By John Dobberstein, Editor
Broken Arrow leaders will face significant discussions about the city’s housing needs when the City Council and Planning Commission hold a joint meeting to hear the final conclusions of a long-awaited housing study.
A representative from Points Consulting will present a preliminary draft and findings of the study as city leaders discuss how to meet Broken Arrow’s housing demand, which continues to swell each year.
The city released a draft of the study in February that provided data from the study but no final recommendations. The meeting is slated for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Broken Arrow Public Safety Complex, 1101 N. 6th St.
Last May, the Broken Arrow City Council appointed a special advisory panel and hired a consultant to study the city’s housing challenges and options, as city leaders face critical decisions about how to guide Broken Arrow’s growth moving forward.
The city paid Moscow, Idaho-based Points Consulting $75,000 to work with the Advisory Panel to “recommend strategies for increasing housing affordability and choices,” in Broken Arrow. The work is important because a team of city planners and committee members are also working on a proposed overhauling of Broken Arrow’s zoning codes.
Points Consulting and the advisory committee comprised of city officials, housing stakeholders and city residents helped analyze various sources of data and present a preliminary report. Much of the data came from the Census Bureau, American Community Survey, MLS, ESRI and the state of Oklahoma.
The city also sent out a questionnaire to Broken Arrow residents, asking for their thoughts on housing stock availability, affordability, their vision for the city’s future housing options and the like. More than 4,000 responded.
Farhad Daroga, placemaking manager have the city’s Community Development Department, has noted the 62-square-mile city has surpassed 40,000 households, which is much larger than when the last housing study was done in 2017.
While the population booms of the 1980s and ’90s have slowed, the Broken Arrow is still growing at about 2.7% per year. The current pace puts Broken Arrow’s population at 150,000 by 2040.
The city’s median age is a decade older than it was in 1960, and the fastest growing population segment in Broken Arrow since the Pandemic has been people age 65 and older. The city had almost 8,000 children under age 4 a few decades ago, but that number has fallen to 6,500.
Some of the more interesting insights:
- 72% of housing units in Broken Arrow are owner occupied, which is down from previous decades.
- Broken Arrow’s ratio of home value compared to median household income is 2.9, slightly lower than in Tulsa or Wagoner counties and Oklahoma.
- Rents prices have shot up dramatically since 2019. Farhad Duroga, placemaking manager for the city of Broken Arrow, notes the state of Oklahoma’s own studies show that for an average family to rent or buy a 2-bedroom, 2-bath dwelling it takes 90-99 hours of work per week to pay for it, “which is not a good figure,” he says.
- About 76% of residents work outside of the city limits, which is down from the mid- to upper 80s about 20 years ago, Duroga says.
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