Marietta’s new housing plans must try to be inclusive

Marietta has experienced major transformations over the past 175 years and each has left a mark upon its residental land-use pattern. It went from a small Indian settlement to a sleepy cotton trans-shipment point, to an antebellum spa and yellow fever retreat-resort, to a World War II-manufacturing boom town, to a bedroom community for the city of Atlanta.

In the 1980s, Marietta had a vision of becoming Atlanta’s next Edge City, setting off a series of land-use battles between preservationists and the business community. This dream was ultimately dashed by the rapid rise of the Cumberland-Galleria area, and with the new millennium, Marietta again took stock of its image and settled on a more modest agenda. The planned transformation for Marietta now calls for an upscale, village-like commercial node, featuring condominiums and townhouses.

The World War II-boom years left Marietta with excessive amounts of public and rental housing, the Dobbins-Lockheed military industrial complex and a large population of short people. Most of the short people left town when they were no longer needed to crawl into the tight spaces of the B-29s to work. Lockheed-Dobbins continues to be an economic plus, and the housing legacy made Marietta somewhat bipolar. In the 1950s, Marietta had more public housing per capita than any other city in the country, as well as one of the most educated populations in the state. This dichotomy not only shaped the city’s land use, but also the character and values of its people, and Marietta’s current redevelopment plan must address this historical legacy.

Families like mine, coming to Marietta to work at the bomber plant and remaining after the war, followed a rigid, upwardly mobile housing path. Keep in mind that this was the era when you actually had to have money to purchase a house. As a toddler I lived in Pine Forest, a large public housing complex often referred to as The Cardboard Village, built to accommodate the flood of aircraft workers. About the time I started kindergarten my father bought one of Marietta’s many duplexes. We lived in one side and rented the other to a Lockheed electronics wizard.

Downtown Marietta was, and still is, ringed by entire neighborhoods of these duplexes and small, single-family houses consisting of less than 1,400 square feet. The minimum new house construction size today is 2,000 square feet. In the 1950s most of Marietta’s immigrants were fresh off the farm and accustomed to small abodes used primarily as sleeping quarters. Verandas, yards and outbuildings were extensions of the house and had areas dedicated to cooking, washing, hygiene and eating. My father slept for most his childhood in a log house built by my grandfather.

About 1955, we moved into a two-bedroom, one-bath house located on the silk stocking side of town. They never made the next step up into a 2,000-plus-square-foot house located in Keeler Woods or Whitlock Heights.

As the years progressed, the duplexes and smaller houses evolved increasingly into rental property. This trend accelerated in the 1990s with the influx of Latinos responding to the labor needs of the building boom, and the city fathers decided Marietta had a disproportionate percentage of rental units. They amended zoning restrictions on new developments, limiting them in most cases to no more than 5 percent rental.

In 2003, the city council established the Marietta Redevelopment Corporation. The MRC was provided $2.1 million in taxpayer money to secure a $6 million line of credit. The primary goal of this organization is to bring boutique townhomes and condominiums to downtown Marietta. Its primary tool is the Tax Allocation District as established under the Urban Redevelopment Powers Act. The actions and plans of the MRC have generated controversy and is essentially on hold pending the outcome of the recession.

The residential mix that helped my parents and the parents of many of today’s prominent Mariettans meet their changing housing needs without leaving. Our community is still working for young black, white and Latino families. In the rush to turn Marietta into a designer village we need to make sure we do not cut the legs off this ladder. Diversity in housing, just as in ecology, is a good thing, and will keep Marietta a creative and vibrant place to live for another 175 years. To be continued!

• Larry Wills, a retired environmental designer, lives in his childhood neighborhood in Marietta.

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