Fresh Loaf

BROKEN WINDOWS Some residents of Vine City feel that their neighborhood is crumbling before their eyes.

Ask lifelong Vine City resident and community organizer Byron Amos to recall his childhood in the historic neighborhood, and he paints a simple portrait: houses, children, residents mingling in narrow, friendly streets.

“A real neighborhood,” he says.

Ask him to describe Vine City today, and he’ll tell you this: “It’s a shell of its former self.”

Literally. Thanks to disasters both natural and man-made, the long-overlooked community so rich with heritage has devolved into the very definition of blight.

On Sept. 21, 2002, an unprecedented downpour, exacerbated by the city’s antiquated sewer system, flooded Vine City 6 feet deep. Some stranded residents were forced to swim through raw sewage to reach safety.

Continue reading “Down and out in Vine City”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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In late 2007, Georgia Tech professor Dan Immergluck released a study that added numbers to a sneaking suspicion: Property taxes were rising fast along the southern half of the Beltline, the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit planned to circle Atlanta’s urban core, and posing a problem for longtime residents unable to afford the uptick.

The study served as a reminder that for all its promises of parks, streetcars and smart-growth development, the Beltline could potentially cause displacement and gentrification — and have a negative impact on the neighborhoods the project is designed to help.

Immergluck’s followed up the study with Foreclosed!, a new book about the origins and aftershocks of the nationwide housing market meltdown.

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The New York Times Magazine offers a full preview online of its profile about Tony Brancatelli, a Cleveland City Councilmember who’s battling a problem currently plaguing Atlanta — what to do with the rows and rows of abandoned and foreclosed homes.

From the magazine:

Foreclosures are a problem all over the country now, but Cleveland got to this place a while ago. Cities, old and new, are looking at what’s occurring in Cleveland with some trepidation — and also looking for guidance. Already places as diverse as Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas and Minneapolis have neighborhoods where at least one of every five homes stands vacant. In states like California, Florida and Nevada, where many of the foreclosures have been newer housing, there is fear that with mounting unemployment and more people walking away from their property, houses will remain empty longer, with a greater likelihood that they will deteriorate or be vandalized. “There are neighborhoods around the country as bad as anything in Cleveland,” says Dan Immergluck, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and an associate professor in the city and regional planning program at Georgia Tech. Local officials from other industrial cities have visited Cleveland to learn how it’s dealing with the devastation. “Cleveland is a bellwether,” Immergluck says. “It’s where other cities are heading because of the economic downturn.”

Immergluck, if you recall, wrote the eye-opening 2007 report (PDF) that concluded property values were rising faster along the southern half of the Beltline — Atlanta’s 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit — than the project’s other areas. Both that report and the Times article are great and deserve a read.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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D.L. Bennett of the AJC has an article that addresses what many of us have assumed — the intown building boom is hitting the skids. The rush to build homes to welcome the influx of new residents was broadsided by the foreclosure and credit and resulted in shuttered-up houses and dwindling property values.

Says Ben at Terminal Station:

The combination of factors hitting these areas is brutal.  First, all the subprime mortgages that got people into these homes in the first place reset and foreclosures follow.  Housing prices plummet, and you might think there would be a wave of people who could get into some infill homes for a great price.  However, tighter credit standards are going to prevent people from getting loans, and the cratering economy will further depress things.  So these homes will just sit empty for who knows how long.

The city has received $12 million to buy foreclosures, but it will barely make a dent in the problem. I don’t really know what sort of policy solutions are available. There needs to be an infusion of capital somewhere to buy these houses and get them occupied. I know some folks who are buying up cheap houses (~$30k), renovating them, and renting them to people with Section 8 vouchers. The problem is that this is not a recipe for revitalization. Instead, it can become a recipe for concentrated poverty and can prevent new residents from wanting to move in. I’m not enthusiastic about an infusion of capital of this sort, but it is probably the only sort of private capital available.

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Jeff Johnson has a thing or two to say to the person who penned and circulated a vitriolic, idiotic letter that threatened African-Americans who live in Kirkwood.

Johnson, a yearlong Kirkwood resident and long-time Georgian, says the key to “saving” his neighborhood is to band together against displays of hate — and against the criminals whose acts instill that hate. He describes himself to the letter-writer as “the tall guy walking down the street headed to the park with my mixed kids. Don’t Shoot.”

Dear Angry Kirkwood Vigilante:

I hope you’re not as racist as you sound and just really angry over something that has touched you personally.

You mentioned crackheads, so let’s speak on drug epidemics. If you were in the suburbs, you would quite possibly have the same issue, only with non-African-American meth-heads. On to our specific issue here in Kirkwood: To everyone that bought a pricey house, and even those that brought a broke-down fixer-upper, my condolences. I would be upset too if I discovered the indigenous crackhead population after the purchase. I personally have grown up with the crack problem and have lost much more than my HD and Surround Sound, so allow me to offer these tips:

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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.

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Attention all wonks! Atlanta is once again featured in a story about the changing faces of cities. The Wall Street Journal reports cities nationwide are seeing whites moving back into cities in large numbers as African-Americans move out. Big shock, I know, but they’ve got great numbers to prove it.

From the article:

Today, cities are refashioning themselves as trendy centers devoid of suburban ills like strip malls and long commutes. In Atlanta, which has among the longest commute times of any U.S. city, the white population rose by 26,000 between 2000 and 2006, while the black population decreased by 8,900. Overall the white proportion has increased to 35% in 2006 from 31% in 2000.

The WSJ focuses heavily on Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, but we get a little play in there, even a mention of how the next mayor’s race may feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s.

For an Atlanta-focused — and well-written — take on the the city’s gentrification, check out this article by Governing Magazine’s Rob Gurwitt.

(Many thanks to the mysterious “Christa” at PecanneLog for the find.)

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Wow.

Governing Magazine may not have the newsstand pop of US Weekly, ya scandal-lovin’ misanthropes, but it churns out some of the best content when it comes to policy issues facing metropolitan areas. This month’s article by staff writer Rob Gurwitt about Atlanta’s shifting demographics and its impact on politics is no exception.

From the piece:

There is really only one way to put it: Atlanta is becoming whiter, and at a pace that outstrips the rest of the nation. The white share of the city’s population, says Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, grew faster between 2000 and 2006 than that of any other U.S. city. It increased from 31 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2006, a numeric gain of 26,000, more than double the increase between 1990 and 2000. The trend seems to be gathering strength with each passing year. Only Washington, D.C., saw a comparable increase in white population share during those years, although several other big cities are starting to see it now.

This development is occurring at the same time that race and ethnicity are driving changes every bit as fundamental in Atlanta’s suburbs. For if the city itself is growing whiter, the Atlanta region is growing less white. The Atlanta Regional Commission reports that in 2000, the white, non-Hispanic population of the 20-county Atlanta metro region formed 60 percent of the total population; by 2006, that had shrunk to 54 percent, not so much because whites were leaving — although four counties did see absolute declines in white numbers — but because of the arrival in the suburbs of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Africans and Caribbeans. Of the 10 counties in the nation with the largest declines in white percentage of the population from 2000 to 2006, six are in the suburbs of Atlanta.

Gurwitt interviews a variety of voices and manages to encapsulate the realities of the situation. He also weighs in on the changing face of Atlanta’s suburbs and how minorities and low-income residents are flocking there for cheap housing. And in turn, changing the face of the once lily-white communities.

He also notes that the state Legislature failed to pass a transportation funding strategy that would’ve allowed regions to levy a sales tax for people-moving projects. Now that a gallon of gas costs as much as a Happy Meal, the state should reexamine the idea. It’s never too late to act, right? Eh? This thing on, lawmakers?

Give it a read.

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Georgia Stand-Up, a nonprofit community activism group that raised awareness about Beltline-inspired gentrification with its eye-opening report last year, just released a study for policymakers and citizens alike about community engagement. It’s a great read. For more information about the report, click here.

There’ll be a lengthy post later about the organization’s event held today downtown. Beltline CEO Terri Montague made an appearance and addressed citizen concerns about displacement, public engagement, and progress on the Beltline.

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Lenny’s in Old Fourth Ward will have to find a new home when its lease expires in two years. The music venue and bar’s Decatur Street strip mall location was sold for $3.3 million, according to the AJC.

“For us, it just means in 2-3 years we’ll probably have to move again,” says Bean Summer, the music venue’s booking agent.

“On a larger scale, I think it’s a horrible trend for the city. I think they’re pushing out culture and making really ugly choices. They’re losing control of whatever the beauty of Atlanta is becoming. What are we going to do as a city if we have miles and miles of apartments and nothing to do?”

(Read more at Crib Notes)

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The Beltline — the 22-mile ring of trees, trails and transit planned to encircle the city — continues to take shape. Last Thursday at the Atlanta Public Schools, project planners and advocates addressed stakeholders and noted that, despite recent pitfalls and obstacles, the public-works effort is coursing ahead.

Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO Terri Montague delivered a stirring response to a resident’s comments in which he said the project was moving too fast and may not live up to expectations. She said that the problems the Beltline was designed to address were not slowing down and that the immense project would transform the city and offer it solutions. Montague said she understood that the man had probably been given broken promises for the last 30 years, but that the Beltline was different. Her comments were rewarded with applause. (I’m working on getting a video of her statement.)

Rob Brawner of the Beltline Partnership, an outfit dedicated to raising awareness and gathering private-sector participation, said that a chief concern of residents has been ensuring that today’s Atlantans are given the chance to enjoy tomorrow’s Beltline. Numerous groups, startled by price speculators looking to cash in on the project and a housing market rattled by the subprime lending crisis, are skeptical of what the Beltline may do to the affordability of the city’s more impoverished neighborhoods — particularly those in Southwest Atlanta. In response to that, Brawner says, advocates are reaching out to partners to establish a community land trust that will create permanent affordable housing around the Beltline. On May 19-21, the National Community Land Trust Network will host a workshop at Morehouse College to examine the issue.

A second concern — one which is more abstract yet still important — involves public engagement and community input. Kristy Gilman of the Peachtree Hills neighborhood urged Montague and her staff to improve the community participation process and give residents a seat at the negotiating table. Attention to the issue has been building since the Tax Allocation District Advisory Committee, or TADAC, delivered a sharp criticism about the process in a late-February letter to Beltline planners. Residents have stated that while copious amounts of information is provided on Beltline Web sites and distributed through a variety of grassroots efforts, much of their hesitancy about the project hinges on just how much of a say the public has in how the Beltline takes shape, not how it learns about it.

WHERE THE PROJECT STANDS:

Master planning for the southeast subarea encompassing Grant Park is, for the most part, complete. The southwestern subarea, which encompasses much of Southwest Atlanta and neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures, is slightly behind the rest of the project but continuing apace. Preliminary studies for areas in the northwest will begin soon.

The park planned to run from Ponce de Leon Avenue to Freedom Parkway is a marvel to view. Planned features include a skate park, a stormwater retention pond, and long expanses of green.

In Southwest Atlanta, a planned park will unite DL Stanton and Four Corners Parks. New amenities, such as a community center with a green roof, are planned for both. Beltline advocates hope that the new land-use concept will help the beleaguered section of the city and are envisioning local-serving retail that will help keep dollars in the community. Employment centers are planned in several points in subarea 2 that would offer diverse job opportunities for current and future residents. Southwest Atlantans are stressing that there needs to be heavy emphasis on the former.

In the northwest area of the Beltline, which today is largely an industrial and track-heavy corner of the city, planners have envisioned mixed-use, medium- to high-density developments surrounding the proposed West Side Reservoir Park. (That’s a working title for the park that is poised to surpass Piedmont Park in size.) This quadrant is one which could very well see the biggest transformation from the public-works project.

Beltline advocates and Barry Realty are evaluating the financing arrangement they have in place for a 60-acre chunk of the project’s northeast section they purchased from Wayne Mason in late 2007. In the coming months, the partnership will advertise the Beltline on billboard donated by the Lamar Outdoor Advertising company. Look for Beltline merchandise as well, Brawner said. Of the partnership’s $60 million annual fundraising goal, $28.9 million has been raised.

(Photo Courtesy of the Beltline Partnership)

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Critics of the Beltline have argued that it is a nice idea, but would in the end serve no job centers and ultimately little purpose — it’d be a costly tourist loop and an amenity for residents who were fortunate enough to live close to the project. Civil leaders, academics and the visionary behind the concept will gather Saturday, Jan. 19, 12:30-2 p.m. at the King Center on Auburn Avenue to discuss one of the less tangible aspects of what the Beltline may bring Atlanta: a sense of connection in what is a now a city of urbanized villages. They’ll also look into the flip side of that vision — mainly, in the project’s slow realization, will many residents who hoped to share in that future be shuffled out because of it?

From the release:

Equitable Development – The BeltLine: Can it connect Atlanta’s people, places and opportunities?

The BeltLine has the potential to connect the people of Atlanta to one another and to the places they go. Envisioned by some as an opportunity to knit together the social fabric of diverse communities into one, the BeltLine has raised concern that the rail system could further separate the City along racial and socio-economic lines. A panel of experts will examine the BeltLine in light of the need for access to good jobs, quality education, affordable housing, a clean environment and a healthy quality of life. This workshop is presented in partnership with the BeltLine Network, Sierra Club, Georgia Stand-Up, Georgia Conservancy, BeltLine Partnership, Park Pride, Citizens for Progressive Transit, and Emory’s Office of University-Community Partnerships.

Full info from the release about speakers and the discussion panelists after the jump…

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In last week’s cover story, we looked at the Atlanta Housing Authority’s plans to demolish a second massive wave of public housing — and how that might affect the city’s poor.

Now, the futures of families living in the 12 housing projects scheduled for demolition might be more uncertain — thanks to President Bush’s budget for fiscal year 2008.

When public housing is torn down, it is replaced with mixed-income communities — and most of the displaced families are handed a federal voucher for reduced rent, called Section 8. In Atlanta, the number of public housing units will have shrunk from 14,800 in 1995 to a mere 4,800 in 2010 — while the number of Section 8 vouchers will jump from nearly 5,000 to more than 13,000.

The loss of units bothers some housing advocates, who believe that public housing only should be replaced with actual hard and fast apartments. And they’ve expressed fear that the Bush administration will have an easier time slashing funding for vouchers than it would in making actual buildings disappear.

Those fears seem to be materializing in an analysis released today by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In a report called, ominously enough, “Housing Vouchers Could Be at Risk in 2008,” the nonprofit compared what Bush wants to spend on Section 8 vouchers to what separate bills before the House and Senate propose:

The President’s budget for fiscal year 2008 would fail to renew 80,000 housing vouchers likely to be used by families in 2007, and the House appropriations bill would fail to renew 55,000 vouchers. In contrast, the Senate bill would fund all vouchers in use in 2007.

Thus the fate of public housing in Atlanta would go something like: tear down housing for the poor, replace with vouchers for the poor, watch as the feds stop funding said vouchers, face the reality that there’s no place left for low-income families in our fast-gentrifying city.

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