Atlantans have until April 30 to weigh in on the city’s first zoning code overhaul in 40 years before planning department officials begin drafting the updated rulebook that will determine how the intown landscape is developed as the city continues to grow.
The Atlanta City Planning office held its final community outreach workshop on April 20 to discuss “conservation areas”—neighborhoods whose tree canopy and historic cultural fabric should be “protected from radical change” in the zoning code rewrite, dubbed ATL Zoning 2.0. Most are streets lined with single-family homes with local commercial districts, according to the city planning department.
After the planning department crunches the survey responses, which it’s been soliciting since late 2021, it will draft legislation for the Atlanta City Council to update the city’s land-use rulebook, which was adopted in the 1980s. That’s expected to happen by mid-2024, then the city will spend the latter half of 2024 and early 2025 putting the new policies into practice.
“We are at the point in the process now where we really try to confirm direction,” said Caleb Racicot at the April 20 community meeting, which was accessible via Zoom and streamed live on YouTube. Racicot is an urban planner with TSW Design, the architecture firm tapped to lead the community engagement portion of the city’s rewrite effort.
As Atlanta housing prices and rents grow increasingly expensive, housing experts have advocated for changes to the zoning code that foster affordability by allowing more dense residential development.
“We expect the bulk of new density to occur” in fast-evolving, urban communities like downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead, which are “growth areas,” Racicot said during the meeting about zoning for conservation areas.
Most neighborhoods designated as conservation areas are in more suburban areas known for their tree…
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