A City of Tulsa program aimed at tearing down or fixing up homes unfit for occupancy made progress in 2019.
The Housing Opportunity Partnership addressed 172 blighted properties. Of those, 92 were demolished, and 80 were rehab projects.
"Our goal was to address 120 properties in the first year, and we’ve well exceeded that," said city Housing Policy Director Becky Gligo.
Homeowners did 69 of the 80 rehab projects.
"Homeowners are seeing the code enforcement activities that are going on or just neighborhood conditions improving, and then they’re finding tools to be able to abate those nuisances and bring the homes up to speed," Gligo said.
Gligo said in 2020, she wants to see more homes fixed up than torn down.
"So, it’s really a 'yes, and' situation where the program’s going really well but we could expand its impact by fixing up some of those homes and making them affordable housing," Gligo said.
When the Housing Opportunity Partnership launched earlier this year, the city had a list of more than 300 structures slated for demolition.
