Over the past few years, the City of Atlanta has been ramping up efforts to create affordable housing through inclusionary zoning, while also subsidizing and promoting the development of market-rate, “naturally” affordable housing that is affordable to residents below the median-family income. One of the biggest such effort is the sprawling Carey Park Redevelopment project, led by affordable housing developers Urban Oasis Development and Longline Holdings who plan to build roughly 400 new homes and apartments across 37 mostly-contiguous acres in the Northwest Atlanta neighborhood of Carey Park.
The centerpiece of this development, according to a rezoning application reviewed by Neighborhood Planning Unit-G on Thursday, August 19th, will be development of a 2.29 neighborhood core mixed-use complex that will include up to 40 residential units and 5,000 SF of retail space. The site of the redevelopment was once home to the New Fellowship-Praise Baptist Church, who sold the property to First Citizens Bank and Trust Company in 2016 for $365,662. The site last sold for $756,023 to CP Acquisition partners LLC in September of 2020. The Church sanctuary, which appears to have sat vacant since the purchase, will be torn down to make way for the new construction.
According to the rezoning application, submitted by project designers Kronberg Urbanist Architects, the goal of the project is to serve as a “model for supporting city and neighborhood goals of diverse, affordable, context-sensitive housing and amenities.” The project is requesting a rezoning of the property from R4-A to MRC-1 to allow for the mixed-use development, which it says will offer rental units which may including “small-scale apartments and townhomes… 20% of which will be rented to income earners at an average of 80% AMI.” The application states that the market-rate units would be $1,294 for a one-bedroom to $1,552 for a two-bedroom.
The affordable units are required as part of the Westside Affordable Workforce Housing Overlay District, which was just approved in March of 2021. The City created the overlay district to ensure affordability in rapidly developing westside Atlanta, spurred by major developments such as the BeltLine, Westside Reservoir Park, and a planned Microsoft campus. The aim of the inclusionary zoning is to provide family-friendly housing to workers making roughly a teacher’s salary.
