An Atlanta milestone!

Terminus · #1 Posted: **Jan 22, 2004, 2:09 PM**

For the first time in its history, there are more multifamily housing units in the City of Atlanta than single-family homes! We might become a real city yet!

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Condos, apartments outstrip single-family houses in Atlanta

By DAVID PENDERED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Linda Bodnar has followed a well-worn path in choosing where to reside in Atlanta, and now she's among the trailblazers moving from the suburbs to the heart of the city.

When Atlanta's lights drew her from Orlando to Atlanta, Bodnar shared an apartment near Perimeter Mall with a Phi Mu sorority sister. When she married, she and her husband bought a starter home in Alpharetta before hitting it big with a custom-built house in the Polo Fields in Cumming.

The Bodnars gave up the suburban lifestyle at Thanksgiving, when they moved into a new condo near Midtown. The couple is riding a tide that is fueling a historic rise in the number of city residents.

The Atlanta Regional Commission released last week its latest report on population and housing. It shows some surprising details about where people are choosing to live. The study, covering a period from 2000 to 2003, is more fodder for talks about managing growth.

Highlights of the estimates include:

* Atlanta now has more condos and apartments than single-family detached houses.

* Five multifamily residences were built in Atlanta during the study period for each single-family detached house built.

* Northeast Atlanta attracted the most new residents, followed closely by Buckhead.

* Atlanta's recent influx of residents is not altering the black-white ratio of the city's population.

The ARC released county-by-county estimates from this study in August. They showed that not even the sluggish national economy had halted the region's growth. The growth rate is the lowest since the early 1990s, but the region has added about 240,000 residents since 2000.

"It's not a cooling-off, just the opposite," said Bart Lewis, the ARC's chief researcher.

What's new from the ARC is the slicing and dicing of information to the level of census tracts, which are roughly the size of neighborhoods. Some quirky sides of life emerge from the number-filled sheets.

Take mobile homes, for instance. They are a dying breed in the region as trailer park owners sell valuable land for development of apartments or condos. Nonetheless, the city added 12 mobile homes during the study period.

The region has lost an estimated 371 mobile homes in the past three years. The city of Hampton gave up 58 trailers, the greatest loss reported among metro Atlanta's 63 cities. Atlanta still has the most mobile homes of any city in the region, with 942, including the 12 new ones. Kennesaw came in second, with 749.

But Atlanta's trailer scene changed just last week.

The last vestiges of the old Atlanta Trailer Park, south of Turner Field, were knocked down. In its place will be 200 apartments in Brookside Park, a mixed-income community.

Brookside Park was financed in part with low-interest funding provided by Atlanta's Urban Residential Finance Authority, the city's development arm.

About 75 percent of the units will be reserved for low-income households. Advocates of the project hope the development, on what has been a blighted 14-acre tract of land, will spark other projects in the area.

"I believe Brookside Park is one of the most significant projects in the city of Atlanta and will energize both residents and new businesses in this community," said Atlanta City Councilman Derrick Boazman, who represents the area.

The value of having new residences in the city cannot be overvalued in terms of attracting new residents. The Bodnars, for example, were adamant that they wanted a newly built home to avoid the headache of renovation.

Their segment of the market is driving up construction of condos and apartments, which in turn is fueling population increases in Midtown and Buckhead. Atlanta added nearly 9,500 multifamily units, compared with about 1,800 new houses.

"We knew we wanted a condo because we didn't want any yard maintenance or any of that," Bodnar said. "And we didn't want a fixer-upper. We wanted a lot of space, and a nice, new kitchen was important to me."

The Bodnars shopped four months before choosing a new condo on Ponce de Leon Avenue near its intersection with an arm of Freedom Parkway. This section of Ponce has taken off recently, with condos opening and plans by the city for a private developer to renovate City Hall East into a mix of residences, shops and perhaps offices.

"We can walk everywhere from here," Bodnar said. "It's a 10-minute walk to North Highland. We can walk to the Home Depot and Whole Foods. We like the feel of Ponce."

zigzag · #2 Posted: **Jan 22, 2004, 2:45 PM**

Interesting...

p-snack · #3 Posted: **Jan 22, 2004, 5:07 PM**

If we could just get the corporations relocating here to setup in the central core instead of that 400 gridlock madness it would accelerate beyond measure.

Rail Claimore · #4 Posted: **Jan 22, 2004, 5:10 PM**

^Amen to that! Great news, Caleb! This should only further transit causes such as the beltline and C-loop that are important to keeping the resurgence of the core alive.

EastSideHBG · #5 Posted: **Jan 22, 2004, 5:16 PM**

In another year or two, maybe ATL will be more my thing. It certainly looks to be heading in the right direction, that's for sure...

#6 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 12:06 AM**

That 5-to-1 number of new multi to new single family permits is interesting too. Looks like the gap will continue to keep growing. There's just not many more areas to build new homes. Most of the new single-family construction you see now is all rehabs and renovations.

Jazzman · #7 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 12:20 AM**

Well, that's interesting. Wonder if we could find a list of American cities that have reached this milestone, and those that haven't. Never really thought of cities in those terms before.

Terminus · #8 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 12:50 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jazzman

Well, that's interesting. Wonder if we could find a list of American cities that have reached this milestone, and those that haven't. Never really thought of cities in those terms before.

Excellent idea. I got these numbers from the 2000 Census, so they're a few years old.

Percent of Units as Single-Family Detached Housing

Atlanta - 43%

Buffalo - 30%

Charlotte - 56%

Chicago - 25%

Dallas - 44%

Houston - 47%

Los Angeles - 39%

New York - 10%

San Francisco - 18%

St. Louis - 40%

Washington, DC - 13%

#9 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 5:02 PM**

Okay, I need some clarification.

The original article seemed to indicate a one to one correlation on a building by building basis - one single family house vs. one multifamily dwelling -- and isn't that the milestone - that there are actually now more actual multifamily buildings as opposed to single family buildings. I would think the same would be true of building permits, a building by building comparison.

When you talk about units, you're actually not talking buildings but living units right? So a single family house is one building and one unit, but an apartment building might be one building and 16 units.

So do you need some sort of residents or units/building to indicate density then? I'd be interested to know the average residents or units/building of say Manhattan, vs. Atlanta.

Terminus · #10 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 6:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Creech

Okay, I need some clarification.

The original article seemed to indicate a one to one correlation on a building by building basis - one single family house vs. one multifamily dwelling -- and isn't that the milestone - that there are actually now more actual multifamily buildings as opposed to single family buildings. I would think the same would be true of building permits, a building by building comparison.

When you talk about units, you're actually not talking buildings but living units right? So a single family house is one building and one unit, but an apartment building might be one building and 16 units.

So do you need some sort of residents or units/building to indicate density then? I'd be interested to know the average residents or units/building of say Manhattan, vs. Atlanta.

There are still more single-family buildings than multifamily buildings. The way I read the article was that it was about dwellings, not buildings.

p-snack · #11 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 10:49 PM**

There's still plenty of space in the Southeast areas for single family homes around Lakewood, Englewood and SW Dekalb- all inside the perimeter. Not sure how that will play out. There are several lots around my house in Grant Park now zoned R5 (two family attached) but recent spec townhomes have been a disappointment - maybe they were too early?

dono · #12 Posted: **Jan 23, 2004, 11:04 PM**

What abt. Philadelphia, Terminus? just curious...

#13 Posted: **Jan 24, 2004, 2:38 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by p-snack

There's still plenty of space in the Southeast areas for single family homes around Lakewood, Englewood and SW Dekalb- all inside the perimeter. Not sure how that will play out. There are several lots around my house in Grant Park now zoned R5 (two family attached) but recent spec townhomes have been a disappointment - maybe they were too early?

Same over in Ormewood Park. From our SAND meetings of the renovation and building requests, the quality work are owner-architect-renovations with an occassional nice infill house. The spec housing is being done by smaller developers and mom-n-pop builders (which are cruicial to the area) and they were selling more on cost point than anything, the designs were okay, but not inspired. They use mainly cookie cutter designs from previous jobs, seems they build one house over and over again.

p-snack · #14 Posted: **Jan 25, 2004, 4:51 PM**

^ Yea, I saw this house on Ormewood Terrace that's kind of a stucco Florida contemporary- It looked more out of place than my house which is a 1949 Modern.