Will Georgia Housing Laws Protect 3 Million New Residents?
Atlanta is a big place. This is nothing new to residents who drive the congested highways every day. The Atlanta metro-area is the 11th largest population center in the country at 6.5 million people stretched across 21 counties. Here’s some bad news folks: we’re not full. Not yet, anyway.
Recent forecasting shows that Atlanta is expected to reach nearly 9 million people by 2050. That’s nearly 3 million more people or the equivalent of metro Charlotte.
Where does a city put that many people?
Housing costs in Atlanta are already high at $100 over the national average at $1130. The vacancy rate in Atlanta is below 7% with 37% of the population renting. That last number is set to rise fairly steadily as the overall population increases.The rental costs in Atlanta rose 70% from 2000 to 2017 alone.
One solution for the landlords in the city is to evict existing tenants. Atlanta ranks third in the nation for eviction rates.
A study by Apartmentlist.com showed that Fulton County alone had eviction rates as high as 40%.
Housing laws in Georgia seem to favor the landlord or management company as opposed to the tenant. According to a study by Rentcafe.com Georgia ranked 48th out of the 50 states and D.C. in regards to tenant-friendly housing laws. The study shines light on the fact that there are no laws for notifying a tenant before their landlord enters their unit. Similarly, there are no laws that reimburse tenants for out of pocket repairs to their unit.
Michael Cohen, an attorney at Northside Law in Buckhead, disagrees. “I think they’re pretty balanced,” he said about the laws on the books currently. “It comes down to whether or not you can pay the rent. Landlords have to give you 60 days notice before they raise your rent and tenants need to give 30 days notice before they vacate a property.”
While this makes sense on paper Cohen doesn’t seem to be willing to take into account things like disability, child care costs or minimum wage. The average salary for general labor in the city of Atlanta is just over $31,500. Meaning that already people in Atlanta are paying 43% of their yearly earnings on housing.
Matthew Smith, an attorney with experience dealing with tenant/landlord mediations, had some opinions about today’s housing climate. When asked about whether or not housing laws in Georgia are written in favor of one party or another, he had this to say: “I think the law and process are probably both tilted in favor of the landlord.”
He furthered his comment by adding that the majority of cases are dealt with in Magistrate court and the proceedings happen fairly quickly. “Generally in Georgia, if you haven’t paid rent and you don’t have some specific legal defense to having to pay rent, you lose, and you’ll lose pretty quickly in most jurisdictions. Judges also don’t have much leeway under state law to give you time to get out.”
In the state of Georgia you have seven days to vacate a rental unit. It’s up to your landlord or rental company after that. They can give you another week or they can give you until 5pm on the seventh day and that’s typically when the sheriff’s department is told you’ll be leaving.
Karin Colgren, a property manager working in Midtown, Atlanta, agreed with the attorney.
“In my experience working in Georgia,” she says, “yes, the laws are in favor of the management company.” When asked if her company takes Atlanta evictions into consideration she said that her company does not accept applications from residents with an existing eviction on their record. They do not, however, take evictions that are in process into account.
The interesting question about the Atlanta residence boom is: where are these new people going to live? With only a 7% vacancy rate in the city of Atlanta it’s hard to foresee how these new people are going to comfortably fit into the metro area.
Projections show that Gwinnett County will take on as many as one million new residents by 2050 while others say 2040. Announcements have been made for 600 new single-family homes in Gwinnett County. This is by no means enough to house one million more residents but it’s a work in progress. Adding to that both Fulton and Dekalb counties will take on close to as many residents.
The office of the mayor announced an initiative to manage rising housing cost in the city of Atlanta. While high end housing, like the ones Karin Colgren manages, are booming in the city, affordable housing is very much on the decline.
The initiative has a goal of 20,000 new or repurposed housing units by 2026. Plans are underway to overhaul zoning codes in the city as well. Attacking the problem of the “missing middle”. The majority of housing in Atlanta is a mix of single-family houses and mid-rise apartments. This zoning overhaul would allow for buildings like duplexes, triplexes, and garden level apartments.
The office of the mayor also plans to take advantage of the federal program Rental Assistance Demonstration or RAD, which give cities money to repair public housing.
One downside to this however, is that parking is going away. The city claims that if they reduce the amount of mandatory parking that it will free up land for building more housing. But where are these new residents going to park when they here? Possibly overhauling multi-use zoning can help to increase parking while not having to sacrifice green space?
When asked whether or not the boom of new residents to the area would allow for loopholes in housing law to be manipulated the Smith admitted that he hasn’t seen any loopholes being manipulated “yet”.
Other larger cities across the country have created laws protecting tenants from eviction. New York and San Francisco have Rent Control law that protects a tenant from price gouging by limiting the rent increase allowed by landlords. CNN had a story in 2018 about a woman who lived in the same West Village apartment for over 60 years. When she passed away she was paying $28 in rent. This is an extreme example. It is worth noting though that Georgia does not have rent control laws that protect people from rising housing costs.
In October of 2019 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rolled back protections that protected minorities from housing discrimination. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) submitted comments about the decision.
“ The disparate impact tool that is currently in place helps to ensure fair housing practices for those who suffer discrimination at disproportionately high rates, especially people of color and people with disabilities. If HUD’s proposal is passed it will leave far too many families susceptible to housing discrimination, while creating loopholes that would shield banks and landlords from liability. …”.
Housing discrimination is nothing new for President Donald Trump. The president was sued in the late 70’s for discriminating against potential African American tenants in his New York City buildings. When people of color would inquire about available units in his buildings company policy for years was to tell them there were no vacancies.
Will this decision have an impact on Georgia housing laws in the future?
“I doubt the state Legislature, in its current make-up, is too worried about writing more tenant-friendly housing laws. My guess is the code we have will be what we have to work with for a while.” The Smith said.
Smith did add that media coverage of evictions in Georgia has lead to more understanding judges.
“…I can tell you from my own recent experience that that court is getting pickier about landlords crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s in dispossessory cases.” he offers in an email response. “Maybe it’s not connected (they have some new-ish judges, as well), but something has shifted down there.[Magistrate court]. I don’t know that it necessarily tips the scales more in favor of the tenant, however, or just creates more hoops for the landlord to jump through.”
There’s no way of knowing if these new residents will bring about a sea change in Georgia housing laws. But with 3 million new people in the metro area we can hope that the coming diversity brings compassion with it.
