§ 16-35.002. Findings, purpose and intent.

The City of Atlanta finds that the size, scale and character of multi-family residential uses directly affects adjacent land uses and the public health, safety and welfare. The city finds that internally focused, highway-oriented multi-family residential uses are incompatible with establishing a pedestrian infrastructure and are inconsistent with the needs of the city. The city finds there is a need to protect existing and developing pedestrian-oriented multi-family residential areas and building forms from the intrusion of incompatible building forms and to preserve and restore existing, traditional and pedestrian scale buildings in established, historic multi-family residential districts, as well as create new pedestrian oriented multi-family residential areas. The city finds that within these residential areas there is a substantial need to encourage a balanced mix of uses to include small accessory retail uses and to facilitate safe, attractive and convenient pedestrian circulation. The city finds that it is necessary to improve air quality by promoting walking and reducing the number of vehicular trips. The city finds that it is necessary to establish adequate parking requirements by encouraging shared parking arrangements. The city finds that there is a substantial need directly related to the public health, safety and welfare to comprehensively address these concerns through the adoption of the following regulations. The purpose and intent of this chapter, in establishing the Multi-family Residential (MR) district, is as follows:

1.

Create a diversified city where people across the spectrum of age, income, ethnicity, and culture can live, work, shop, meet, and play;

2.

Provide for multi-family residential housing types that are compatible with single-family neighborhoods and commercial nodes;

3.

Encourage the development of multi-family housing, with limited neighborhood serving commercial uses;

4.

Encourage a range of housing types and prices to meet different housing needs;

5.

Improve the aesthetics of the built environment;

6.

Protect existing stable single-family neighborhoods from uses and building forms which are incompatible with their scale, character and needs;

7.

Ensure pedestrian-oriented building forms;

8.

Provide for a pedestrian-oriented environment on streets and sidewalks;

9.

Promote public safety through the provision of pedestrian-oriented street-level uses, sufficient sidewalk widths, adequate visibility from adjacent buildings and primary pedestrian access from buildings to adjacent sidewalks;

10.

Reserve the space between the building and the sidewalk for pedestrian related uses;

11.

Provide appropriately-scaled, continuous pedestrian oriented uses and activities adjacent to sidewalks along streets with identified pedestrian needs;

12.

Encourage a grid of connected streets to improve access and reduce congestion;

13.

Facilitate safe, pleasant and convenient pedestrian circulation and minimize conflict between pedestrians and vehicles;

14.

Facilitate safe and convenient bicycle usage;

15.

Provide sufficient parking in an unobtrusive manner;

16.

Maximize opportunities for pedestrian amenities, including parks, plazas, greenways and public art;

17.

Provide sufficient, safe and accessible parks, plazas and greenways for active and passive enjoyment; and

18.

Improve the quality of air and water through provisions for the planting of trees, greenspace protection, bicycle parking and electric vehicle parking.

(Ord. No. 2002-39, § 1, 5-28-02)