Affordable housing initiative launched in Atlanta

ATLANTA - Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced a new initiative aimed at affordable housing and racial equality in the City of Atlanta. 

According to a release from the mayor's office, The Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative will be administered by the department of city planning and will create policies to address Atlanta's housing affordability issue.

The new initiative will work hand in hand with the previously announced Mayor’s One Atlanta Housing Affordability Action Plan.

The Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative builds on our Administration’s One Atlanta Housing Affordability Action Plan, addressing systemic racism and working to ensure affordable housing for all," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement.

Atlanta officials said research was compiled over the course of two years to develop the Atlanta City Design Housing Initiative. 

Data was analyzed "aimed to specifically implement key elements related to the impact of land-use and zoning in the Mayor’s action plan," according to the news release.

"Atlanta is facing rapidly rising housing costs in large part due to the exclusionary policies of the past that still exist and are impacting the city today,” said Joshua Humphries, Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development in the Department of City Planning.

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Since 2010, Atlanta has increased in population every year totaling more than 84,000 new residents, according to the mayor's office.

City officials said the initiative will also address the impact of population growth and its impact on Atlanta's housing market.

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