Latest Permit Data Indicates Tulsa
Not on Track to Meet Housing Goals

Tulsa, Okla. (April XX, 2025) – Housing Forward is tracking housing permit data as part of our overall efforts to monitor and support the expansion of housing throughout Oklahoma. This analysis provides an evaluation of latest (April 24, 2025) City of Tulsa housing permitting data in order to ascertain where the city is on its present goals. 

According to the 2023 Tulsa Citywide Housing Assessment, it was determined that 12,900 new housing units would need to be developed by 2033 in order to "meet demand and support equitable growth." [1] Mayor Monroe Nichols further emphasized the importance of addressing the City of Tulsa's housing shortages in a February 2025 executive order which prioritized the creation of 6,000 new affordable units and a 60% reduction of blighted property by 2028. [2] In this brief, we will take a look one particularly important metric that can be considered a key indicator of progress on these directives: the number of residential building permits issued.

One source of this data is the Department of Housing and Urban Development's State of the Cities Data System (SOCDS). According to SOCDS, just short of 1,600 residential units - both single and multifamily units - were issued permits during 2023 and 2024, or since the release of the Housing Assessment study. [3]  These permits account for approximately 12.4% of the total number of new residential unit goal.

SOCDS can also help us understand how many residential permits were issued over the past decade. Figure 1 is a graph of the number of permits that were issued by year and by single- or multifamily typology. The data indicates that from 2015 through 2024 permitting numbers fluctuated from year-to-year overall, and multifamily permitting (Δ=415) generally varied more than single-family permitting (Δ=308). During the pandemic years, single-family permitting greatly outperformed multifamily, but in the years since that gap has largely closed.

Figure 1: Permitted Residential Units by Year

Permit data by year was created by the City of Tulsa and accessed through HUD's SOCDS platform.[3]

At the present housing rate, Tulsa will not meet its 2033 housing goal until 2044.

Just as important as how many is where the new units are being developed. Geographic mapping is a critical tool in not only presenting data in an alternative visualization format, but also for processing large amounts of information. In this analysis, GIS can be used to visualize concentrations of new multifamily units.

Historically, new housing development has not been equally distributed geographically across the city. This is evidenced when aggregating the total number of multifamily apartment units that have been constructed since 2018. The below figure, which counts the total number of new multifamily units that were developed in each Census Tract area, indicates that most of that new development occurred in the neighborhoods in or around Downtown. However, other localized areas of the city also saw an influx of additional apartment units from single, large-scale developments, including some locations in the BA Expressway corridor, South Tulsa, and West Tulsa. Unsurprisingly, new multifamily construction has generally occurred in neighborhoods that already had concentrations of the same type of housing.

Figure 2: Multifamily Unit Development by Census Tract

Multifamily Units Since 2018, April 2025. Totals are aggregated from CoStar multifamily listings. [4][5] 

Conclusion

This analysis examined progress on the City of Tulsa's new housing development goals using one primary metric: the number of residential permits issued. It is recommended that additional data metrics be collected and studied to determine what key levers will assist practitioners in reaching development targets sooner. While some progress has been made on reaching the City of Tulsa's 2033 housing goal, we are presently -5.8% below where we should be in order to meet that goal. Recent multifamily construction has largely occurred in the same neighborhoods as existing multifamily developments. Additional investment in multifamily apartments and "missing middle" housing types is recommended to hit target development goals and diversify unit offerings in areas of town that are primarily single-family.

Next Steps

  • Refine and Publish Metrics for Permit Processing Timelines: Publicly share clear goals and metrics for permit processing timelines. These metrics will increase transparency and set clear expectations for developers, staff, and stakeholders. In addition to the initial ten-day review process, the process should establish expectations for review times, resubmissions, and turnaround times for Letters of Deficiency.

  • Align Application Processing with Documented Procedures: Adopt, publish, and enforce documented workflows for permitting processes. Staff should be trained to align their actions with these workflows. Exceptions or deviations from the process should be tracked to inform future improvements.

  • Standardize the Review Process for Letters of Deficiency (LoDs): Establish a uniform review process for LoD Responses. Metrics should be set for how quickly responses to LoDs must be addressed, with a proposed standard of 60 days for city responses to substantive applicant submissions. Clear tracking of resubmissions will provide greater accountability.

Recommendations for next steps improving the City of Tulsa permitting process were described in our February 2025 Smart Growth Report. For further detail, please refer to report pages 19-31. By adapting these recommendations, Tulsa can reduce barriers to housing development and rapidly increase housing production to meet housing goals.

Sources

  1. "Tulsa Citywide Housing Assessment White Paper", March 1, 2023.  https://www.housingsolutionstulsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Tulsa-Citywide-Housing-Assessment_Final-03.01.23.pdf 

  2. "Mayor Nichols Announces Next Steps to Solidify Housing as Priority in Tulsa", February 24, 2025.  https://www.cityoftulsa.org/press-room/mayor-nichols-announces-next-steps-to-solidify-housing-as-priority-in-tulsa/ 

  3. SOCDS Building Permits. Office of Policy Development & Research, accessed March 2025.  https://socds.huduser.gov/permits/ 

  4. New Multifamily Build disaggregated data, 2018-2025, CoStar, accessed April 2025.

  5. Parcel data, 2025. Tulsa County Assessor, Osage County Assessor, Wagoner County Assessor, accessed April 2025.