Atlanta Mayor Looking To Beef Up Blight Condemnation Process

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens last month attended the ribbon-cutting of two housing projects with 57 new income-restricted units built on formerly blighted and vacant property in the city’s English Avenue neighborhood. 

The mayor made known his desire to see more projects like this delivered when he issued a new administrative order last week.

The order requires his administration’s chief of staff and his chief operating officer to “take whatever actions shall be necessary to advance blight condemnation actions against identified properties” and to designate a public officer to focus on condemning run-down properties. 

The mayor didn’t identify in his order who would take up the mantle of pushing further condemnations, and the mayor and Chief of Staff Courtney English didn’t respond to messages seeking comment prior to publication.

In 2024, the city identified 3,000 blighted properties, Atlanta Civic Circle reported.  

Atlanta City Council Member Matt Westmoreland lauded the mayor’s intent to use the city’s power to condemn properties to fight neighborhood blight.

“I think the faster we demolish blighted properties, the better off for the community,” he said.

The administration’s war on blight isn’t new. In 2024, the city council passed a resolution asking Dickens to use eminent domain to rid the city of residential and commercial eyesores. The council also approved a “blight tax” in 2024 to levy against negligent landlords to temporarily increase property taxes up to 25 times the city’s millage rate.

English, then the city’s chief policy officer, told Bisnow at the time that the condemnation process would mainly target run-down “large multifamily properties” that were dragging neighborhoods down. 

In August, the council also unanimously approved a resolution to cement how the city will take over blighted properties from private landlords using eminent domain. The resolution also called on the city to create a list of priority multifamily properties where 10% or more of the units have been blighted for at least a decade. These properties would be earmarked for purchase and redevelopment into affordable housing.

That same month, the city council approved using eminent domain to seize Magnolia Park and Azalea Gardens apartment complexes on the city’s Westside from their owner for failing to reinvest or revitalize the run-down properties. The city sought to enter a public-private partnership to redevelop the complexes into affordable housing.

Margaret Stagmeier, managing partner with the affordable housing developer Mission Partners and author of the book Blighted, said she supports Dickens’ push to condemn properties in the city.

“I feel like too many properties, especially blighted properties, fall into the hands of speculators who are not concerned about the impact that blight has on a local neighborhood,” Stagmeier said. 

Torrey Sumlin, who chairs the neighborhood planning unit that covers such neighborhoods as Monroe Heights, Carver Hills, Bolton Hills and Chattahoochee, said he supports the city pushing to take over blighted properties.

“There’s a lot of blighted properties not only in the city of Atlanta but specifically NPU-G,” Sumlin said, adding he is “definitely in favor” of the executive order.