Public housing transformation promotes urbanism

Nearly 30 years ago, new urbanists established design standards for HUD’s HOPE VI program, the largest remake of public housing in the nation’s history. Although HOPE VI wasn’t perfect, the design principles have endured. The program also showed that the nascent New Urbanism was not just for the affluent—the principles could also be applied to the nation’s neediest residents.

A neighborhood anchored by affordable housing under construction in Athens, Georgia, once again shows how new urbanist design offers a solid foundation for infill public housing redevelopment. The redevelopment of Bethel Midtown Village public housing and College and Hoyt senior housing is opening up 10-plus city blocks and a range of parklands just north of downtown. The project recreates a street grid demolished by the housing project in the 1970s. The overall project will include 1,500-plus living spaces, including 900 on the Bethel and Hoyt sites, “replacing Bethel’s 190 units and 32 public housing units to the north,” according to Flagpole, an Athens publication.

The 75-acre North Downtown Plan is expected to take at least a decade to be built. “The new mixed-income housing in the community is anticipated to include affordable, workforce, and market-rate options,” according to JHP, the architects and urban designers. “The affordable units will serve people with incomes ranging from less than 30 percent of area median income (AMI) to 60 percent of AMI. The redevelopment effort requires a variety of funding sources, including a combination of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), tax-exempt bonds, HUD Section 8 rental assistance, grants, and private debt.”

North Downtown Athens grew out of the Athens Housing Authority’s desire to create a master plan for the site. Due to the proximity to downtown, the project could be transformational for the city. Redevelopment is being funded in part by a special-purpose sales tax approved by Athens-Clark County voters in 2020.

“The primary directive for this project was to develop a healthy, mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhood with a new urbanist approach that would both increase the number and quality of affordable housing units on the north end of Downtown and further ‘link’ and reconnect in a thoughtful urban manner this neighborhood to downtown Athens,” JHP explains.

“Even through a pandemic and economic crisis, the North Downtown Team engaged residents of the neighborhood and the broader community to develop a plan with local fingerprints on it—especially those of residents that had been historically marginalized and may have expected only lip service,” says Kelly Girtz, Mayor of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government. “The plan will serve to support all Athens residents well for decades to come by creating a vibrant neighborhood and comfortable homes for those of all ages and walks of life.”

Jonathan Rose Companies and Columbia Residential are in a development partnership with the Athens Housing Authority for the project. From community engagement meetings, the following goals for the site emerged:

• Redevelop Bethel Midtown Village/College and Hoyt with higher density approaches that encourage neighborhood scaled mixed uses 
• Create a new community park at Hull and Hoyt streets (the lowest point of the neighborhood) that would help alleviate the many stormwater/flooding issues of the community.
• Establish Lumpkin Street as a new connection into the community with active neighborhood uses at the ground floors on a new main street, transitioning to a linear park.
• Activate College Avenue with complete street/safe crosswalks and ground floor active uses 
• Establish Dougherty Street as an urban edge (physically, socially, and economically) to Downtown Athens with enhanced crosswalks and connections to the future park space adjacent to Classic Center 
• Landscape central green and park and “green street” along Lumpkin Street leading to the stormwater community park through stepped-down terraces.
• Extend the Pulaski Creek trail to link with the historic Pulaski Heights neighborhood to the west. 
• Connect Hoyt Street and Lay Park to the North Oconee River trail to the east—relinking the neighborhood to the broader Athens community.
• Envision different redevelopment options for the existing city-owned Planning Department Building at Lumpkin and Dougherty and the housing authority’s Denney Tower.

The designers explain that the North Downtown Athen’s master plan advances many principles of the Charter for New Urbanism, starting with the restoration of existing urban centers into real communities and preserving the community's historic built fabric.

As I was posting this, I received an email showing that the North Downtown Plan is not the only major new urban project underway in Athens. Missing Middle Housing is planned for an 85-acre parcel just south of downtown. Public Square may report more on that project, which comes from Opticos Design, for Mallory & Evans Development.