Call it a wrecking ball with the Midas touch. Call it concrete gentrification. Whatever you choose to call it, the Atlanta Beltline trail is chugging down the city’s abandoned railway corridors indiscriminately spurring development in neighborhoods along its path.
But in many regards, it’s a train off its tracks, hell-bent on tearing through some of Atlanta’s poorest communities to pump cash into the local economy.
Realtors, architect, and developers of posh high-rises alike have swooned over the Beltline’s development-inspiring abilities since its 2010 inception. People long holed up in Atlanta’s artist neighborhoods, such as Old Fourth Ward and Poncey-Highlands, have seen property values skyrocket as the completion of each new strip of trail welcomes uppity mess halls and mixed-use residences to the region.
Three years before the Beltline took any kind of concrete form, Georgia Tech City Planning Professor Dan Immergluck noticed a creeping increase in property taxes and rent rates for areas near the planned trails. And that discovery has proven indicative of the significant displacement to come.
Fanciful eateries and high-ceilinged condos aren’t in the cards for residents in some neighborhoods along the trail’s slated path. Some of the city’s less-than-affluent residents complain they can’t afford the spike in land values that have come near the current trails. And parents and teachers from Atlanta Public Schools (APS) claim the city has prioritized “gentrification” along the Beltline corridor over education for the district’s youth.
The Beltline projects are primarily funded by Tax Allocation Districts (TAD), which reap property tax revenue from neighboring areas that have agreed to forgo theirs for the construction cause. But when the Great Recession rocked the nation’s housing market — the source of Beltline cash — in 2008, APS, which had signed onto the agreement with promise of a return, was told they’d have to wait on that cash while the city opted to keep pumping money into trail expansion.
Eight years later the city is stuck with a crippled public education system. And those afflicted — parents, teachers, student, advocates — are caught between a rock and a hard place with two crummy reform plans by Gov. Nathan Deal and APS Superintendent Meria Carstarphen — one vies for state takeovers and one looks to turn struggling schools over to charter interest… all because the city chose to fund a spiffy sidewalk instead of aid for the future of Atlanta’s youth.
Luckily, the city and APS resolved the dispute over monies owed on Jan. 29 with a compromise that will end up paying the schools less than half of the initially agreed-upon amount. “That’s just our economic reality now,” said Carstarphen. “But at least we’re getting real-time money to help real-time kids.”
But compounding on parents’ worries of having to relocate is the fear that an educational lapse — remember the APS cheating scandal? — is funnelling kids from poor, predominantly black communities into the “prison pipeline.”
City Councilman Andre Dickens recently backed a city ordinance to require legislators to construct impact statements outlining the effects bills could have on the affordable housing market. Still, major contention surrounds the definition of that word, “affordability.”
Check out the newest ‘live, work, play’ spaces (mixed-use) popping up along the Eastside trail. The new Krog Street Market, opened last September, spruced up some of Old Fourth Ward with an expensive food court, high-brow bars, and another luxury apartment complex complete with single bedrooms starting at over $1,400 a month. Is that affordable?
When that age-old Sears building on Ponce De Leon Avenue was eyed for renovation a few years back, Atlantans and prospective ITP residents crossed their fingers for some cheap living. Studios there now start at around $1,700 a month, whereas bigger apartments could run you four grand for rent.
So it’s obvious that, among the burgeoning wealthy class in the city, there are many people quietly fleeing the threat of this gentrification, wondering if that train has any brakes. The current Beltline project plans likely can’t hold up in the event of another severe tanking of the economy. But that possibility hasn’t slowed development along the Beltline corridor.
Of the 22-mile trail expected to encapsulate the city, just over two miles of the Beltline’s blueprints are operational. And construction still has to roll through some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods, where Atlanta Beltline Inc. has been buying up disheveled properties to earmark for further expansion.
