Millions approved for three affordable housing ventures west, south of downtown

During Invest Atlanta’s first meetings of 2019, the city’s economic development agency and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms approved millions of dollars of funding to build three new affordable housing projects in neighborhoods in need.

The initiatives “represent the type of thinking needed to make affordable living in the city an option for many more residents,” said Eloisa Klementich, Invest Atlanta CEO and president, per a press release.

“Longterm ground leases, land trust models, and layered financing strategies give us a bigger toolbox to work with and opportunities to address more of the affordability spectrum,” she added.

The first development, called CityPlace, earned a loan increase of up to $1 million from the Vine City Housing Trust Fund, which will help Place Properties build five new single-family residences in English Avenue and Vine City.

The for-sale units are slated to be priced between $135,000 and $160,000. That’s “a significant reduction from the original target price point,” which would allow families earning between 60 and 80 percent of the area median income to buy homes, officials stated.

The five homes could also be the first properties to be part of the Atlanta Community Land Trust, which aims to provide permanent homeownership affordability.

The second affordable development to secure financing—a loan of up to $250,000 from the Vine City Housing Trust Fund—is called Urban Oasis, a community of four single-family homes for sale in English Avenue.

Sims Real Estate Group is tasked with renovating three now-blighted homes and building one anew.

The rehabbed units would be affordable for families making 80 percent AMI or below, and the new construction would be priced for families earning between 100 and 120 percent AMI.

The Urban Oasis project is part of the city’s mission to create and preserve homes that legacy residents can afford.

The process works by using “a novel approach within the City of Atlanta of having a 99-year ground lease at $1 per year to eliminate land costs from the purchase price,” the release says. “The goal is to give these properties over to the Atlanta Community Land Trust to ensure affordability in perpetuity.”

The third project announced, a 130-unit multifamily development called Hartland Station, was approved for up to $1.3 million in pay-as-you-go grant funding from the Metropolitan Parkway tax allocation district. (Invest Atlanta had already given the project $14 million in tax-exempt bond and gap financing.)

Expect a garden-style, three-story community aimed at revitalizing a portion of an underserved commercial corridor along Metropolitan Parkway in Sylvan Hills, per Invest Atlanta.

Forty of the Hartland Station units would be earmarked for households earning 50 percent AMI and below, and 70 units would be affordable to those making 60 percent AMI or below.

Thanks to tax-exempt bonds and a Housing Opportunity Bond loan, the units would stay that affordable for 30 years, according to Invest Atlanta.

• Invest Atlanta Board Supports New Affordable Housing for Southwest Atlanta and Westside Neighborhoods [Invest Atlanta]