![]() ![]() Rising real estate values in the area along the trail known as the Beltline tax allocation district would increase the city’s property tax revenue, which it would use to pay back the bonds.Īt the time, supporters labeled the trust fund the biggest commitment by a city in the Southeast to affordable housing. Each time the city issued bonds for construction, 15 percent of the proceeds would go into the fund. This raised the specter of Atlanta’s history of slum clearance, when city-backed redevelopment in the last century pushed these groups out of their homes in the name of progress.īy 2008, the project’s 17-member Beltline Affordable Housing Advisory Board had labeled this problem an “accelerating threat.” But years of grassroots efforts had won what backers believed could be an extraordinary weapon against displacement: an affordable housing trust fund expected to raise $120 million over 25 years. That year, research by Georgia State University housing expert Dan Immergluck, then at Georgia Tech, found that land prices were rising rapidly in the project’s southern neighborhoods, many of which are predominantly black, middle class or lower-income. “The public has to get loud and say something,” Gravel said.Įxperts had proof that this problem was coming as early as 2007. Now we get lip-service,” said Mtamanika Youngblood, who served for 10 years as a board member of the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, the project’s nonprofit fundraising arm.įixing these problems will require public pressure, said Beltline creator Ryan Gravel, who resigned from the Partnership board last year over housing and other equity issues. lived up to its affordable housing promise have lost faith in its leadership. By Stephanie Lamm/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.īut residents of Beltline neighborhoods say they are feeling the strain of skyrocketing rents and taxes, and those who have worked for more than a decade to ensure that Beltline Inc. Subareas defined by Atlanta Beltline, Inc. Income data from the Census Bureau, 2015. Search this map to find these 785 units and income levels in census blocks. Many of the affordable homes that the Atlanta Beltline funded were along the southern half instead of near jobs and top schools. Everybody has a little different view about priorities,” Somerhalder said. Somerhalder defended the agency's progress, saying that it increased funding when it could, but the Great Recession and legal disputes left it with little to give to affordable housing during the project's early years. The agency only increased affordable housing spending last fall after the city’s economic development agency, Invest Atlanta, which oversees Beltline Inc., held back approval of its annual budget for months, records show. President and CEO Paul Morris and board chair John Somerhalder pushed for accounting changes that would make it easier to reach, according to memos and interviews with housing experts. fell far behind on its affordable housing goal, Beltline Inc. Its mission of keeping black families and middle and low-income residents from being pushed from their neighborhoods became an afterthought to building parks and trails, the investigation found.Īnd when Beltline Inc. ![]() The untapped funds were enough to more than double the project’s affordable housing budget, the investigation found. kept units that it funded affordable for only a short time decreased spending on affordable housing as the city entered its current housing crisis and even passed up on millions of dollars of potential funds. While forces beyond Beltline Inc.’s control share the blame, the agency’s actions created much of this problem, an investigation by the Georgia News Lab and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found.īeltline Inc. At that rate, the Beltline, one of the nation’s most ambitious urban redevelopment projects, won’t meet its 2030 goal and rising housing costs may drive away more middle class residents. was supposed to create at least 5,600 affordable houses and apartments - a goal so important that City Council put it into law.īut halfway to the Beltline’s scheduled completion, it has only funded 785 affordable homes, more than 200 of which remain under construction. Along with the ribbon of parks, trails and transit, Atlanta Beltline Inc. This is exactly what housing experts warned Beltline administrators about years ago, when experts found that their affordable housing spending could come to nothing by its planned 2030 completion unless they changed course. ![]()
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