Straight talk on Atlanta’s zoning rewrite from a housing advocate

by Maggie Dolan, February 19, 2025

[Editor’s note: we spotted this originally as a thread from Maggie on BlueSky and felt like it was such a thoughtful critique on the zoning rewrite that we had to share it! Whether you agree with these views or not, we need to have smart conversations about these important topics; and zoning is important for our urbanism.]

Atlanta's recent Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) and Zoning 2.0 processes are such clear examples of governing from a place of fear rather than vision. Both processes use complexity and technical language to paralyze Atlanta in the status quo. Here’s my attempt at a review of the housing aspects of the plans.

First up, let’s look at the CDP

First the CDP, Atlanta’s visioning plan, just went through its required 5-year update. The CDP governs land use, which then governs zoning. Nothing will change in zoning if the CDP doesn’t open the door.

The planning department designed a strange community input process and took an oddly passive stance throughout, giving lip service to survey input — particularly input that spoke to the affordability crisis and that requested more population-dense uses that can support transit and walkable retail.

The only stakeholder input that actually appears to have been considered was a bizarre mapping survey that asked people to give input at the *parcel* level, about where they wanted land use to change and where they wanted it to stay the same.

It’s much easier to take a defensive posture that maintains existing land-use patterns than to sort through all the possible land uses, compare them to current uses, and confidently apply them to specific parcels. (Low stakeholder participation reflects this barrier.) All the potential for an actual vision for the city was lost.

The resulting maps are dismal. All this energy and time and money went into a process that was ultimately empty. Only the areas in black are considered for land use change. See link for more details.

Proposed map for studying Atlanta’s Land Use designations. Only the conversation areas in black are considered for potential change.

Next, let’s look at Zoning 2.0

This Zoning 2.0 process seems to be trying to change our zoning language without – for legal reasons – changing any of the existing zoning. It also separates form (such as the size of building) and use (what can go into the building). This separation has good intentions, but it ends up complicating potential regulations.

The resulting documents are so careful to give every existing neighborhood their precise lot size, setback, and height that the results are just byzantine. See if you can understand the use table. Now imagine trying to cross reference similarly complicated form requirements.

All of these details together are death by a thousand cuts, preventing creative, incremental solutions to our housing crisis.

Land use table excerpt

Some of the details actively threaten to make the housing crisis worse. Abundant Housing Atlanta recently led a campaign that forced the city to walk back a proposed change to the definition of family, which would have limited the number of unrelated people living together, harming students, working class folks, and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Within the Zoning 2.0 feedback process, calls for proactive change get city responses that essentially say “this isn’t part of our purview.” The current planning system would have us wait another five years and hope that our next CDP process works differently.

Comment and response on Zoning 2.0

The role of City Council

Our planning processes are failing us, so it’s time to push City Council to act.

In 2017 Atlanta City Design outlined a vision of how Atlanta can face its inevitable growth in the right way. Eight years later, City Council hasn’t passed any of the proposed policies.

All of our city reps are up for election this year. Make them earn their seats.

Maggie Dolan is a Volunteer Lead with Abundant Housing Atlanta. Her post-college work with homeless women as a Jesuit Volunteer kindled her interest in city planning and housing policies that serve people at all income levels. Views are her own.