In Athens-Clarke County, the push toward a 100% clean energy by 2035 is colliding with a stubborn housing shortage.
For the people working to solve both problems, the tension is constant.
Melinda Lord, director of Housing and Community Development for Athens-Clarke County, doesn’t hesitate when asked whether affordable housing and sustainability goals pull against each other.
“Every time,” she said.
Green building materials make homes more affordable for buyers in the long run, she explained, but “on the subsidy end, on our side, it increases the cost to actually develop that house on the front side.”
The shortage Lord is working against is significant. Athens-Clarke County’s 2023 Affordable Housing Investment Strategy identified approximately 8,800 renters paying well above 30% of their income toward housing.
Lord said “the implication is that Athens needs over that amount in affordable housing units in 2026, likely closer to 10,000 units.”
To carve into this, HCD typically invests between $250,000 and $300,000 in subsidies per house. Lord said the county has grown comfortable absorbing a higher price tag when sustainability is part of the equation.
“We are willing to make that investment,” she said, “especially if it comes to a slight increase in cost as a result of long-term sustainability and green development.”
One of the partners putting those subsidy dollars to work is Athens Area Habitat for Humanity. Charles Smith, the organization’s vice president of operations, said Habitat has moved away from traditional stick-built construction in its new Micah’s Creek development, a 63-home project near downtown Athens.
More than half of those homes will be factory-built in a climate-controlled facility in south Georgia, then transported to Athens and set on foundations by crane.
“Those houses are more energy efficient because they’re made with better materials,” Smith said. Because they’re built indoors by the same skilled workers every day, there’s no risk of lumber warping from rain or ice on a job site.
Another 15 homes will use insulated concrete forms, or ICF, construction which consists of stacking “LEGO blocks” of recycled Styrofoam filled with liquid concrete, creating walls just over a foot wide. Smith noted that these houses specifically are, “60% more energy efficient.” Habitat was selected as one of only 16 affiliates nationally, and the only one in Georgia, to build using the method through the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association.
The Resident Dividend
The long-term payoff shows up in utility bills. According to a 2024 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, one-quarter of low-income households spend more than 15% of their income on energy bills.
However, Habitat recently solarized a home on North Peter Street and said the solar panels cut the resident’s Georgia Power bill by 50%. Lord said the feedback from HCD-subsidized homebuyers is consistent: “They absolutely report that they have significantly decreased costs for their utility bills.”
Beyond monthly bills, Habitat is conducting a longitudinal study with the University of Georgia tracking children of Habitat homeowners at Gaines Elementary. Preliminary data shows that 90% of those children, “perform remarkably better in school once they live in a Habitat home with stability.” Lord added that families who move from renting into a fixed mortgage can stabilize their finances and begin building generational wealth.
The Friction of Red Tape
Despite shared goals, the path to getting homes built has occasionally been difficult. Smith described the regulatory approval process for Micah’s Creek as “death by 1,000 cuts,” with repeated engineering submittals, some studies he considers unnecessary, and delays costing thousands of dollars against American Rescue Plan Act spending deadlines, federal COVID-era funding that came with strict requirements to be spent by a set date.
“The government, we think, should be assisting the developer in providing affordable housing, specifically to say, ‘Let’s find a way to say yes,'” Smith said.
Lord pushed back gently, noting that HCD is bound by federal housing and urban development regulations it cannot waive.
“We don’t add any extra administrative burden,” she said. “We only require them to comply with exactly what those regulatory standards are.”
In late 2023, she added, the county overhauled its contracting process, cutting execution time from as long as six months down to between six to eight weeks.
Looking Ahead
Lord said HCD is developing a Housing Trust Fund that will potentially award lower interest rates or higher borrowing capacity to developers who incorporate green building standards. Smith is exploring access to the county’s Community Energy Fund, fees funded by a portion of energy utility franchise fees (including Georgia Power), to help finance solar installations on new Habitat homes.
As the 2035 deadline draws closer, the people doing this work say the path forward depends on whether Athens can keep closing the gap between the high price of building well and the urgent need for a place to call home.
Reilly O’Neill is a fourth-year finance and journalism student with a Certificate in Sports Media at the University of Georgia.
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