If you've been wondering what actual missing middle housing looks like in practice, check out the Cottages at Midway getting ready to open on Midway Road. This isn't your typical subdivision with identical houses lined up like soldiers. Instead, you get 18 standalone homes arranged around shared courtyards and greenspace, which feels more like a European village than standard Atlanta sprawl.
The timing couldn't be better. With downtown Decatur home prices pushing well past $700k, this project is trying to thread the needle between affordable and accessible. We're talking about turning two underused lots into actual community-focused housing that doesn't require a seven-figure budget. The developers are calling it relatively attainable, which in today's market is about as good as it gets.
What's smart about this approach is that you get the privacy and ownership of a single-family home but with the community benefits of shared space and presumably lower maintenance costs. It's the kind of development that makes sense when you're trying to add density without destroying neighborhood character. If this model works, hopefully we'll see more of it throughout the metro area because lord knows we need creative solutions to the housing crunch.
