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The extended moratorium on rezoning for development at Wellstar's Atlanta Medical Center in Old Fourth Ward appears to be coming to an end, and the city is preparing to allow for new things to be built on much of the property. In a new AJC article, City Council's Liliana Bakhtiari says: "My personal goal is to balance what is being discussed around medical needs — because that is desperately needed — but also the need for housing and not wasting this opportunity. We can’t force Wellstar to do anything. They are working with us — absolutely. But I do not believe we’ll be able to hold this for another moratorium." The City has repeatedly renewed a moratorium on rezoning the AMC property since the hospital closed in 2022 to allow for planning for the property, with hopes of bringing some medical services back to at least a portion of it. The Department of City Planning gave a presentation to NPU-M this week that shows plans to include up to 2.4 million square-feet of residential units, 120,000 square-feet of commercial and retail shops and 240,000 square-feet of offices space. Part of the property would ideally contain medical services, though there's no specific service identified. https://lnkd.in/geFebrmx One challenge will be relocating the services for people experiencing homelessness. The former Athletic Club on the property has been used as a temporary emergency shelter for the past few months. Note that this is just a plan to allow for rezoning. Wellstar still owns the campus and no proposal from a developer is known at this point, at least not publicly. https://lnkd.in/g6bUvX9R

Go Toronto! 😍 Folks, we're not asking for every new building in Atlanta to have zero parking for cars. We aren't anti-parking, we're pro-reform. Nonetheless, we'd love to see *some* new buildings do this, in spots that have great ped/bike/transit infrastructure. https://lnkd.in/eyfQY5tw

The good folks at Abundant Housing Atlanta are hosting a candidate forum this Wednesday night for the vacant Post 3 seat on Atlanta City Council! Come hear what candidates have to say about delivering safe, affordable housing for Atlantans at every level, in every part of our city. https://lnkd.in/euN-G9AY

The effort to build a park on top of this section of I-75/85 in Midtown Atlanta appears to have fizzled out. In case anyone needs ideas of what could go here instead, here's a reminder from a 1919 map of the area, when it was blocks of city streets, buildings, trees...

The proposed freeway cap in Midtown appears to be cancelled. This would've been a few blocks north of The Stitch cap in Downtown, which already has federal funds. Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy will 'suspend' plans to cap the Connector from 5th Street to North Avenue at the Georgia Tech campus. "There is currently no public partner with the capacity for this project, so we must bring this chapter of its planning to a close and suspend our work" says the project's CEO Doug Hooker. Thoughts? Is this a huge loss? The project started off in a bold way by proposing a cap with a public park (and more) from North Avenue to 10th Street, over the I-75/85 connector. Then after a couple of years it got reduced by half, only going as far as 5th Street. Paywalled article: https://lnkd.in/eyqFadzg

The Georgia legislature has cut $4 million of annual funds from metro Atlanta’s Xpress commuter buses, and they’ve ordered the overseeing body to downsize the whole service following a big drop in ridership. What does it mean for our urbanism? https://lnkd.in/e-sF9Fn8

Over-bloated minimum lot sizes are a prime way zoning leverages economic exclusion. In America, economic exclusion is de facto racial exclusion. Check out historic lot sizes in Atlanta versus our current suburban-based lot minimums. We're going through a zoning rewrite currently, but reducing minimum lot sizes is a step too far for the amount of courage present in the current administration.

Kudos to Canopy Atlanta for this great writeup on the problems with having too much parking in the city, and what we can do to address it. "Abundant parking means abundant drivers: Study after study has found that, when parking is cheap and easy to find, more people climb in their cars, even for short trips" which undermines alternatives to driving while also creating streets that are "riddled with vacant swaths of concrete and high-traffic multilane roads" https://lnkd.in/exP3erTj

Atlanta Business Chronicle gives an update on the 15-acre South Downtown portfolio purchased by local tech entrepreneurs last December, writing that the owners "could bring about 100 housing units to the historic buildings" over the next couple of years. The team has filed permits for work in at least 10 buildings, including renovation of spaces for a new record store and book store on Mitchell Street. Judging from the report, no construction of new buildings appears to be planned at this point -- which would have reduced the parking-lot blight in South Downtown by the World Cup; but there could be some new life in currently empty spaces in old buildings by then. https://lnkd.in/ePyKHnEF

According to this news article, the City of Atlanta had more than 2.1 million shared micro-mobility rides in 2023, the highest ridership since the pandemic; and for 2024, trips are up 17% year-to-date. Atlantans are obviously hungry for alternatives to driving! Our urban planning should reflect this. Let's de-center car trips in our road designs and in our architecture. https://lnkd.in/eeZaGkMk