Fact Sheet & Amended Ordinance

Hello neighbors:

As many of you may know, the City of Atlanta’s Department of Planning along with Councilman Amir Farokhi, have introduced three pieces of legislation and of those three, two are “text amendments” to the existing zoning code that propose rezoning properties located within a half mile of the MARTA from residential (R-4, R4-A, and R-5) to MR-MU (Mixed Residential-Multi-Family). This is proposed across the city and for the last two months, there has been discussions at the NPU’s and in the neighborhoods regarding what the impact of these text amendments will be on our neighborhoods. The original proposed text amendments have been revised and the documents attached represent those changes. Attached is the revised legislation, the map for the Inman Park properties that will be impacted, as well as a very user-friendly fact sheet that outlines the changes and why the city feels these changes are important. 

The goal of these text amendments is to create more affordable housing, lower house production costs, car dependency, and create options for more variety of housing at different price points. As all of you should know, Inman Park is a local historic district and as such, has an ordinance that governs many of the changes proposed in the MR-MU text amendment. What does that mean? It means that the Inman Park ordinance supersedes any other zoning and as such, demolition of buildings is still prohibited, additions/changes will still be reviewed by the UDC, as will the location, size, and massing of new ADU’s.  What does it change in Inman Park? We are still looking over the revisions but these are the five major changes in the text amendment:

  • For any new construction on an MR-MU lot, the owner/developer can build 1- 4 units by right. 
  • If the owner/developer builds one “affordable” unit that will be rented or sold below market value, then they will be eligible to build 5-8 units. If they create two affordable units, then they will be eligible to build 9-12 units. There will be development controls (setbacks, porches, FAR, etc.) as detailed in the fact sheet.
  • Typically, new residential construction requires at least one parking space per unit or single-family house. That requirement will be removed. There will be no minimum parking requirements. Owner/Developers can still choose to build parking (and given the market, they probably will) but it will not affect any existing parking arrangements/requirements in Inman Park. 
  • The text amendment will also allow an additional ADU to be built on a parcel with a single-family home or an existing duplex.  Currently, Inman Park is zoned R-5 which allows a principal structure and an accessory dwelling unit. Our preservation ordinance allows a side- by-side or up and down duplex as well. Under the proposed text amendment, if someone has a house with an existing ADU, they can build another ADU or create an “attached” ADU (finished basement apartment) basically creating a triplex. 
  • Under existing R-5 zoning, “zero lot line” allows side-by-side duplexes to be sold separately. The newer homes located along Edgewood Avenue between Delta Place and Spruce Street are examples of this. The text amendment would allow ADU’s to be sold separately as well but only for ownership purposes. All zoning and development controls on the original lot still remain for both parcels since this is not a formal subdivision.    

We are carefully examining all the possible changes (or no changes, depending) and will be able to report that the neighborhood at the virtual IPNA meeting on Wednesday, September 15th at 7:30 pm. We will also be joined by Josh Humphries, the Director of Housing in the Planning Department who will give a presentation and try to answer all of our questions. It is very important that everyone attend this meeting to hear this presentation. If you are a member of IPNA, the link to the meeting will be emailed directly to you via Member Clicks and it will also be posted on the Inman Park Google Group and Inman Park Parents group.

We will discuss and vote on these matters at our October 20th IPNA meeting and the NPU will vote on this at the October 28th meeting.

In the meantime, please post your questions on this forum. I will be checking all the communication forums and answering the questions I can and writing down the ones I don’t know so we can send them to Josh Humphries before the IPNA meeting.

Thank you,

Regina Brewer

VP Zoning

[email protected].

Fact Sheet

Amended Ordinance

Amended Ordinance Redlined

MR-MU Map Inman Park

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