Will the Beltline fulfill its vision if lopsided investment in parks, trails, and affordable housing continues?

• Joeff Davis/CL File
• Federal funding will build Beltline trail between Adair Park and Washington Park.

One of the Atlanta Beltline’s biggest challenges over the next two decades has to do with the issue of equity. For project officials, that means finding a way to build the 22-mile loop of parks, trails, and greenspace in a way that enhances the lives of all Atlantans - no small feat in a city with the nation’s highest income inequality gap.

Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO Paul Morris and other officials have discussed the issue in the past. But the organization’s findings haven’t always been made public. Saporta Report contributor David Pendered recently got his hands on an unpublished report from September 2013 that assesses how development has occurred with the smart-growth project and how those efforts can be improved.

The report, commissioned by the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership, the project’s fundraising arm, says the Beltline officials “need to make equity part of its core work, and not view it as peripheral to the ‘real’ work of building parks, trails and transit.” Failure to do so could mean the project might repeat the errors of Atlanta’s past.

It starts off by putting the Beltline into the context of the city’s longstanding income inequality struggles and subsequent “heavy-handed” revitalization efforts that have often pitted city leaders against residents in poor, black neighborhoods. The Beltline will cut through and connect more than 45 neighborhoods that reflect the city’s racial and socioeconomic diversity. Therefore, the report says, it’s essential “that individuals and families in all communities can participate in and benefit from economic growth and activity” of the smart-growth project.

How has ABI fared on that front? It hasn’t hit the mark in its early stages. As far as initial investment goes, the southwest segment of the Atlanta Beltline hasn’t received a proportionate share of the project’s overall funding. When the report was completed, the southwest segment had received an investment of nearly $7 million, or about 5.5 percent, of the project’s total $126.7 million funding for parks and trails. By contrast, the northeast segment, which includes the Eastside Trail and Historic Fourth Ward Park, received a combined $61.9 million in funding. In addition, officials paid Gwinnett County developer Wayne Mason $66 million to acquire 66 acres of land in the northeast section. But only $1.64 million was spent on the purchase of 50 acres in the southern parts of the Beltline.

“Clearly, given that the land acquisition process is opportunistic, and private funders come to the table with their own geographic priorities, complete equity in terms of the geographic distribution of investment, number of acres and miles of trail will be unlikely in the short-term,” the report says. It also notes that annual reporting on how the project’s funding gets distributed will be pivotal to officials’ correcting those imbalances.

Despite lagging behind in parks and trails cash, the Beltline’s southern sections have thus far received 86 percent of the $5.37 million currently allotted for affordable housing units. That funding will lead to the construction of 117 apartments and homes on the southern swath of the Beltline. The remaining segments - the westside, northside, and eastside - only have 14 units of affordable housing.

The nearly year-old study notes that the current lopsided distribution of affording housing is largely the result of land costs and housing values. The report stresses that it’s important for those units to be spread throughout the neighborhoods along the Beltline. Keep in mind officials have a long way to go to reach their 25-year goal of creating 5,600 total affordable housing units in the adjacent neighborhoods.

“The issue of the concentration of affordable housing development in lower-income, disinvested neighborhoods is one that the city — and region — are struggling with more broadly, and there is no easy way to address it,” the report says. “However, this challenge is one that the BeltLine should grapple with, as it will have a strong impact on its long-term legacy and impact on the communities it touches.”

The Beltline report — which also goes into detail about new jobs, community outreach, and quality of life measures — makes a series of 13 recommendations about how to improve the smart-growth project in the coming years. Those goals include placing more of a focus on affordable housing initiatives, identifying a “signature” project for the Beltline’s southern section, surveying residents in Beltline neighborhoods, and partnering with more community-based organizations.

“It is important to emphasize that the Atlanta BeltLine, no matter how ambitious, will never be able to single-handedly undo what greater than a century of questionable land use regulation, lopsided economic development efforts and racially tinged public policy has produced,” the report says. “However, it can become a standard bearer for the type of responsible and fair development that creates communities of opportunity and shared prosperity.”

You can view the Beltline’s full Equitable Development Assessment after the jump:

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