The sprawling new, community-crafted blueprint for the revitalization of southside Atlanta’s Thomasville Heights neighborhood reveals that the now-vacant and derelict Forest Cove apartment complex stands in the way of the development of hundreds of new, crucially needed housing units.

A municipal judge condemned the 396-unit complex, owned by Ohio-based mega-landlord Millennia Housing Management, and ordered it razed in December 2021. The property has further deteriorated, accumulating litter and weeds, since a city-led initiative finished relocating nearly 200 Section 8 tenant families last October.

Meanwhile, local community groups and urban planners have been piecing together the ambitious Thomasville Heights Neighborhood Plan, a 175-page roadmap to revitalize the community that’s slated to be presented to Neighborhood Planning Unit Z when it next meets in August.

The plan calls for new residential and commercial development on vacant land owned by the city—and it also recommends tearing down Forest Cove and replacing it with 786 apartments, 34 townhomes, and 30 accessory dwelling units.

One of the main goals for revitalizing the neighborhood “is to create housing options for former Forest Cove residents that want to return to Thomasville Heights,” Joshua Humphries, Mayor Andre Dickens’ top housing policy advisor, said in an interview.

Millennia has stalled that mission by appealing the court order to raze the 22-acre complex, as part of a bid to spend upwards of $56 million rehabilitating Forest Cove—at a cost of over $140,000 per unit. 

But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revoked Millennia’s Housing Assistance Payments contract for Forest Cove on June 30, meaning it’s barred from receiving federal subsidies at that property for tenants using Section 8 housing vouchers, agency spokesperson Shannon Watkins…