The Tulsa City Council has approved nearly $43 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) near the newly constructed Peoria-Mohawk Business Park.
TIF money will primarily be used for private homeownership and neighborhood rehabilitation efforts around the 120-acre business park, which officials hope to be a key for economic development, health and educational achievement in this area of North Tulsa.
“Business development in North Tulsa is continuing to be a key economic driver for our city, and we want to make sure the people who live near these new developments get those opportunities,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said. “This TIF district will ensure the neighborhoods around these newly created jobs can thrive and contribute to the economic vitality that is being invested there.”
The project has four TIF districts within the business park. Normally, TIF funds are used to help developers to pay for roads, utilities, etc.
But this plan is aimed at funding help for as many as 5,000 property owners in four tracts adjoining the business park at Peoria Avenue and 36th Street North.
Housing programs account for nearly $35 million of the projected TIF money to be generated over the next 25-35 years and will go toward single family housing that will be further defined in a subsequent policy to be adopted at a later date.
About $4 million will go to Tulsa Public Schools. All of the money for Tulsa Public Schools will be spent at Hawthorne and Whitman elementary schools.
The Flat Rock Creek Urban Wilderness Area will get $1.8 million and the rest of the fund will go to administration.
Muncie Power Products is building a plant in one of the TIF districts. Under a TIF, a base is set on assessed value of a property. Schools, libraries and other property tax recipients continue to get funds from the original property value while the excess goes to repay the loans for the stated projects.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation donated the land for the park. Tulsa voters okayed a $10 million bond package to be repaid by higher sales taxes.
Projected TIF dollars will go toward:
- Single-family Rehabilitation Program, which will offer private home buyers repair grants for their existing properties
- Voluntary demolition of unsound properties, which will allow for infill development if the owner chooses
- Title assistance, which will help clear title issues with various properties so they can be sold without issue or rehabilitated without issue
- Home buyer assistance, which is expected to help increase homeownership from the current Census estimate of 53 percent to 73 percent
- Development assistance for Vacant Residential Single Family-zoned land, which both individuals and developers could request.