‘Strangers in Our Own Town’: Rising Rent Pushes Out Athens Residents
As rents rise and jobs disappear, long-time Athenians find themselves displaced by UGA students.
What comes to mind when you think of Athens, Georgia? Perhaps fun scenes like the University of Georgia campus, college students, football games, and a night downtown in the bars. While it’s easy to think of Athens this way, the residents of Athens have become overshadowed by students causing their housing and jobs to be put on the line.
“Everybody caters to the students and the students are a big part, but at the end of the day, the people who are here, 24/7, they’re being forgotten about,” said Shawlyn Colbert.
Colbert has lived in Athens for 39 years. She attended elementary, middle, and high school here, and even went on to graduate with a degree from UGA. Athens has always been her home and she’s seen the town cater more and more to students as UGA grows.
Alexis Bolton, an Athens resident for the past 24 years, has also seen UGA’s impact on the city.
“UGA is an expensive college, so you’re attracting people who already come from and have money and it’s causing an equilibrium that’s much higher than people who live here,” said Bolton.
This change in the equilibrium has affected her friends, family, and especially, the Black Athens community. Each year as more students come in, they bring in outside wealth causing the housing market to increase in value. This threshold and desire for student housing in Athens has caused rent and housing prices to increase 10–20% each year.
State Representative Spencer Frye says property values have been artificially and indirectly inflated in Athens because of students.
“Being here pre Hope Scholarship, and post Hope Scholarship, we were able to see that once people’s money, no longer had to be used for tuition, that the rent and the cost of living in Athens, was driven up because of the extra income that people were able to save was able to be spent more freely in Athens, and thus, driving up the concept of the property values”, said Frye.
Although this might seem good for the local government and economy of Athens, it makes maintaining the cost of living and finding places to live extremely hard for people who cannot meet the growing income threshold that’s been created by outside wealth. There is an issue and it needs to be fixed. So what can be done to fix this housing issue?
“I think Athens Clarke County has to step their job up and not let UGA just make all these calls and all the decisions,” said Bolton. “I feel like you should have more protection of your people. I feel like people who have lived here their entire life should come first”.
What is the Athens- Clarke County government doing to protect their residents?
Frye said there are several policies that they’ve been working on, for decades, under several administrations locally to add more opportunities like smaller lot sizes and getting rid of the no more than two unrelated policy. Both policies place restrictions on what size a house can be built in Athens and who can live in those houses.
“Housing sizes and minimum square footage requirements were put in place across the nation in reaction to the civil rights movement and the idea that certain entities would not be able to afford to build a certain size home, and therefore restricting access to the market. And those are antiquated policies that we need to just get rid of,” said Frye. “If somebody wants to live in a small house they need to be able to do so. If somebody can afford a 400 square foot house as opposed to a 3,500 square foot house they need to have that opportunity just like anybody else”.
On top of these restricting policies, there are also other factors that are affecting the market. One being outsiders, like investors and contractors, buying housing and land with all cash before seeing the property. This making it harder for residents to have access to housing when it’s already been purchased by someone not even in the same city or state.
“Georgia does have a law that, governments cannot determine the rent for any sort of development,” said Robin Schultze. So, any sort of inclusionary zoning including affordable units within larger complexes has to be voluntary. So the developer has to choose to do it, which only happens if they’re going to make money off of it which does not happen very often”.
Schultze works in the Athens-Clarke County Planning and Zoning Department. They work with land use and its separation, as well as review plan- sets, making sure they follow rules and they work with future land use, rezones, and plan developments. But, how does their work affect the residents of Athens? Are they the ones who decide if a house or student apartment complex gets to be built?
“When it comes through there aren’t different standards for like student housing versus like non-student housing for apartments. For student housing, the returns are almost immediate,” said Schultze. So, there’s more of an incentive to do that. I think that’s why it actually happens more, not because they have any sort of easier process. I think it’s just, they’re making more money, and it’s more of a safe bet so the banks are actually lending for more”.
To build these new developments, some residents experience their homes being bought out from underneath them without their knowledge, and others are offered vouchers or reduced rent prices in the future apartments to be built. However, since these are being built for the new threshold these residents cannot afford the rising rent prices. So where does that leave the Athens residents to go?
“You’re pushing the people out and who are going to be the ones that run your local grocery stores and your McDonald’s, your Burger King, your Dollar General, whatever, because they’re not gonna be able to get to these jobs,” said Shannon Watkins. They don’t live here. I don’t see the development of the city bus moving to Oglethorpe or Winder or on the outskirts. At one point I felt like, I don’t know what we’re gonna do, where we’re gonna live”.
Watkins is a wife to a pastor, mom to four kids, a fourth-grade teacher, and has lived in Athens her whole life. At one point, increasing taxes forced her out of her home. Two years ago, she couldn’t find a place to stay and was worried she was going to have to move out of Athens to find affordable housing.
“Athens is poor, we’re a very poor city, but the housing market acts like were upscale, like Atlanta and I blame that solely because the students aren’t leaving,” said Bolton. I think more people are making this home. We know we’re not UGA students, but this is our city and we feel like strangers in our own town”.
As we’ve heard, this issue is one that many residents face in Athens. Unfortunately, there is no real solution to help the residents of Athens who may never be able to afford a home in their own city again.
