Avondale Estates may spend millions of dollars and thwart an affordable housing development by building a street through the proposed project site.
The city, which has been rapidly developing around its Town Green project, plans to use eminent domain to build a road through a property that’s been a junkyard for decades. City leaders recently endorsed using that property to build dozens of apartments for low-income seniors — even approving variance requests — but the developer said the road and the affordable housing building can’t coincide.
On Wednesday, the city chose to prioritize the road, which the developer said brings into question whether the leaders of the affluent suburban community really want low-income housing.
“I believe that their actions are speaking louder than their words,” Sarah Bruckner, senior development manager at TBG Residential, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You can say you’re in support of affordable housing, but until you see it in their city, it’s kind of meaningless.”
The City Commission unanimously voted Wednesday to move forward with the eminent domain process, which involves paying nearly $1.8 million to forcibly buy a roughly 0.8-acre plot of condemned land. TBG Residential has a vision to transform the property located off Potter Avenue and Olive Street into 66 apartments for low-income seniors called Overlook at Avondale, which so far has been backed publicly by city leadership. It would be the city’s first affordable housing development.
City Manager Patrick Bryant said the streetscape plan has been in the works since 2014, several years before TBG Residential pitched their project. He added that the developer hasn’t been able to provide a site plan that meets the city’s standards regarding the new street, which is currently referred to aptly as New Street.
“TBG Residential has since declined to build the street grid to city’s specifications,” he said in an emailed statement. “Therefore, the Board of Mayor and Commissioners authorized the use of eminent domain to acquire the right-of-way necessary to build this section of the street grid to ensure the connectivity envisioned in the plan, which is again its number one priority.”
Downtown connectivity
Avondale Estates, which encompasses a little more than a square mile, has spent the past half-decade revamping its downtown.
A 2014 downtown master plan prioritized a walkable community with more integrated mixed-use projects and an improved street grid. Since then, the city landed a few development deals to anchor its vision.
The Town Green project, a 2.5-acre development that includes the city’s first hotel, townhomes, several shops and multiple restaurants, is currently under construction. The city also partnered with developer Trammell Crow Company to build roughly 280 market-rate apartments in the area.
Kevin Buckner, president of TBG Residential, said his company’s affordable development project hasn’t received the same buy-in from city staff and leaders despite their public intent to attract affordable housing to the city.
The city and Trammell Crow were able to strike a deal that involved the developer redoing some of its project’s surrounding road infrastructure. But the city has rejected multiple site plans from TBG Residential that would have the company take on most of the costs of building New Street.
“We have offered to build out almost every portion of the street grid, showed them multiple site plans, and have negotiated in good faith,” Buckner said. “Unfortunately, the city’s actions will prohibit affordable housing and any opportunity to build this type of development in this location.”
The most recent plan presented by TBG Residential would shrink the project to 60 low-income apartments while moving New Street, which would run between Franklin and Washington streets, slightly to the west. It would encroach into Wild Heaven Brewery’s property by a few feet, but the developer said it would preserve enough developable space to make their affordable housing project a possibility.
With the city’s current streetscape plan, the buildable area would be less than 0.6 acres, which Kevin Buckner said would be enough to build about 30 units, which isn’t financially feasible. He added that the city didn’t begin pursuing eminent domain until his company’s development was proposed.
“Once the city realized that we were going to build on the property and that we could, that’s when they condemned the property,” he said.
‘They deserve an affordable place to live’
Avondale Estates has used eminent domain three times so far to make improvements to its downtown street grid. Even if the city moves forward and purchases a fourth property, the price tag won’t stop there. The city will also have to buy a parcel off Maple Street to fully connect New Street, and that property is estimated to be worth roughly $1.2 million.
David Ladet, who owns the old auto shop property currently under consideration for eminent domain, spoke at Wednesday’s meeting and said he’s surprised the city would pay such a high price when the developer was offering to cover most of the cost.
“I have a problem with the city spending this kind of money to acquire that (land) when the developer is offering you 90% of what you want,” he said, adding that he’s ready to sell the property to anyone regardless of his hesitations.
Bruckner also spoke at the meeting, saying she felt city leaders were stonewalling the affordable housing development by using the street improvements as an excuse.
“I’m left here standing today after several conversations with the city wondering how hard the city is going to work and how much is the city willing to spend to block affordable housing from being built,” she said. “I have to believe that Avondale Estates seniors want an affordable place to live. They deserve an affordable place to live.”
Bryant said city officials have opened discussions with TBG Residential on finding other locations in the city that could work better for their affordable housing plan. However, Buckner and Bruckner said city-owned properties were quickly removed from the discussion, so the company would have to start over from square one.
In addition, a new project site would involve the company having to reapply for low-income housing tax credits, a crucial financing tool for affordable housing projects. No housing project in Avondale Estates has ever qualified or used those tax credits. Each tenant would have to make between 40% and 80% of the area median income (AMI), which means a household of one person would have to make between $27,000 and $54,000 to qualify under U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates.
“It was not always clear to me, but the city has a huge bias against affordable housing,” Buckner said. “Though this isn’t new to us, but that the city is willing to condemn the property at an enormous cost to the taxpayer is certainly a new twist.”
