Metro Atlanta's housing crisis needs a regional fix, leaders say
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The Atlanta region is in a housing affordability crunch and there are no signs that it will ease any time soon.
- To address this trend, the Atlanta Regional Commission has released its Housing Forward 2035 strategy for the 11-county region.
Why it matters: The housing crisis doesn't care about city and county boundaries, so the region must come up with a collective framework that will help metro Atlanta remain an affordable place to live.
Driving the news: The strategy was unveiled last week at the Atlanta Regional Housing Forum, which brought together advocates, elected officials and nonprofit entities.
- It was developed in partnership with advisory firm HR&A, and is based on public input, as well as workshops during the ARC's Regional Housing Summit earlier this year.
What they're saying: Anna Roach, executive director of the ARC, said the region is projected to only meet 25% of the housing demand for people who earn less than $55,000 a year by 2035.
- By then, 75% of people who fall below that income threshold "won't have housing to speak of."
- "That is a sobering number," Roach told the audience at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta. "Imagine how much more difficult it's going to be if we do nothing to change the course of where we're heading."
Zoom in: The ARC's strategy calls for building 367,000 homes by 2035, and preserving about 104,000 affordable units that could be lost due to redevelopment.
- It also calls for 51% of those 367,000 new homes to be affordable for people at or below 80% of the area median income (or around $73,000 for a two-person household).
- The region should also focus on creating new housing at price points that are accessible for people who make no more than $55,000 a year, and building new homes on at least 10% of the region's 1.7-million vacant or underused parcels by 2035.
- The ARC will create a toolkit and certification program that could help local governments reduce obstacles to building and preserving housing units.
- It will also roll out a dashboard to track progress on affordability, preservation and housing production throughout the region.
State of play: The strategy comes on the heels of a study that found more than half of renters and nearly a quarter of homeowners spend 30% or more of their income on housing, according to the ARC.
What's next: The ARC's board has to adopt the strategy, which could happen at its Oct. 14 meeting.