Athens homeowners fight against affordability

Allowing garage apartments or backyard cottages in Athens could help lower rents, but older homeowners aren't having it.

Let your commissioner know that you want ADUs to be approved, as written by the planning commission, with no amendments!

You can email the ACC Commission here:

athenspoliticsnerd.com/comment. It's agenda item 21.

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TRANSCRIPT

Last week at City Hall, older homeowners showed up and were really upset.

“The overall effect of the zoning changes will be the end of single-family neighborhoods as we know them today and the opening of the entire county to rental properties and short-term renters.”

He's talking about accessory dwelling units or ADUs. These are extra houses or apartments on single-family property like garage apartments or a backyard cottage. And the thing is, they're legal already. They just can't have a stove, only a hot plate. If ADUs were made fully legal, they could help lower rents in Athens because then these cottages could be used for something besides Airbnbs. It's not a silver bullet, but these smaller homes would be more affordable.

The only problem is, the homeowners who run this town aren't having it.

“We want to know why the mayor is rushing this for a vote.”

“You think they would be to benefit the residents of Athens-Clarke County, but if they are such a benefit, why is everything so secretive?”

We've been talking about this in full public view since 2022. Just because you weren't paying attention doesn't mean it was a secret.

“Do it for my family. You took family out of the secondary dwellings every time it was there. You scratched it. Family, the foundation of our community. A place to come home to, a place to be proud of. You took all that away.”

We're talking about stoves!

“I'm not asking you to table this. I'm asking you to kill this. This does not need to come back up.”

“Back us up. We're paying the taxes. We're paying for you.”

The entitlement coming from some boomers is just insane.

If we want to be able to afford to live, we need to use our voices.

“I'm a renter in district two. Thank you for being open to considering ordinance changes that can support the growth of our housing supply. I was hoping we could all acknowledge that housing is too expensive and our housing supply has failed to keep up but I see that maybe that isn't given tonight. If a property owner wants to use part of their own property to build an additional housing unit, I don't see why we as a community with a shortage of housing should stop them. If we can legalize property owners to give them the ability to build additional units tied into the existing infrastructure, why stop them? Every garden cottage that a private property owner chooses to build on their own right gives another Athenian a safe place to live. Now is a chance to do something about our housing shortage, which the statistics suggest will have long-term impacts on reducing homelessness. Thank you.”

Let your commissioner know that you want ADUs to be approved as written by the planning commission with no amendments.