With thousands of new student apartments bedrooms downtown, one of the big questions facing the community is, what will happen to older multi-family complexes? How can we prevent their falling into disrepair and becoming crime-ridden Section 8 housing? And how can we create affordable housing for working families, many of whom cannot afford to live in Athens and are forced to live in places where there are fewer services and no transportation options?

To help answer those questions, the Athens-Clarke County Housing and Community Development Department is asking area residents to take a survey about their housing needs. The online version of City Dope has a link to the survey. It will stay up until July 15, and ACC officials’ goal is for 1,100 people to fill it out.

Another survey asks World of Wonder users what they’d like to see when the East Athens Community Park Southeast Clarke Park playground is rebuilt. As Flagpole reported in April, the WoW playground, built with donations and volunteer labor in 2004, is falling apart, and so is the Wiggly Field dog park. The ACC Leisure Services Department plans to build two new dog parks that can be rotated to allow the grass to recover, and rebuild WoW on the current site of the dog park.