s desk, jeopardizing motel residents
The Georgia Legislature has approved controversial “anti-squatting” legislation for Gov. Brian Kemp to sign that housing advocates warn will jeopardize the housing security of people who have found themselves stuck living in extended-stay hotels.
House Bill 61 classifies nonpayment of a hotel fee as criminal trespass, making the resident subject to removal by law enforcement without an eviction court proceeding. These motels are a critical source of housing for thousands of low-income Georgians, but most don’t have the protection of a formal lease. Instead, any resident who’s stayed at the extended-stay hotel for 90 days or longer has 10 days to vacate, once the hotel tells them to leave.
Thank you for reading Housing Happenings. Today’s newsletter was written by Sean Keenan and edited by Meredith Hobbs. Have tips, corrections, or questions? Just reply to this email.