Read on Twitter
Today is my first meeting as Chair of the City Council's Zoning Committee. More than any other tool we have, zoning drives housing affordability, inclusion, and city-making.
Some history...
Some history...
99 years ago, in 1922, Atlanta passed its first zoning plan. It had some reasonable changes but it also had sinister racial motivations that resonate today. Two of my predecessors, Fourth Ward Councilors Claude Ashley and John A. White, championed its segregationist zoning.
After the Civil War, thanks in large part to relentless regional and national boosterism (some things never change), Atlanta grew as an industrial business and employment center. In 40 years, our population grew from 21,789 (1870) to 154,839 (1910).
As our population exploded, rich/poor, boss/worker, black/white lived side-by-side on nearly EVERY city block. While quality of housing stock varied, the city was economically & racially integrated.
Why? In short, bosses and workers lived close to their place of employment.
Why? In short, bosses and workers lived close to their place of employment.
In the 1880s/90s, as the city burst at the seams, a housing shortage led factory owners to build housing for their workers (e.g., Cabbagetown, originally "Factory Town"). That housing crunch, + zero land use restrictions, birthed frothy speculative real estate in Atlanta.
Into the 1900s, in cities across the country, white elites, uncomfortable with racial/immigrant integration, began to create & preserve housing space for themselves through: (1) park neighborhoods (e.g., Ansley Park, Druid Hills, Inman Park); &/or (2) segregationist ordinances.
Courts repeatedly struck down segregationist ordinances, here and elsewhere. In response, comprehensive municipal zoning codes emerged.
In 1916, NYC became the first city with a citywide zoning code.
Atlanta's civic leaders soon wanted one of their own.
In 1916, NYC became the first city with a citywide zoning code.
Atlanta's civic leaders soon wanted one of their own.
In 1922, City Hall, with the backing of the business community, hired a nationally renowned, NY-based consultant, who drafted "The Atlanta Zone Plan" which City Hall largely adopted as its new zoning code.
The new code was framed as vital for an orderly and healthy city and sought to separate (1) land uses (residential, industrial, commercial, etc.); (2) residential lot sizes; and (3) apartments from houses.
In practice, these were efforts to separate Black and white residents.
In practice, these were efforts to separate Black and white residents.
In a city in which the vast majority of residents were renters, and of whom most were Black and or not wealthy, The Atlanta Zoning Plan aggressively sought to ensure apartments could not be built next to single-family homes, which were primarily white-owned.
The plan required neighborhoods to be grouped by similar lots sizes, thereby ensuring that large lots abutted other large lots and small lots abutted other small lots.
Lot size, and thus class, was also used to separate Atlanta by race.
Lot size, and thus class, was also used to separate Atlanta by race.
The zoning code also explicitly racialized zoning with R-1 zoning for white blocks, R-2 for Black, and R-3 for undecided.
Indeed, Atlanta was the first American city to explicitly codify racial districts in its zoning code.
Indeed, Atlanta was the first American city to explicitly codify racial districts in its zoning code.
While the GA Supreme Court struck down the racial districting part of the zoning code in 1924, efforts to control what races lived where continued for decades to come. Two ordinances came from my predecessor Councilor White, who tried to preserve white blocks in the Fourth Ward.
All of that goes to say, the city we live in today - our land use patterns, how we expect a city to look and function, and our city's segregation - were sewn, in large part, by the 1922 zoning code.
Today, as @ATLPlanning leads a zoning rewrite - of which there have been several since 1922 - we would be wise to look back to our history of mixed-use, mixed-income, mixed-race neighborhoods.
That doesn't mean our beautiful, tree-canopied neighborhoods are not to be protected but that we should rethink whether our rules discriminate or hold us back from welcoming new residents, especially where density is appropriate.
As we seek to find housing for more people (and, yes, there's plenty of room), the answer may lie, partially, in 1890s Atlanta: apartments, big houses with small ones out back; a corner store on the block, and building up. We cannot all live on a 1/4+ acre lot.
Indeed, in pursuit of housing access and affordability, housing supply must increase to meet demand.
Our best, most cost effective tool to increase supply - among market forces beyond our control - is to use zoning to allow & incent appropriate density.
Our best, most cost effective tool to increase supply - among market forces beyond our control - is to use zoning to allow & incent appropriate density.
I look forward to working with my colleagues, residents, and City Planning to ensure we take this opportunity, 99 years after the first code, to design and grow our city for everyone's benefit so that Atlanta's next 100 years reflect our aspirations and values.
Finally, full credit to @lalands whose book "The Culture of Property" is an excellent source for and look back at much of the above.
Highly recommend: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820333922/the-culture-of-property/
Highly recommend: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820333922/the-culture-of-property/
