Housing is one other space the place the plan may go larger. In line with a 2017 analysis, greater than 100,000 renters in Atlanta pay an excessive amount of for housing – together with greater than half of the renters of coloration within the metropolis. Given the housing crunch, the plan’s aim of relieving value burdens for two,475 households over three years appears insufficient. In the meantime, the plan’s goal of offering 450 inexpensive homeownership alternatives is lower than half that set by Boston, a metropolis of comparable measurement, in its recent housing plan. Though Metropolis Corridor’s recent announcement of a $50 million affordable housing bond issuance is a step in the proper route, this represents solely half of an initially deliberate $100 million dedication, and solely 5% of the Metropolis’s beforehand acknowledged aim of elevating $1 billion in private and non-private funds for inexpensive housing. What Atlanta actually wants is a housing belief fund supplemented by annual commitments; the bond-based method, in contrast, is only a one-off. Extra promising is the administration’s recently announced plan to rezone giant swaths of the town to legalize duplexes, which might considerably enhance citywide housing capability.
Strategic regional partnerships may additionally supercharge the impression of native investments. The Atlanta metropolitan space is residence to a dynamic array of upper schooling establishments, which may very well be higher leveraged to uplift entry to alternative. Rowen, a brand new innovation district situated in Gwinnett County, is only one instance of this kind of regional collaboration at work, bringing county authorities along with main universities to advertise the expansion of the innovation economic system. By 2035, Rowen is estimated to generate some 18,500 jobs, lots of which – with the proper instructional and mobility investments – may very well be made out there to out-of-work Atlantans. Different rising tech hubs, like Washington, D.C., are taking exactly this method to higher community larger ed, business and authorities within the service of an expanded talent pipeline.
Atlanta is well-positioned to cleared the path in equitable financial growth. Town has been residence to numerous trailblazers in enterprise and politics. Atlantans have additionally raised the bar on inclusive city planning in recent times, by tasks just like the Beltline, the Atlanta Land Belief, and the Westside Future Fund. Following a 12 months of unparalleled turbulence – and with a brand new administration coming into the White Home – we consider there may be extra that the town’s restoration plan can do to ship on that promise.
Mason Ailstock and Stan Wall are senior principal and accomplice, respectively, with HR&A Advisors, a consulting agency working in actual property and financial growth. Ailstock is mission supervisor for Gwinnett County’s Rowen effort.
