By Laari Ruby
May 6, 2024
Students line up to ask Mayor Girtz questions after a news conference on the University of Georgia’s campus on Friday, April 19. The news conference briefed students on the Future Land Use Plan for densification of Athens-Clarke County. (Photo/Laari Ruby)
Mayor Kelly Girtz announced Friday that Athens-Clarke County will complete a sustainability analysis and a Future Land Use Plan by the end of 2024 that will detail how to prepare for the forecasted growth in Athens’ population.
Athens-Clarke County is expected to grow by over 30,000 additional residents by 2045, according to the Athens-Clarke County Future Land Use Map. Girtz is working on a land use plan that he said will host new and current residents in an environmentally and economically friendly way.
Girtz said he hopes the plan will allow new residents to move in without increasing rental prices or displacing current residents. The Mayor said 8,700 Athens households are cost burdened or severely cost burdened and rent has increased by 25 percentage points more than household income. Girtz plans to account for financial stress by funding housing in next year’s budget plan.
“At the end of next week, you’re going to see a million dollar fund toward affordable housing so that we can build on some of these lots that have been dormant and underutilized in neighborhoods where we’ve already got infrastructure,” Girtz said.
UGA has accepted and enrolled more freshmen each year for the past four years, according to the UGA Fact Book, and this increasing number of freshmen means more students looking for off-campus housing in their future years, given that university housing can only accommodate around 9,000 students. Girtz said easy access to campus is a main priority in creating student housing.
Melissa Link, District 2 Commissioner of Athens-Clarke County, was quoted in the Athens Banner-Herald saying she believes student housing should be built on the edges of UGA’s campus to lessen the development pressure placed on the community.
Girtz said his plan accounts for this competition by creating student-oriented housing in places that have no current residents to displace, such as parking lots and old hardware stores. He plans to continue looking for more accommodations if the student population continues rising.
Some Athens residents said they believe that before we accept new residents into Athens and build new housing for them, we should focus on preserving what makes Athens a unique city.
“Before we can start building more infrastructure we need to establish more protected areas of our environment and historic districts, and limit the number of students coming in,” said Maisy Hufford, a third year political science and environmental economics and management major.
The land use plan will attempt to find a balance between accommodating students and preserving historic areas. Girtz said the plan will attempt to build housing in places that are a short walking distance from campus.
The Mayor’s process of creating the Future Land Use Plan began with many public input sessions that are continuing through the summer. The plan is online at Athens-Clarke County’s website including a map of all areas planning to be expanded, with more opportunity for public input. The plan will be completed by the end of 2024 and brought to the county by 2025.
Why I Wrote the Story:
This story was an news coverage that all Reporting I students were able to gain experience from. I wrote my story from the angle of student housing because that was something I knew every student cares about and can relate to. This assignment taught me how to distill a massive amount of information down into a short coverage from a specific angle. This was a good way to learn how to manage an hour’s worth of spoken info and create something cohesive and informative.