Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin announced a partnership Tuesday with several banks and community organizations that will give low-interest loans to developers building affordable housing in the city. The Atlanta Acquisition Pool, as it is called, will have $25.5 million available for developers. The money will be used primarily to buy land, often the biggest obstacle for these types of developers, because of rising land prices. "The most difficult dollars we have getting are the acquisition dollars," said Young Hughley, president and chief executive officer of Resources for Residents and Communities, which has built affordable housing throughout the Atlanta region for 18 years.
Developers can get as much as $3 million for each project, officials said. The pool will be managed by Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit organization that helps the poor obtain housing.
City leaders have said the lack of affordable housing is one of Atlanta's biggest problems. Last year, the average sale price of a home in metro Atlanta was $275,716, while city officials consider affordable housing as anything less than $200,000. "It's harder and harder for working families and individuals to find housing within the city," Franklin told reporters.
The project's financial backers include Wachovia Corp., SunTrust Bank, Atlanta Renewal Community and the Home Depot Foundation. The city has invested $5 million in the project. Developers can apply for money immediately and get loans with interest rates as low as 6 percent. City officials said they will welcome affordable housing projects throughout the city, particularly near public transportation.
In 2004, Franklin and leaders from the Atlanta Development Authority set a five-year goal to create 10,000 homes in Atlanta with city incentives. Through the first three years of the effort, about 3,400 homes were created, Development Authority officials say.Intown developers such as Emory Morsberger, president of Morsberger Group, and Raymond Kuniansky Jr., COO of Fabric Developers, hailed the acquisition pool as a long-awaited tool for buildings homes, condos and townhouses that city firefighters, police officers and other civil servants can afford on their government salaries.
Morsberger, who is renovating City Hall East into lofts and retail that will be known as Ponce Park, said intown land values can range between $500,000 to $2 million an acre, which often drives up home prices beyond what many working families can afford.
Pete Hayley, who runs a company that builds affordable housing west of the Downtown Connector, echoed Morsberger, saying speculators and larger developers are often the only people who can buy vacant land in the city because of the high prices. "What this program does is allows us to buy property and hold onto it," said Hayley, executive director and chief operating officer of University Community Development Corp.
Morsberger said other problems include strict city building codes and the time it takes developers to get a building permit from the city. "It has been very difficult for us to make the numbers work and create affordable housing," he said. Franklin has said the average permit time has been cut from 83 days to 28 days since she became mayor in 2002.
Community housing leaders and some City Council members said the pool is a tool the city has needed for a long time. "Atlanta has got to be a city that has housing for all of its families. Rich, poor. White, black," said Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr.
Source: ajc.com