Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on Thursday marked the official launch of a new permitting process for affordable housing by underlining his efforts to tackle the city’s housing crisis.
According to Dickens, since October 2023, the Department of City Planning has expedited and issued permits for close to 1,300 affordable housing units across two dozen multi-family housing projects, including eight single-family developments and some duplexes.
“Valentine’s Day was yesterday, and that’s the day of love. But we always say my love language is affordable housing,” Dickens quipped.
He spoke at a closing reception at City Hall to mark an event called Affordable Housing Week, bringing together city officials, real estate developers, non-profits, and housing advocates. The event began Monday and was expected to end Friday.
It included informational sessions in city hall for developers who want to build affordable housing. The city also issued permits to successful applicants.
In January, the mayor’s office announced it planned to launch the new permitting process called “Welcome H.O.M.E” — an acronym for Housing Opportunity Moves for Everyone — based on feedback from developers and housing advocates.
Dickens said the new initiative will allow affordable housing applicants to apply in a single central platform that would speed up the process of screening eligible projects.
He has previously set a target of building or maintaining 20,000 units of affordable housing in the city by 2030. He said that as of January 2024, the city had delivered over 4,000 housing units and that 5,000 more were funded or had broken ground.
“This work we started last October and continue to push for this week ensures that housing remains accessible for the elderly, low-income families and ultimately anyone who wishes to live in the City of Atlanta,” he said. “I want to ensure … all our residents can live with dignity in the city in safe and quality housing.”
City Planning Commissioner Jahnee Prince said Department of City Planning staff had helped bring 196 affordable housing applications to completion since it began tracking projects.
In a January news release, the mayor’s office said eligible projects for consideration during Affordable Housing Week would include additions and alterations to residences and multi-family and residential demolition, among other projects.
The release said city planning and staff would offer consultation for developers whose projects were in the permitting phase or otherwise in progress, educating them on the city processes, clarifying codes, seeking to resolve “interagency conflicts,” and guiding them through the permitting process.
Natallie Keiser, executive director of the affordable housing advocacy group HouseATL, welcomed the addition of a simpler centralized system for applicants.
“Affordable housing developers have to surmount many challenges before dirt moves to deliver housing, and anything that can be done to streamline that process improves Atlanta’s capacity to close our housing deficit gap,” she wrote in an email.
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