By FOX23.com News Staff
TULSA, Okla. — The City of Tulsa is moving forward with a proposal to expand its Neighborhood Infill Overlay, a zoning tool city leaders say could help create more housing options and address Tulsa’s growing housing shortage.
The overlay, first created in 2021 for neighborhoods surrounding downtown, is designed to make it easier to build what planners call “missing middle” housing — things like duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, backyard cottages and small-scale apartment buildings.
Nathan Foster, principal planner with the Tulsa Planning Office, said the city realized it needed to rethink zoning rules after studying Tulsa’s housing supply.
“For really decades, we have exclusively allowed one house on one lot in most of the city of Tulsa,” Foster said. “Single-family homes are the most common type, which prevents really an increase in how many units we can build.”
City leaders say Tulsa is facing a significant housing demand issue. According to a citywide housing assessment, Tulsa could fall roughly 13,000 housing units short of demand over the next decade if changes are not made.
“At the time, we were really producing about 800 or so units a year,” Foster said. “There wasn’t going to be a way for us to actually meet that demand unless we were going to go in and find places where higher-density housing could be built.”
The proposed expansion would extend the overlay further into Districts 1 and 3 after councilors Vanessa Hall-Harper and Jackie Dutton asked planners to explore expanding the program into their districts.
Foster said the city’s goal is not to replace neighborhoods with large apartment complexes, but instead allow smaller-scale housing types that already exist in many historic Tulsa neighborhoods.
“If you go south of Cherry Street into the Swan Lake neighborhood, you have sixplexes next to duplexes next to single-family homes,” Foster said. “Same is true in Riverview next to the Heights. So it’s very common in older neighborhoods that we had a mixture of housing.”
City planners say adding more housing types could also help improve affordability by increasing supply while giving residents more choices throughout different stages of life.
“What we don’t have today is the ability for someone to grow and live in their same neighborhood,” Foster said. “If you’re able to incorporate this variety of housing into neighborhoods, you allow people to age in place.”
The proposal has also sparked concerns from some residents about parking, traffic and changes to neighborhood character.
Foster said the city has heard those concerns throughout public meetings and emphasized that the overlay does not force homeowners to make changes to their property.
“This does not require anybody to do anything different,” Foster said. “It ultimately provides you with some more options in the future.”
The overlay would also allow accessory dwelling units — such as garage apartments — by right in affected areas, giving homeowners additional flexibility and possible rental income opportunities.
Last week, the Tulsa Planning Commission recommended approval of the proposed overlay expansion to the Tulsa City Council.
The proposal is expected to move to city council for additional public hearings in the coming weeks, where residents will have another opportunity to voice support or concerns before a final decision is made.
