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Staff seek direction on administering Improve Our Tulsa housing funds; RFI drew ~60 responses
Summary
City housing staff told the Public Works Committee they received about 60 RFI responses and recommended issuing an RFP for third-party fund administration for the city’s $75 million Improve Our Tulsa housing allocation while keeping infrastructure programs in-house.
City housing staff briefed the Public Works Committee on options for administering the city’s $75 million Improve Our Tulsa housing allocation and on next steps toward a request for proposals (RFP) for fund administration.
Travis Holz, housing director, said the city received roughly 60 responses to a request for information (RFI) that closed April 9 and that responses indicate substantial developer interest. The presentation described four broad program categories under consideration — grant funds, investment/loan funds, acquisition funds and infrastructure/preservation — and noted that peer cities mix in-house administration and third-party administrators (often community development financial institutions or nonprofit intermediaries).
Staff emphasized several considerations for council direction: organizational capacity to administer a fund, the ability of a third party to leverage additional private philanthropy, mission alignment and accountability for public dollars, and flexibility to adapt programs as market conditions change. Jean Gomesha (senior adviser) noted that infrastructure programs are typically administered by municipal departments and said water, sewer and streets work is not usually farmed to external parties.
Staff described a sample RFP timeline of roughly 120 days from drafting to signed contract (about four months) but said turnaround can be faster if applicants already know the city’s objectives; councilors urged speeding the process where feasible. The briefing addressed bonding forward city funds to accelerate deployment — staff said bonding decisions would follow review of RFI responses and that council might consider bonding amounts (a $35 million figure was referenced as a possible scale in prior discussions, to be confirmed by the RFI analysis).
Councilors asked about fundraising and whether third parties would solicit private funds; staff said third parties typically do fundraising under contract when the city commits funding. Staff said next steps include drafting RFP objectives, returning to council on April 30 to discuss those objectives, and discussing bonding in May.
