Tulsa voters decided Tuesday on the $814 million Improve Our Tulsa 3 initiative. The list of projects would be funded by a combination of general obligation bonds, which are paid for through property taxes, and an extension of a temporary 0.95% sales tax.
The new bonds would not increase property tax rates.
The package includes a long list of infrastructure projects, with more than one-third of the money, $295.8 million, going to street projects.
Another $270.4 million would go to city facility maintenance and renovations, including $79.7 million to the Tulsa Performing Arts Center and $18.8 million to the convention center, which needs a new roof. Parks, including public golf courses, would get $31.9 million for repairs, and the zoo would receive $25.7 million for renovations.
There’s also money for new fire trucks and other vehicles and equipment ($152.8 million) and a new public safety center ($47.5 million).
Perhaps the most notable project is an allocation of $95 million that would be combined with money from ARPA ($5 million), DDRF ($8.1 million), HOME-ARP ($5 million) and Affordable Housing Trust Fund ($8.4 million) and opioid settlement funds ($2.7 million) to establish a $104.2 million Tulsa Housing Initiative.
An independent study revealed that Tulsa need $2.45 billion to close its housing gap and recommended doing that at $245 million per year for 10 years.
Housing Solutions, which conducted the study, estimated that about 85% of that could come from conventional financing sources paired with gap-financing tools and existing public-sector programs.
The remaining 15%, or $37 million, would require innovation and collaboration across the community, the study suggested.
Based on 2022 Point in Time counts and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, Tulsa’s homeless population, at approximately 26 per 10,000 residents is about one-third greater than Oklahoma City’s rate of about 19 per 10,000 residents and substantially higher than the national rate at approximately 18 per 10,000 residents, as estimated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For more on homelessness, see a related story on Page 4 of this week’s Watonga Republican.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.