Reflections on Reimagining the Civic Commons Macon

All that said, I was particularly struck by the incredibly impressive work happening at Historic Macon Foundation, so much so, that I’d like to share it here. For what could be (in another world) a pretty standard historic preservation organization, Historic Macon is taking a different approach to "revitalizing communities by preserving architecture and sharing history."

On a bike tour throughout Beall’s Hill with Historic Macon’s Executive Director, Ethiel Garlington, we learned about their work to stabilize and build new housing throughout Macon’s neighborhoods. They've taken a block-by-block approach to neighborhood stabilization by rehabilitating historic structures and building new houses on empty lots. They're using a Georgia program that freezes property taxes for historic homes between $200 and $1,000 for 8.5 years, to save new homeowners they work with hundreds of dollars every month. They also pass on an income tax credit based on the amount of money that Historic Macon spent on the home’s rehabilitation. Sometimes these tax credits are so large that buyers don’t even pay state income tax for a decade!

Historic Macon also talked about the need to add affordable rental housing to the neighborhood as well, knowing that a healthy neighborhood has a mix of homeownership and rental opportunities. Using $600,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds that the Knight Foundation matched, Historic Macon has started a revolving fund that allows them to build multi-family units using this investment, roll them off into sustainable rental properties, and recapitalize the loan fund.

While our housing landscapes are VERY different (their median home cost is around $175k, whereas ours is around $340k), I think there’s a lot that Lexington can learn from this approach to housing development.