The town of Atlanta’s protracted seek for a brand new planning division chief has stalled essential inexpensive housing initiatives, however Mayor Andre Dickens says an announcement about filling the function is imminent. The job has been vacant since former planning commissioner Tim Keane departed for a Boise, Idaho, planning job in February.

“We interviewed a lot of individuals and picked one,” Dickens instructed Atlanta Civic Circle in a textual content Wednesday. Phrase on who he’ll faucet is forthcoming, he stated, although the precise date is unclear.

The upcoming information has Atlanta’s city planning wonks atwitter, since Keane’s departure practically seven months in the past put a pin in his targets of utilizing zoning to densify and diversify housing in areas which have traditionally been zoned just for single-family improvement.

The consensus amongst planning specialists is that increasing housing inventory is one key part to creating communities extra inexpensive, and among the finest methods to do this is to make extra environment friendly use of residential land.

As Atlanta grows, metropolis leaders have to act quick, say native urbanists and elected officers, to make sure that the individuals who work right here also can afford to stay right here and get round city—even with no automobile.

Metropolis Councilmember Amir Farokhi tried to do exactly that final 12 months by proposing an ordinance that may have made town extra welcoming to accent dwelling items—reminiscent of storage residences or tiny properties in backyards—and eradicated parking house minimums at most residential developments. 

Farokhi’s proposal failed in December, fought by most of Atlanta’s 25 neighborhood planning items and a few municipal leaders.

Farokhi and Keane’s goal to extend housing density and affordability have primarily been tabled ever since, in response to Ernest Brown, the Atlanta-based board chair for the nationwide YIMBY Motion nonprofit and an government at Kaiser Permanente. 

“The town was within the midst of a strong dialog about creating numerous housing [last year], and everybody I’ve spoken to on council or on employees has instructed that dialog has been on a shelf since Tim left,” he stated in an e-mail. “Hopefully, the brand new individual picks it up.”

Plentiful Housing Atlanta, YIMBY Motion’s native arm, has been pushing metropolis leaders to fast-track the seek for a brand new housing czar. In a latest e-mail blast to supporters, the group warned that Keane’s long-overdue plan to overtake town’s dated zoning code—beginning with laws like Farokhi’s—fell by the wayside when the previous planning commissioner left. 

The Atlanta planning division on Aug. 25 cancelled its first Zoning Rewrite Workshop, scheduled for Aug. 30, saying it desires to attend till the brand new planning commissioner is in place.

Since then, Plentiful Housing Atlanta has solicited practically 600 letters of help from Atlantans, accusing Dickens of “dragging his toes on this important place, forcing the planning division to twiddle their thumbs and proceed down a path of the established order.”

Density-focused laws might make a comeback this 12 months, Farokhi stated Wednesday, relying on whom Dickens faucets to be the planning division chief. “I need to meet the brand new commissioner first,” he instructed Atlanta Civic Circle in a textual content.

However even a progressive new planning chief can’t spur zoning adjustments that fosters extra inexpensive housing choices with out some severe political muscle, stated Matthew Garbett, co-founder of urbanist nonprofit ThreadATL.

“The mayor and metropolis council can help the planning commissioner and embrace a imaginative and prescient for much less automobile dependence and extra housing choices, or they will faux to help a imaginative and prescient they don’t actually endorse,” he stated. “That’s in all probability why the [hiring] course of has taken so lengthy.”

Darin Givens, additionally a ThreadATL co-founder, desires the brand new planning chief to look to cities like Gainesville, Fla., and Minneapolis for inspiration. Each municipalities not too long ago adopted insurance policies to finish single-family-only zoning restrictions, generally thought-about suburban-style.

The overwhelming majority of the practically 2,500 new residential items in-built Minneapolis through the first six months of this 12 months have been in multifamily developments, in response to the Washington Publish.

YIMBY Motion’s Brown added: “We’ve seen double-digit will increase in hire and residential costs in Atlanta over the previous few years. The town wants a housing abundance technique that aligns with our transportation wants, protects our greenspace, and addresses longstanding inequities between our neighborhoods and residents.”

“Our land-use plans are a vital piece of that technique, and a planning commissioner is required to information this main physique of labor,” he stated.

Nonetheless, even a forward-thinking planning commissioner, metropolis council, and mayor would face challenges in actual property investor- and landlord-friendly Georgia. 

State lawmakers final 12 months, after folding language from a failed invoice into different laws, handed a legislation that made it tougher for municipalities to extend residential density.

It’s unlikely the November election will considerably change the legislature’s make-up. Which means new hurdles to any Atlanta zoning modernization efforts might emerge through the subsequent legislative session.

This story was up to date on Sept. 7 at 10:14 p.m. to point anti-upzoning state laws finally turned legislation.