There are two different study areas that form the basis of this effort.

• Workforce is looked at specifically in the commercial core of the community using the Community Improvement District boundary as the basis for the area.
• The Housing Shed is defined as a larger area that takes into consideration transit accessibility proximate to the commercial core.

• The current housing inventory in the study area includes 54,000 total units including both single family and multi-family options.
  • 40% (20,400) are in the commercial core
  • 60% (30,600) are in the larger area
• 2,600 (2%) of the existing housing units in the study area are vacant.
• 55% (29,700) of all units in the study area are multifamily rental units (apartments)
• Only 1,500 units (3%) of the existing housing inventory is priced with rents affordable to households making $35K per less per year.
• 1 in 3 units (16,830) have rents that are affordable to people making less than $50K per year.
• Rents in Buckhead have gone up 19% since 2011.
• 58% of units in Buckhead are luxury.
• Only 9,600 (18%) of the units in Buckhead are at or below $1,260 per month which is the citywide average rent.
• Buckhead has a higher percentage of cost-burdened households than the rest of the City – If you live in Buckhead you are more likely to be spending more than 30% of your income on housing than the rest of the City. A Buckhead household making less that $25K per year spends an average of 70% of their income on housing.
• There isn’t much variety in types of housing options in Buckhead – 68% of the existing units are in large 250+ unit developments.
• 75% of households making less than $50K per year are renters.

• The housing pipeline has 5,800 new units planned for construction by 2029, which is an 11% increase in the housing inventory. By comparison, Buckhead’s population is projected to grow to 60,174 households by 2040 – that’s an increase of approximately 9,943 households over 2018
• 5,046 (87%) of the planned units are slated to be at price points only affordable to households making $50,000 or more each year.
• There is no plan to provide other types of housing typologies – 91% of the proposed housing stock will continue to be in the same 250+ large scale type development style.
• New development is increasingly catering to singles – with 23% of the proposed units slated to be studios.

• There are 75,700 jobs in the commercial core of Buckhead
• 92% of the workforce in the commercial core does not live in Buckhead so commutes in from somewhere outside of Buckhead.
• 5% (6,100 people) live and work in Buckhead
• 18,000 (24%) of the total workforce in Buckhead is service sector workers who earn less than $35K. The average rent affordable to them is $750 per month.
• The median income in Buckhead is up 5% since 2010, but that is largely due to the addition of higher end jobs not rising wages.
• Low and moderate income families in Buckhead spend an average of 70% of their income on housing – this should be 30%.
• Transportation costs are the second largest household expenditure coming in at 15 – 20% of a typical household’s budget.
• The average transportation costs for an Atlanta resident are $10,689 – 25% higher than the amount of a typical household budget that “should” be spent on transportation.
• The typical person who both lives and works in Buckhead makes between $50K and $75K per year.
• Finance & Insurance and Professional and Technology Services are the top two employment sectors in Buckhead.

• Buckhead traffic counts have grown 76% since 2009.
• There are 10 jobs for every household in Buckhead.
• 6,000 units could be absorbed at the moderate to low end (<$50K) and 6,000 units could be absorbed at the high end/market rate (>$75K).
• Buckhead is losing households that make under $50K per year while it is adding households that make over 50K by nearly triple.

Recommendations

• Connect workers to existing housing
• Preserve existing workforce housing
• Develop new housing units aligned with existing transit infrastructure
• Expand housing typologies
• Develop incentive programs to offset costs of developing affordable/workforce housing
• Enhance commute management services
• Plan and build for a less auto-centric Buckhead
• Align regulatory tools to incentivize non-car commutes

Impacts

• Triple the number of Buckhead workers who live in Buckhead
• Reduce miles traveled by Buckhead commuters by 300,000 EVERY DAY