"For Sale," Again

The duplex up the street is about to be demolished and replaced with a new house, apparently.  First the "For Sale" sign went up and the tenants moved out, then it was "Under Contract",  then it was back "For Sale", then it wasn't, and now it's for sale again, but this time they are selling something else, a new home that hasn't even been built yet.

There's been no sign about a request for a variance, yet, so they are not too far along.  A trailer has been in the driveway for a while, I'm assuming for salvage of what gets salvaged when a house is demolished, but I haven't seen any action yet on the demolition front.

So that's the story.  A small brick duplex where young people used to find affordable housing in the neighborhood is going to get replaced by a large, new, expensive home.  

In Virginia Highland, there's been an effort over the last year or so to create a neighborhood master plan.  There have been community meetings and chances for comment on line and lots of strong advocacy on the neighborhood email list.  There had been a proposal to allow "accessory dwellings" -- garage apartments and so forth -- that might provide some lower cost housing in the neighborhood but I think it's gone from the current draft.  Here's what the FAQ on the plan now says:

In the survey part of the Master Plan process, some citizens expressed an interest in themselves living in such units on their own property as they age out of needing a larger home. Conversely, many community members expressed their opposition to any easing of restrictions on accessory dwelling units. As a result, the Master Plan recommends an ongoing examination of this topic, understanding the necessity of addressing the negative aspects that have historically been associated with accessory dwelling units. Loss of tree canopy, storm water runoff, increased on street parking, and backyard privacy issues are problems that will need to be addressed. The neighborhood will evaluate and review existing and additional accessory dwellings in the context of proposed upcoming city zoning changes.

Whether it's our intention or not, we seem to be determined to allow only people of a certain income level to live in our neighborhoods, between the market incentives for property owners to replace older rental housing  with new, expensive construction, and zoning that prohibits home owners from providing such housing on their property.  I can't help but think that the primary concerns don't actually have much to do with "loss of tree canopy, storm water runoff, increased on street parking, and" (my personal favorite) "backyard privacy issues."

I got a big kick out of this on line guide when I saw it last month.  The Morningside neighborhood was not even mentioned, and see that map?  We're in that big empty spot just below Lindridge Martin Manor.  Now I know it's not just housing costs that keep Morningside off the map -- there isn't much commercial activity in the neighborhood either, and that's what's on the map, mostly -- but no neighborhood as socioeconomically homogeneous as this neighborhood is is going to be a very interesting place to live.

It may be boring, but at least we have our backyard privacy.  Of course, for improving the quality of life in the neighborhood, we'd be better off with front porches.

No Longer For Rent

The "For Sale" sign went up at the duplex, a few houses up the street from us, a couple of months ago.  This picture was taken in mid-September, when the grass was still green.  I haven't known any of the people who lived here for a couple of years, although Tom and I did talk to one of the residents a couple of weeks ago, when a dog from across the street had gotten out of the yard and there was some discussion about where the dog belonged.  He introduced himself and told us his wife was a teacher at a nearby public school.  The only person who lived there that I ever knew very well was our former neighbor Mathew, who played guitar at block parties.  He used to toss a Frisbee in the front yard for his dog to retrieve.  I suspect Iain has fond memories of watching Mathew and a friend of his shoot off fireworks one 4th of July.

Even though the "For Sale" sign was up, a "For Rent" sign appeared too and I hoped that that indicated that the intent was to keep it as a rental property.  One day a few weeks ago there was a man walking around the front yard.  He asked me if I knew what the place rented for.  I said I didn't know; he said that someone he knew was thinking about buying it and he'd been asked for a second opinion.

Then a couple of weeks ago a well-dressed older woman got out of a car and took down the "For Rent" sign and put it in the trunk of a car.  I asked if the place had rented, and she said no, that it had sold.  Is the owner going to knock it down and build something new?  Probably, she said.

After that the surveyors came, and left orange tape at the edge of the property and and a sign in the front yard.

Monday night when I walked the dog I noticed that there is now a sign that says the property is "Under Contract."  There was a vacuum cleaner and a mattress and springs and small dresser at the curb.  

By this morning the dresser was gone, but the vacuum cleaner and mattress and springs were still there.

There Goes the Neighborhood

I bought our house in 1989, soon after I moved to Atlanta.  That summer there were frequent thunderstorms after several years of drought and it seemed like every time it rained trees came down and the power went out.  The first time I saw this house the electricity was out.  It was early evening and the only thing now that I remember from that first visit was the long living room with the picture window at the end of the room.  That appealed to me in a way that no other house I had seen did.  Only later did I realize that what I was associating with it was the house that I lived in as a young child, a house I barely remember.

I came back the next day to see the house again, this time with the power on, and sometime after that I made an offer and that's how I came to live on Wessyngton Road.  So there were several trips I made here with the real estate agent, whose office was nearby at the Coldwell Banker office on North Highland, just round the corner.  It was only after I moved in that I realized that every time she had brought me here that she must have come from the Cumberland Road end of Wessyngton, that she had never brought me by the apartments at Wessyngton and North Highland.  When I bought my house, I didn't know they were there.

That was more than 20 years ago, and the apartments didn't look good even then; since then, I don't think the landlord has invested much in upkeep.  The plan, at least since 2008 and probably longer, was to sell the property, evict the tenants, knock down the apartments, and build large expensive houses.  For a long time there was a sign there in the yard offering three luxury homes.  But the market for luxury homes wasn't great for a few years -- even in Morningside -- and nothing happened.

Until recently.  The housing market has picked up, the apartments have been sold, and Mark told us that all the tenants got registered letters telling them they have 30 days to vacate.  (Doesn't Georgia law require 60 days notice?)  So it's going to happen.  There are different "for sale" signs up, now, and I expect it won't be long until the tenants are gone and the apartments are razed.

Our friend Mark lives there, and we will miss him, although we hope he will not move too far away.  He's the one who has played guitar at so many of our neighborhood block parties.  So I'm sorry that the apartments -- ramshackle as they are -- are about to be demolished.  I'm also sorry for what it may portend for the street.  If intown property is now this valuable, I'm afraid that some of the other rental properties on the street will follow.  The house Angela used to live in has been vacant for months or maybe longer; we heard it's going to be knocked down and a new house built there.  One of the things that's special about our street is the diversity of people who live here, and a big part of that is the availability of at least relatively affordable rental housing.  Once that's gone, it's going to be less interesting to live here.

Yesterday when Iain and I were walking back from the farmers' market we saw a child's chalk drawings on the driveway at the apartments.  I don't even know if the child who drew this lives there, but if she does, I wonder whether she will have that apartment imprinted on her memory the way that house on 2nd Street in a small town in Oklahoma is on mine.

Autumn Again

I was only gone five and a half days, but when I came back, the lemon tree had been moved to Kathy and Steve's porch, and yesterday morning there was frost on the windshield.  The ginkgoes in the neighborhood are now mostly yellow, but ours - always the last one in the neighborhood to change color - was yellow-green yesterday; today, it's more yellow that yellow-green.  There's a Japanese maple on Cumberland that is red on the top, orange in the middle, and green on the bottom.  It's cold enough that the dog doesn't mind being outside.  An email from the farm in Elberton that we need to come next Saturday to pick up our turkey.  First quarter report cards and midterm exams.  Who's in town who can work the Friday after Thanksgiving?

The house on Cumberland that was empty and unfinished for so long has been finished up, modern (from looking at it from the outside) and ecofriendly (according the the sign in the front yard).  It's not stylistically a match for the 1920s bungalows on the street, but there are no Design Police in our neighborhood, telling you what's acceptable and what's not as far as the appearance of your house is concerned.  (If there were, probably someone would have words with me, as we are still flying the flag of the Kingdom of Libya at our house.)  It looks like they did a wonderful job of transforming the empty white box into a beautiful home.  Last night, as we drove to the symphony, we saw people in the dining room, a bottle of wine on the table.  There never was a "For Sale" sign in front of the house, after the work started; whoever was responsible for the completed renovation apparently planned to live there, and now I think they do.

Up the street, Millie and Jon are putting a second story on their house.  Although there is still a construction dumpster in the front yard, the exterior work seems mostly to be done.  Friends have been coming to help them with interior painting.  They have a compelling deadline for completing the work, with a baby on the way.  Their architect did a good job, with a design that fits the street.  The only "For Sale" signs on the street are at the apartments at Wessyngton and Highland, which still are on the market as a site for Three Luxury Homes.  They have been on the market for a long time.

The analysis of the ten sickest housing markets in the United States in August listed Atlanta as number 4; I suspect our friends in the apartments are not going to have to move just yet.  Yesterday I mentioned to Tom that it's been a long time since I've seen shattered car parts on the sidewalk on North Highland; we've assumed that this is an economic indicator, of sort, that the Drinking and Driving Set are spending less at bars south of us before driving home.  So I knew what he was talking about when he said, "We should have known it wasn't real."  A fake affluence, driving by an artificial rise in the price of housing, ultimately did in the U.S. economy in 2008, and even though the numbers say that things are getting better, it doesn't feel that way.

A chickadee grabs a sunflower seed from the feeder on my dining room window.  Leaves on the ground in the back yard.  I need to do something with those lemons, and clear out a space in the freezer for the turkey.  It's that time of year.