Fresh images: Decatur’s Village at Legacy phase two officially a go

Another batch of relatively attainable housing is bound for increasingly pricey Decatur. 

Decatur Housing and longtime partners Preserving Affordable Housing Inc. have scheduled a groundbreaking Wednesday morning for the second phase of Village at Legacy, a unique project melding affordable housing and greenspace near the city’s southern limits.  

Village at Legacy marks the first ground-up, new attainable housing community geared toward Decatur families in decades, though Decatur Housing and PAHI have redeveloped and acquired more than 630 units elsewhere in the city over the past 15 years, according to officials. 

Phase one is finishing construction and preparing for first move-ins later this year where South Columbia Drive meets Katie Kerr Drive, at the southernmost tip of 77-acre Legacy Park.

It calls for 66 housing units—duplexes and garden-style apartments—to be reserved for qualifying, low-income families, Decatur Housing officials have said. 

Current Village at Legacy rents start at $1,000 monthly for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom floorplan in 658 square feet. 

Rents top out at $1,800 per month, which gets three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,263 square feet. 

Site plans for phases one and two show 11 residential buildings situated around a greenspace commons and U-shaped parking lot, with a community center in the middle. All but three of the new residential structures stand three stories, the others two stories. 

Once phase two is complete, Village at Legacy will offer 132 townhomes and apartments total, ranging from one to three bedrooms, spread across roughly 6 acres of the park site. 

Dignitaries scheduled to attend Wednesday’s phase-two groundbreaking include Decatur Mayor Patti Garrett, DeKalb County CEO Lorrain Cochran-Johnson, and Decatur Housing CEO and executive director Larry H. Padilla, among others. 

The Village at Legacy project has been more than seven years in the making, created as home prices in Decatur have climbed to prohibitively expensive heights for many families. (The median sales price of Decatur homes was $685,000 in May, a rise of nearly 10 percent since last year, according to Redfin analytics.)

The City of Decatur bought the park (the former United Methodist Children's Home property) in 2017 and launched a planning process that resulted in a master plan and affordable housing goals for Village at Legacy in late 2019.

Two years later, following the COVID-19 pandemic, Decatur leaders brought on Decatur Housing and its nonprofit housing developer, PAHI, to see the project through. 

That Intergovernmental Agreement calls for Decatur Housing and PAHI to develop, own, and operate the South Housing Village’s affordable housing. Meanwhile, the city will continue to own Village at Legacy’s land.

Beyond access to Decatur schools, jobs, and health services, perks of the project will include a running track, orchard, community garden, inclusive playground, and new greenspaces, per site plans. 

Decatur Housing plans to implement its services program to help all residents as well.

The Georgia Department of Community Affairs awarded the project Low Income Housing Tax Credits to help bring all phases to fruition, with additional financing sourced from the city and Decatur Housing.

As another perk of the location, the PATH Foundation’s 1.2-mile East Decatur Greenway trail runs alongside the phase one and two site. That provides an off-street link to the Avondale MARTA station on College Avenue.

Find more Village at Legacy context and fresh renderings in the gallery above.