Fresh Loaf

One of the Beltline’s goals is that all Atlantans — regardless of income — will be able to enjoy the 22-mile ring of parks, trails and transit. Last week, the Atlanta Development Authority approved a set of recommendations that could help make that happen.

Andy Schneggenburger, executive director the Atlanta Housing Association of Neighborhood-based Developers and a member of the advisory board that wrote the recommendations, says the authority decided to offer incentives to developers who include community land trusts and energy efficiencies in their projects, as well as those who give city residents, Beltline-area residents and public-service employees first dibs. Developments that offer 10 percent of new housing units at rents affordable to Atlantans making less than $20,760 would win extra points in competing for Beltline grants.

Beltline leaders will vote on the recommendations this week before sending them to City Council.

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Atlanta’s much ballyhooed Center for Civil and Human Rights will take an important step toward becoming a reality – a site dedication ceremony – this coming Monday.

Didn’t know a site had been selected? You’re not alone.

Neither City Hall, which helped start the ball rolling for the museum; nor the Atlanta Development Authority, which will issue bonds to help pay for it; nor the Center for Civil and Human Rights Partnership, the city-sponsored group charged with raising private funding, has ever announced that a site had been formally selected.

“I guess you could say that’s what’s happening on Monday,” says A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, who headed up a panel of business leaders that helped determine the cost and mission of the proposed center in late 2006.

To call the site selection a below-the-radar decision is like saying Paris Hilton doesn’t mind having her picture taken. City Councilman Kwanza Hall, who represents the area, says he didn’t know about the dedication event until just this past Monday. Other council folk we asked hadn’t heard a thing.

So when was this decision made – and, more to the point, who made it?

(more…)

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The Atlanta Development Authority today announced $1.5 million in low-interest loans for developers of multifamily housing who want to build affordable units.

The city’s got a long way to go toward Mayor Shirley Franklin’s goal of adding 10,000 affordable housing units in the city by 2009 — since 2005, however, Atlanta’s only seen the addition of 3,500 units. Today’s announcement may be the incentive some developers might need to pursue the vital component of a balanced urban environment in today’s market.

After the jump, view the city’s press release announcing the program. Details on how to apply for the incentives are included.

(more…)

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The Atlanta Development Authority — the city’s economic development engine — responded yesterday to the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling that the Beltline could not utilize nearly $860 million generated by the tax allocation district, or TAD. In so many words: The ADA’s disappointed and says yesterday’s ruling will have a big impact on what’s become the financing mechanism du jour in Georgia. Here’s the ADA’s response and updates on where existing TADs stand, as well as some background on TIFs, which are basically TADs by another name. Emphasis has been added to highlight key points.

This decision will reduce the economic impact of all TADs statewide. TADs are a national best practice (known as TIFs, or tax increment financings, in other states) and the City’s most effective incentive in helping to revitalize underdeveloped areas of the City. This ruling in essence cuts in half the incentive benefit and may slow redevelopment in the City’s targeted areas.

The City of Atlanta currently has ten TADs: Westside Downtown, Atlantic Station, Princeton Lakes, Perry-Bolton, Eastside Downtown, BeltLine, Campbellton Road, DL Hollowell Parkway/MLK, Metropolitan Parkway and Stadium Area.

This ruling will not impact projects funded by TADs where validated bonds are outstanding. Since 1997, bonds have been issued in the Atlantic Station, Princeton Lakes, Eastside and Westside TADs, totaling $410 million.

This ruling will affect future bond offerings in all of the City’s TADs. For example, bond offerings planned for 2008 are the BeltLine, the Perry-Bolton TAD and the third bond offering for the Westside TAD. We will revise the feasibility numbers for the Perry-Bolton and Westside projects to assess the funding implications for each of the proposed projects. ADA will communicate its findings to each development team later this week.

We are committed to moving forward with redevelopment projects in all of the City’s TADs. For more information, please see the following web sites:

TIFs as a national best practice

TADs in Georgia
2007 year-end report on the City’s Tax Allocation Districts

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If you take Memorial Drive into and out of downtown, you may recently have noticed land-clearing on several woebegone parcels between that street and MLK Drive. And you may have wondered what’s going in where those dilapidated structures had been.

Here’s your answer: Nothing.

The demolition you’ve witnessed is part of an ongoing project to create a linear park between the state Capitol and Oakland Cemetery. The western portion of the park, where the Capitol Homes public housing project once stood, is already cleared and is awaiting state funding to turn it into a greenway.

Just last week, Gov. Sonny Perdue submitted a budget proposal that includes some $11 million to begin designing a pedestrian thoroughfare that will allow visitors to walk from the Gold Dome to the planned Capitol Gateway Park by way of a walkway spanning the Downtown Connector. The ambitious proposal calls for the parking deck next to the Statehouse to be replaced by a rolling lawn, through which Piedmont Avenue will be rerouted, boulevard-style.

As for the land-clearing to the east, at Hill Street and along Oakland Avenue, that’s the city’s handiwork. Through the Atlanta Development Authority, and with support from the Trust for Public Land and private donors, the city is assembling the rest of the strip along Memorial to complement the state’s portion.

Last year, the city bought three blocks, with four more to go. The most recent acquisition – for $1.7 million – was the block on the north side of MLK, just opposite the entrance to the cemetery. The land was vacant except for an old, shanty-ish house, says Ellen Wickersham, the ADA’s manager of parks and greenspace.

“As we were wiring the money to seller, fire engines were called because the house was going up in flames,” she says. “It’s totally unexplained.”

The site could be used for a future visitor’s center for Atlanta’s most famous cemetery, she says.

Meanwhile, a number of existing businesses are still operating in the planned park corridor, including the beloved Daddy D’z. But Wickersham says the city isn’t trying to push anybody out.

“This is a long-term project, so we’re working with individual businesses in order to respect their needs,” she says.

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While the rest of us were gorging on holiday food and counting down a giant peach’s annual plunge, officials from the Atlanta Development Authority were in Europe, conjuring some business opportunities for the city. They returned with probably the coolest business possibility they could have imagined — a miniature city. I’m not being sarcastic, I love these things! From the ADA’s release about a similar Dutch-themed project the members saw, Madurodam.

Madurodam is a miniature city – built on a 1:25 scale – composed of replicas of Dutch landmarks made with the same building materials (brick, glass, steel) used in life-sized construction. Windmills turn, tour boats float down canals, fire fighters extinguish a fire in the harbor and a modern train moves through the city’s railway. The city has a population of 66,000, served by an actual mayor and city council of Dutch youth. About 5,236 tiny trees and 3,150 street lamps surround Madurodam’s 338 buildings. Structures such as the ING bank office complex took longer than four years to construct.

What say you, dear reader? What features of our fair region should the model-makers set out to depict if this becomes a reality?

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