Today we continue with our guest blog posts from Summer 2024 TURC students’ research project. Each student was challenged to write a brief post that showcased an element of their research from this summer, in addition to an original visual representation of data they have been analyzing. Students will present their full research project on August 9th from 1-2pm (Helmerich Hall, Room 219). The presentation is open to the public and you can find more information and RSVP here: https://pp.events/a8l1nMpb
Today’s guest blog is from Shawnda Henderson, a rising sophomore in the Collins College of Business who has been focusing this summer on zoning issues in Tulsa. Shawnda can be reached at smh2789@utulsa.edu or you can connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnda-henderson-79a430282/
Analyzing the Impact of Tulsa’s Recent Zoning Amendments in Encouraging Affordable Housing Development
My TURC real estate project, supervised by Dr. Cayman Seagraves, is to explore how zoning policy might be leveraged to address Tulsa’s housing needs, particularly the lack of affordable housing.1 That is, however, too vast a topic for one summer’s work, and thus we set out to narrow that focus. Background research uncovered recent amendments to Tulsa’s zoning code aimed at encouraging affordable development, and thus I decided to evaluate those reforms’ impact, proceeding in three general phases: amendment analysis, data collection, and peer city comparison. The latter peer analysis is still underway, and its results will hopefully inform next steps both for this project and for summers to come.
I. Amendment Analysis
To begin, I analyzed the amendments. Adopted in 2021, the changes were explicitly designed to encourage housing development, particularly within existing neighborhoods.2 They eased building regulations citywide, reducing required lot areas, lot widths, and street setbacks for certain housing types.3 Additionally, they established a “Neighborhood Infill Overlay,” which—at least in the applicable regions—made it easier to build ‘missing middle’ housing types, such as “duplexes, townhomes, multi-unit houses, quadplexes, and small apartment buildings.”4 Such medium-density, ‘middle’ housing types are often more affordable than single-unit dwellings.5 In the words of Tulsa’s Planning Office, the Overlay was “intended to promote housing types that accommodate households of varying sizes and income levels, and provide for a more efficient use of residential land.”6
II. Data Collection
In order to evaluate the amendments’ impact, I considered two questions: (1) whether (and how) housing development had increased since adoption, and (2) if so, what types of housing exhibited increase. To answer these questions, I looked to permitting data from the HUD User Building Permit Database, which reports the number of new-housing building permits issued each year. And the data is broken down by units-in-structure, allowing us to compare the types of housing receiving permits.7 The compiled results are plotted below:
These results seem promising: since 2021, Tulsa has seen increased permitting activity for multi-unit housing structures, including duplexes (2-Unit Structures) and tri/quadraplexes (3- & 4-Unit Structures), even while single-family permits declined. This could indicate that the amendments have been successful in encouraging multi-unit development, even as it’s of course difficult to know the magnitude of that contribution among myriad other factors. Naturally, we lack a scientific control. Thus, I decided to perform a peer city analysis, enabling us to compare these numbers to the results of other zoning reforms.
III. Peer City Analysis
After researching several possibilities, I settled on Minneapolis, MN, for my peer city subject. My reasoning was twofold: first, Minneapolis has faced similar struggles regarding housing affordability. Second, and partially in response to those challenges, the city enacted several rounds of zoning reform, most recently as part of the Minneapolis 2040 plan (adopted 2019).8 Recent data show increases in housing development, and some have attributed that success to zoning reforms.9 Therefore, Minneapolis seemed a worthwhile candidate.
I turned to demographic analysis to determine whether Minneapolis was indeed a meaningful peer. After choosing a list of relevant variables, I collected data from the U.S. Census Bureau, compiling and summarizing the results below. 10
Based on an ‘eyeball’ comparison, which I consider sufficient for my purpose, Minneapolis and Tulsa indeed seem relatively similar. Thus, I believe Minneapolis to be a viable peer city in comparing housing development reforms and results.
IV. Next Steps
Next, I plan to collect housing permit data for Minneapolis. By comparing those results with those in Tulsa, I might better evaluate the efficacy of Tulsa’s recent amendments. In the future, I hope to examine specific reforms in Minneapolis, analyzing which (if any) Tulsa may wish to imitate, and which (if any) it would do well to avoid.