§ 16-36.002. Findings, purpose and intent.

The BeltLine is a major initiative to link green space, trails, transit and economic development in Atlanta serving as a catalyst for transformative growth and investment encircling the urban core of the city by invigorating an underutilized rail corridor and surrounding underutilized industrial properties to create a better connected, more diversified city where people across the spectrum of age, income, ethnicity, and culture can live, work, shop, meet, and play.

The BeltLine represents a unique opportunity: to enhance the quality of life in the city; preserve and revitalize existing neighborhoods; make greater mixed-use development feasible; strategically introduce or increase density and optimize resources in select locations; increase the affordable housing inventory; promote air quality; reduce auto dependency; and concurrently advance economic development through an increased tax base.

The city finds that taking special consideration to ensure that the redevelopment of properties adjacent to and within walking distance of the BeltLine Corridor entails a compatible mixture of residential, commercial, cultural and recreational uses, and design standards conceptualized in the BeltLine Redevelopment Plan is crucial to promote and ensure the public health, safety and welfare of its citizens. The city recognizes that as the BeltLine attracts new development, the orientation and character of that growth should encourage pedestrian and transit-oriented uses and activities designed to support an urban character to foster the most positive impact on affected communities. By establishing the BeltLine Overlay District, the city intends to institute a regulatory approach that anticipates, manages, and encourages quality BeltLine development opportunities and impacts. Therefore, policies to promote these objectives within the BeltLine Overlay Zoning area will serve to:

1.

Implement certain recommendations contained in the comprehensive study known as the BeltLine Redevelopment Plan as adopted by the City of Atlanta;

2.

Preserve a continuous corridor along the BeltLine route of sufficient dimension for the implementation of transit, multi-use trails and green space;

3.

Promote and maximize opportunities for safe and accessible green spaces, plazas, public art, and cultural and institutional buildings;

4.

Preserve opportunities for connecting trails reaching beyond the BeltLine to create a broad network of trails throughout the city;

5.

Encourage a grid of smaller blocks and connected streets to improve access to the BeltLine, reduce congestion, and further the urban character of the area;

6.

Preserve the historic physical character of the industrial districts along the BeltLine by promoting adaptive re-use of historic structures and encouraging new construction to be consistent with the size, scale and/or character of those buildings;

7.

Ensure that new construction is compatible with the character of existing established adjacent single-family neighborhoods;

8.

Create new mixed-use and commercial nodes at BeltLine station areas that are pedestrian and transit-oriented;

9.

Create a diversified urban environment where people can live, work, shop, meet and play;

10.

Promote public health and safety by providing a pedestrian-oriented environment that includes active street-level uses, sufficient sidewalk widths, and primary pedestrian access from sidewalks to adjacent building entrances;

11.

Promote development of a wide range of housing types appropriate to meet various housing needs and income levels;

12.

Facilitate safe, pleasant and convenient pedestrian and bicycle circulation and minimize conflict between pedestrians and alternative transit modes;

13.

Provide accessible and sufficient parking in an unobtrusive manner by encouraging shared parking solutions and minimizing commercial parking in residential neighborhoods;

14.

Maximize air and water quality, including that which supports tree planting, greenspace and watershed protection, and bicycle parking;

15.

Improve the aesthetics of street and built environments.

(Ord. No. 2007-09, § 1(Att. A), 2-28-07)