Innovative New Historic District for Poncey-Highland

Residents of Atlanta’s Poncey-Highland neighborhood, just east of downtown Atlanta, are looking to the future with an eye to the past. For the past year, neighborhood stakeholders have worked together to use the City of Atlanta’s Historic Preservation Ordinance as a tool to create a new and creative Historic District designation for the established neighborhood. Residents and commercial building owners wrestled to incorporate the seemingly conflicting goals of preserving the area’s unique historic character and buildings, while allowing property owners the flexibility to improve their homes and businesses and even construct new buildings. The new Historic District was approved by the neighborhood, NPU-N, and finally by the City of Atlanta in mid-September 2020.

Caleb Racicot, community planner and senior principal of Atlanta-based TSW, drafted Poncey-Highland’s original Master Plan in 2009, and was subsequently re-hired by the neighborhood to guide the process and draft the new zoning. “I truly believe this new type of Historic District will serve as a model for other neighborhoods across the country,” said Racicot. “Many Historic Districts are created to ‘freeze’ a neighborhood at a specific moment in time. The Poncey-Highland neighborhood took a much more creative approach that preserves the neighborhood’s unique features, while allowing it to evolve appropriately to meet the needs and desires of future residents and businesses.

Beth McDonald, 2016-2019 Poncey-Highland Neighborhood Association (PHNA) president, said encroaching development by outside interests alarmed some of the neighborhood’s residents and motivated the PHNA to begin exploring preservation options. “Around 2017, PHNA began to address the commercial and residential development pressures on our neighborhood due to the success of the nearby Atlanta Beltline and renewed popularity of living closer to the city,” said McDonald. “A few years earlier, we had worked with TSW to create a Master Plan for our community that outlined our preferences for future growth. However, after several historic buildings were demolished or sold, we felt we needed to go a step further by drafting specific zoning regulations to better protect what we love about our neighborhood such as its historic character, human scale, diversity of housing types and people, walkability and beautiful greenspaces. Thankfully, the City of Atlanta was open to our ideas. We invited all who were interested to participate. It was a year-long process and involved hundreds of hours of research, meetings, discussions and compromises, but in the end, I believe we have clarified and ratified into law the neighborhood development protections we sought.”

The 20-street Poncey-Highland neighborhood was initially developed between 1910-1940 as Atlantans took advantage of the expanded streetcar system to move out of the central city and into more suburban neighborhoods. It’s bounded by Ponce de Leon Ave. to the north, Moreland Ave. to the east, Freedom Parkway to the south and the Atlanta Beltline Eastside Trail to the west. The neighborhood includes single-family homes, established businesses, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, apartment and condominium buildings, parks, churches and more. Numerous architectural styles are represented in the surviving homes and multi-family buildings, including Colonial, Mediterranean, Neoclassical and Tudor Revival, Bungalow/Craftsman, American Foursquare, American Small House, early twentieth century industrial, Streamline Moderne, and others. Notable commercial structures within the district include the Clermont Hotel, Ford Factory Lofts, the Telephone Factory and hundreds of small houses, apartment buildings and store-front shops and restaurants.

Resident Jerry Finegold was elected 2020 PHNA president during the process to create the new zoning. “Once I became involved, I realized we didn’t have the proper tools to help our stakeholders completely understand the data, or review preservation and development options within the specific context of our unique neighborhood. Caleb Racicot’s experience and knowledge were invaluable as we set about creating an online preference survey that was strongly visual and focused on the different zones within the Poncey-Highland neighborhood, including residential, commercial, near the Beltline, mixed-use, etc. I can’t over-emphasize how important this new tool was in gathering and evaluating input from the entire group. Because it’s a turn-key system, I believe the online visual survey could easily be customized and employed by other communities going through a similar zoning process,” he said.

The new Historic District designation identifies and defines historic residences as those built up to 1940 and commercial structures built up to 1955 and still largely intact. Staff from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission reviewed these buildings within Poncey-Highland and determined which ones contribute to the neighborhood’s historic character. In drafting the new zoning, the neighborhood stakeholders agreed they did not want the neighborhood to be frozen in time. While the building facades will be preserved, property owners are permitted to modify and expand buildings in the rear, including additions that increase height. There are no restrictions governing exterior paint colors or residential landscape design.

Racicot explained, “Working with the Urban Design Commission and the City of Atlanta, we created a forward-thinking Historic District that focuses on preserving what we called the ‘Lot Compatibility Zone’. The zone establishes the most stringent preservation standards on the portion of a lot within 60 feet of a public street. Beyond 60 feet, greater flexibility is allowed. For the most part, this means the forward-facing façades of historically significant buildings will be maintained and protected, but property owners are free to improve and/or expand the rear of their buildings and even add accessory dwelling units in the back. In areas with fewer remaining historic resources, such as along Ponce de Leon Avenue or near the Atlanta Beltline, the new district allows for significant new mid- and high-rise construction, provided all historic buildings are preserved,” Racicot said.

“We were very appreciative of the City of Atlanta’s willingness to work with us on this process,” said McDonald. “In addition to preservation, we included guidelines that govern new building design and construction, as well as how new construction interacts with the streetscape and existing buildings. We identified specific commercial areas near the Beltline and along Ponce de Leon and North Highland, where we put zoning in place to attract increased commercial and residential density and mixed-use development.”

“At the end of the day, the Poncey-Highland residents, renters, commercial property owners and business owners came together, listened to each other’s desires and concerns and worked together to create a new type of Historic District for the benefit of current and future residents and business owners,” said Lisa Malaney, PHNA land use chair. “The Neighborhood Planning Unit and the City of Atlanta supported us by passing the new regulations. We hope our success can serve as an example to other neighborhoods that have some of the same concerns and goals. Our neighborhood association is extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished, and know the Historic District designation will benefit those who live, work, shop, dine and play in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood for many years to come.”