TULSA, Okla. — Margaret Brandys calls Crutchfield a “good neighborhood,” but she also has ideas to spruce it up.
Brandys has lived in Crutchfield since the mid-1980s, in the same neighborhood as the famous Outsiders House Museum.
WATCH: STAY GOLD: City looks at Crutchfield neighborhood reinvestment
2 News Oklahoma listened to Brandys ahead amid the prospects of a new Tax Increment Financing District coming to Crutchfield. Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper presented plans to neighbors during a July 14 town hall.
“Affordable housing is the greatest need in the City of Tulsa, right now. So this program and this project does have quite a bit of affordable housing,” Hall-Harper said.
In simplest terms, a TIF allows the city to take new taxes, from new developments and spend the money improving the respective area.
THE PEARL >>> Similar plans are in place in Tulsa’s Pearl District
Councilor Hall-Harper says plans are in place to build affordable housing units in Crutchfield; neighbors have seen glimpses of that already.
“Came a long way with the neighborhood the last three years – they have. So they fixed it up. Like I said we got new streets, new sidewalks,” Brandy’s said.
2 News asked Hall-Harper to describe her 10-year vision for the neighborhood.
“I hope that it’s safe …. that there are options of housing that any and all people can find a place, that meets their needs in housing and be able to afford to stay there,” Hall-Harper said.
TIFs can fund infrastructure projects, and Brandys has just the suggestion.
“I would like to have some more streetlights,” Brandys said.
It’s up to the city council to approve or disapprove the creation of a TIF. Nothing gold can stay, as the Outsiders movie proclaimed, but maybe it could come back.
“People think cause it’s an old neighborhood that it’s a bad neighborhood. But it’s not. That is such a myth,” Brandys said, “I’d rather live here than I would anywhere. I sure had.”
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