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Commission sends housing reform concepts to planners as community groups press for local affordable-housing ordinance
Summary
The commission directed planning staff to draft ordinances on a package of housing concepts — ADUs, parking minimums, lot sizes, manufactured homes, overlays — while community advocates urged the commission to place a community-drafted 'Athens affordable housing ordinance' on the April agenda and to work with state legislators to remove preemption barriers.
The Athens-Clarke County Commission voted March 3 to send a set of affordable housing recommendations to planning staff and the planning commission, asking staff to draft ordinance language for items including accessory dwelling units, reduced street frontage and lot size requirements, reduced parking minimums, and overlay districts.
The resolution directs planning staff to consider the Git (GICH) committee’s concepts and return text amendments to the commission — likely in pieces rather than as a single package. Commissioners debated the level of specificity the resolution should provide; some members urged careful guidance to avoid unintended impacts in historic or infrastructurally constrained neighborhoods.
Following the vote, community organizations led by the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement (AADM) and allied groups urged the commission to place a separate, community-drafted 'Athens affordable housing ordinance' on the April 7 agenda. Multiple speakers said the draft ordinance included remedies the commission cannot adopt without state changes (for example, rent control) but urged the commission to collaborate with state legislators and to use local tools such as overlay districts and zoning reforms that are permissible under state law.
Speakers emphasized the scale of the local housing shortfall and the equity dimension of zoning rules. Broadick Flanigan of AADM said the group had collected signatures and asked the mayor and commission to respond before the next voting meeting. Mocha Jasmine Johnson, executive director of AADM, said the committee spent a year producing the draft and asked for local collaboration and for the commission to use its influence with state legislators on preemption issues.
Next steps: planning staff will draft ordinance language for the recommended topics and return individual text amendments for review. Community groups requested placement of their draft ordinance on the April agenda and asked the commission to coordinate with state legislators where local authority is limited.
