Sophia Eppley is a senior student at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and the news editor for the Red & Black. She is covering the 2026 mayor’s race for Athens Politics Nerd.
Cine was filled beyond capacity on Saturday evening as Athenians gathered to hear four mayoral candidates debate housing, growth management, road safety, homelessness and immigration enforcement. Mayoral candidates Mara Zúñiga, Tim Denson, Dexter Fisher and LaKeisha Gantt were in attendance. The hosts of the AthChat podcast, former ACC Commissioner Russell Edwards and Drew Abney, moderated the debate.
Here’s a breakdown of the key issues:
Housing
The debate began with an issue on most Athenians’ minds: housing. Athens has a low 3.2% rental vacancy rate, according to Edwards, who got this information from the Atlanta Regional Commission. With housing costs increasing year after year, how would each candidate act to make housing a priority as mayor?
A vacancy rate is the percentage of available homes or rental units that are unoccupied at a given time. A low rate signals high demand and potential rent increases. A healthy vacancy rate is between 7 and 8%, according to New York University’s Furman Center.
Zúñiga said that she grew up in poverty and has experience turning burned buildings in New York into affordable housing, as well as creating jobs with affordable wages in areas that are “dilapidated.”
Denson proposed utilizing inclusionary housing policy, which would lift barriers that currently restrict the construction of affordable housing, using the Land Bank Authority to create subsidized housing and increasing density.
Although the other candidates argued that increasing density would not fix the housing crisis, recent research suggests the opposite.
A study from NYU’s Furman Center shows that building more homes can actually slow rent growth and free up units for residents with varying incomes. In other words, increasing density may lead to decreases in rents or the slowing of rent growth over time.
Dexter Fisher argued that as the smallest geographical county in Georgia, there is nowhere to put more housing. Instead, the mayor should work hand in hand with developers, looking at land the county already owns and potentially provide tax credits to developers who cater to young renters.
“We cannot continue to put housing density in neighborhoods, because neighborhoods are not going to accept that,” Fisher said. “I’ve seen that over the last four years. We try to stuff housing into established neighborhoods, we’re going to get rejected.”
In Athens, 58% of renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent, Gantt said. Gantt suggests asking the University of Georgia to contribute money into Athens’ housing fund in lieu of taxes to promote affordable housing. As a state institution, UGA can not be required to pay local taxes.
Unlike the other candidates, Denson advocated for more student housing developments as undergraduate enrollment continues to increase. Fisher, Gantt and Zúñiga all disagreed, citing their concerns with minority displacement and gentrification.
“Interestingly enough, you’ll notice the three minorities up here are pretty much in agreement with this: student housing is a problem,” Zúñiga said.
The Furman Center study showed that new housing supply generally does not cause higher rates of displacement of lower-income households from their neighborhoods, although displacement is hard to measure.
Denson suggests creating a student housing “overlay district” that will protect historic Black communities.
Athens has a lot of single-family homes and large-scale apartment complexes, but is “missing the middle,” or affordable, smaller multi-unit homes. The candidates discussed specific zoning policies to attack this problem.
Gantt suggested creating more flexible zoning to allow the building of small homes.
Denson suggested implementing inclusionary housing policies, including accessory dwelling units — secondary, smaller living spaces on the same property as a primary home — as well as allowing developers to build small homes and tiny homes.
Growth
The ACC Planning Department estimates that Athens will gain 30,000 new residents by 2045. Given this fact, Abney asked each candidate if they would work in the best interests of long-time Athenians, new residents or future residents as mayor.
Denson explained the importance of the county’s future land use map and zoning decisions when guiding growth. He says he’ll make decisions for all Athenians and for new residents, but he also wants to ensure that growth will not hurt the people who already live in Athens.
Fisher agreed, but argued once again that “you just can’t stick housing anywhere,” and there needs to be a smarter way to look at growth.
“We have an infrastructure problem that nobody wants to talk about, we have sewer and water issues that no one wants to talk about,” Fisher said. “I’m not looking at any type of housing growth until we answer and deal with our sewer and water issues.” He promised to enact a 90 or 120-day pause on all new housing construction as mayor.
Gantt said that she will make decisions for all Athenians based on community needs, especially those who are underrepresented including seniors, youth and veterans.
Zúñiga has a community-focused approach to growth and says she would go to different communities in Athens and assess their needs when considering new development.
Road safety
There were 14 traffic deaths in Athens in 2025 and it has taken decades to complete traffic projects. How will each candidate make road safety a priority?
Fisher suggested fixing the county’s infrastructure and eliminating cars for UGA freshmen.
Gantt said that road safety would be a priority for her and that she was especially interested in expanding Athens’ sidewalk network. She criticized the local government for not doing enough to solve this issue.
“I hear people up here saying all the things that they’ve done, but we’re still in the same place,” Gantt said. “We’re still in the same place … after people [like Denson and Fisher] serving on the commission, and so that tells me we need someone different to move these solutions forward.”
Zúñiga said the priority is funding, to which Denson agreed. Denson suggested an inclusionary parking policy, which would have developers avoid building unused parking spaces and instead put that money into a fund that allocates money toward Athens’ multimodal transit system, crosswalks, sidewalks and bike lanes.
Immigration enforcement
The current administration’s immigration enforcement tactics have faced national and local pushback over the last few weeks. As mayor, how will each of the candidates approach their relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they become a larger presence in Athens?
Denson is the only candidate that directly denounced the presence of ICE in Athens.
“Let’s be very clear: ICE has no place here and if I’m elected as mayor there is no way that my administration is going to work with ICE to help them come in as mass individuals, terrorizing families, breaking up families and dragging them out of their homes.”
Denson said that ICE has already been in the Athens area and that Georgia has the fourth highest number of ICE arrests in the country.
Zúñiga, an immigrant herself, said that immigration has become increasingly polarized and although it is important to protect immigrants, it is also important to enforce the laws.
“The community needs someone like myself who can speak the language, go out there and break that misinformation and look for ways we can work with the police department to try and get those criminals out of these areas, even before ICE would have to come here.”
Gantt and Fisher both called for the protection of the immigrant community. While Gantt did not directly denounce ICE, she did say that their recent tactics have been “inhumane” and “dangerous.”
Homelessness
There is a lot of rhetoric surrounding homelessness in the county. Zúñiga and Fisher argued that homeless people are being “dropped off” in Athens, while Denson asserted that there is only a small percentage of the unhoused population coming from other counties — most are Athens natives. What specific zoning policy will each candidate implement to create more housing and curb Athens’ homelessness crisis?
“People are being dropped off. That is a fact,” Zúñiga said. “We have the heart, we have the hands, we just don’t have the funding.”
Zúñiga suggested that surrounding counties should provide funding for Athens’ unhoused population.
Denson suggested pooling contributions from the university, the school district, hospitals and local government to attack chronic homelessness. Denson has several years of experience getting unhoused people into homes and preventing evictions as he spearheaded an eviction prevention program when he was on the ACC Commission.
Fisher argued that Denson was understating the amount of homeless people that are dropped off in Athens.
“If you’re going to drop people off, you’re gonna send some resources or we’re going to send them back to your county and you take care of them,” Fisher said. As mayor, Fisher said he would prioritize getting homeless school children into homes.
According to the ACC continuum of care 2025 point-in-time count, the homeless population is fairly local. 35% of the respondents were from Athens originally, and 65% have lived in Athens for six or more years.
The point-in-time count surveys people experiencing homelessness on a singular night to measure the extent of homelessness in an area.
However, there is some truth to Fisher and Zúñiga’s statements. The point-in-time count count also shows that many respondents came to Athens because of better available resources, among other reasons.
Nearly half (49%) of the respondents lived in Athens prior to being homeless.
Candidate questions and public comment
Each candidate had an opportunity to ask one other candidate a question. Denson was asked by both Zúñiga and Gantt how he can be trusted to represent all of Athens when he has previously excluded certain groups with his activism.
Denson recommitted himself to building an Athens for everyone by promising to engage with residents from every district, whether they support him or not. Zúñiga asked Denson if he would commit to visiting the Republican party as mayor, to which Denson responded, “Absolutely.”
When questions were opened up to the audience, Bennie Coleman (who is running for commission in district 7) asked the candidates if they would consider allowing manufactured homes for Athens’ low-income population. Manufactured homes are built off-site, which is generally more affordable than building on-site. Every candidate supported Coleman’s proposal.
The ACC Planning Department is currently considering a recommendation from the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing to legalize manufactured homes. Both Zúñiga, who worked with Coleman on a proposal for manufactured homes years ago, and Gantt criticized the slow pace at which the recommendation is proceeding.
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