Box 5, Folder 8, Document 13

Box 5, Folder 8, Document 13

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- Interest of private developers in building
low-rent housing in Atlanta has been waping
recently, not because of the lack of funds, but
because of scarcity of suitable land zoned
for such housing and the problems of getting
suitable land rezoned for such use.

. There is capital available right now, and
there will be much more available under the
$1.3 billion housing bill just passed by Con-
gress.

~The major problem remaining is zoning,
and the city’s Housing Resources Committee
has come up with a proposal that might over-
come that problem. HRC has submitted to the
Board of Aldermen a “package plan’’ whereby
land in all sections of the city now zoned in-
dustrial and single-family would be considered
for rezoning for apartments at one time.

_It is hoped that under such a program
complaints that some sections are getting more
than their ‘fair share’ of apartments—es-
pecially low-rent apartments—would he over-
come.

* Mayor Ivan Allen, although the city’s lead-
ing advocate of low-rent housing, opposes the
“package plan.” He claims that the present

: Put ‘Package Plan’ to Test

method of attempting to rezone individual
tracts as developers express interest in those
tracts arises, is the preferable approach. He
expressed fear that by attempting wholesale
rezoning at one time, opposition to low-rent
housing would be able to concentrate its
forces.

However, past experience shows us that
there is usually enough opposition to indi-
vidual rezoning proposals to thwart
the mayor’s housing problem anyway. It also
is obvious that forces in this city which sup-
port an effective housing program for the poor
—and these forces are likely to be underesti-
mated—are not likely to be drawn in substan-
tial numbers to individual rezoning hearings.
But they are likely to be drawn to a hearing
on the “package plan.”

Already, substantial groups, from the At-
lanta Chamber of Commerce to the League
of Women Voters and the Christian Council of
Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc., have endorsed the
“package plan.”

Here is.an opportunity to test the will of
the people of this city to provide decent
housing for all its citizens. It is a test that
should be made.