TULSA — Neighbors in a Tulsa neighborhood are raising concerns after they claim a single-family home on South Kingston Avenue was converted into a multi-unit apartment without permits or inspections.
The house, which on the outside looks like a typical single-family home, was sold to an out-of-state company last year.
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“It’s always been a single-family home. All of the houses in this neighborhood have always been single-family homes until very recently,” Matthew Mathias said.
Mathias told 2 News Oklahoma the property was converted from a four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house to eight or nine one-bedroom apartments with 5.5 bathrooms.
“I’m really not happy about it,” Mathias said.
City of Tulsa spokesman Carson Colvin confirmed the city is looking into the property.
“We do have two code enforcement inquiries pending at that property that are still in the queue to be addressed,” Colvin said.
Mathias said the city told him it could take months to address the issue due to a backlog with priority 3 code enforcement issues and that it was not a high priority. Priority 3 is code enforcement’s lowest priority level.
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“I know Channel 2 has run a story on how code enforcement takes a long time and a lot of, there’s a lot of backlog.” Mathias said.
According to Colvin, the city’s current backlog of code enforcement cases is “roughly 1,800 cases to be worked. That includes calls of all types, but mostly Priority 2 and 3 calls.”
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Mathias told 2 News the situation has also led to an increase in trash strewn around the front of the house and his own property.
“I actually had to increase my trash service to twice weekly to pick up all the trash that they were throwing on my lawn,” Mathias said.
2 News called and left messages for the out-of-state owner, Bottlecap Properties, LLC, located in Brea, California, regarding the concerns. So far, those calls have not been returned.
Mathias told 2 News he and other neighbors are meeting with City Councilor Carol Bush on March 31 to discuss the issue.
Colvin said, I’m told there is a neighborhood meeting being held this week about this home. While not put together by our team, we will have representatives from the City present. Hopefully, we’ll get a better understanding of needs and concerns at that meeting.”
Mathias said he understands there is a housing shortage, but he wants the city to ensure property owners comply with ordinances and regulations before converting single-family homes into multi-person units.
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