Tulsa Zoning: May 2009 Archives

This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I've covered a variety of topics: First Presbyterian Church's exciting plans to replace a surface parking lot with a beautiful new addition to their downtown complex, whether the BOK Center should charge a per-ticket fee to cover Tulsa Police Department overtime relating to event nights, and a few parting thoughts on the PLANiTULSA process.

That's right: parting thoughts. This issue contains my last column for UTW, at least for now.

I had written a brief farewell at the end of the column, but it was edited out, presumably for space reasons, so I'll post it here:

And with that I'll say goodbye for now. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been part of the UTW team for almost four years. Many thanks to the UTW readers who took time to read my words, who wrote in with praise and with criticism, and who voted my blog, batesline.com, Absolute Best of Tulsa two years in a row. Best wishes for continued success to the staff, management, and advertisers of Urban Tulsa Weekly.

I'm sad to be leaving but pleased to have made a significant contribution to UTW and, I hope, to the public debate. By my count, starting with the September 15-21, 2005, issue, I produced 194 weekly columns -- without a break -- plus several extra op-eds, cover stories on Tulsa bloggers, the 2006 city election, the history of our plans for the Arkansas River, and PLANiTULSA, and a few other feature stories and news items, and even a handful of photographs.

In the process, I've had the pleasure of working with some very creative and talented people, attended a dozen or so editorial meetings, met a lot of interesting Tulsans in many walks of life, spent a lot of time at the Coffee House on Cherry Street and Shades of Brown, and even handed out candy in the Boo-Ha-Ha parade. It's been fun, and there's a lot I'll miss about it.

It's no small feat to start an independent weekly paper and to keep it going for 18 years, and Keith Skrzypczak and his wife Julie (who oversees the paper's operations) are to be admired for their achievement. I'm thankful, too, that Tulsa's alt-weekly truly is an editorial alternative to the daily paper, publishing free-market and pro-life voices alongside the left-wing columnists and cartoonists more typical of the alternative press.

So why will I no longer be writing for UTW?

Recently UTW established a "freelancer's agreement," a standard contract for all freelance contributors, including writers and photographers. The agreement includes a "work made for hire" provision, which means that UTW would own all rights, including the copyright, to anything I submit for publication during the term of the agreement.

For many freelancers, that won't be a cause for concern, but to borrow a phrase from Roscoe Turner, "I've got a problem with that." By giving up all my rights, I could be setting up problems down the road should I want to incorporate into future projects any of the material I would write under the agreement.

In my weekly column, I've researched and analyzed current local issues and tried to put them into historical and political perspective. I've discussed urban design and planning concepts used elsewhere and applied them to Tulsa's circumstances. Beyond the immediate value of a column to the public conversation in the week it's published, I think there's some long-term value as well.

That value might take any number of forms, such as a book or a documentary on the history of Tulsa in the early 21st century or on Tulsa's post-World War II transformation. Such a project is many years in the future, I suspect, which is all the more reason for me to avoid agreeing to something now that creates obstacles for me in a decade or two. What if UTW is sold to a chain of weeklies or goes out of business? (God forbid on both hypotheticals.) Those possibilities seem very remote today, but a lot can happen in 10 or 20 years, and if they happened, who would own the rights to my work under the agreement? Would I be able to get permission to use my own work? Who knows?

At the very least, I would want to continue to retain enough rights for anything I write to be able to keep it accessible on the web.

There are no hard feelings here. UTW is doing what it deems prudent in requiring a standard agreement from all freelancers. I'm doing what I deem prudent by choosing not to submit work under those terms.

I will continue to post news and vent my opinions here at BatesLine on a fairly regular basis, along with interesting links (on the left side of the homepage) and the occasional tweet on Twitter. (My latest 10 tweets can be found on the right side of the BatesLine homepage.)

As for long-form commentary, I'm exploring some possibilities, but for the immediate future I will be using my now-free Sunday afternoons and evenings to catch up on chores around the house. I've been thinking about doing a podcast. (If that's of interest to you, let me know. I'm not much of a podcast listener myself, but I know many people prefer it to reading articles online.)

I wish the staff, management, and ownership of Urban Tulsa Weekly all the best for the future.

An edited version of this column was published in the May 28 - June 4, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. This was my final column for UTW, for reasons I explained in a blog entry at that time. The final paragraph was cut by the editor. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Posted October 25, 2022.

Cityscope
By Michael D. Bates

Notebook

Tulsa Police Chief Ronald Palmer has proposed imposing a security fee of 75 cents to a dollar per ticket to cover the overtime costs for extra police officers patrolling downtown during major BOK Center events. It's the least that the BOK Center can do to offset its impact on the city budget.

It's argued that such a fee would upset the promoters who book shows at the arena, putting Tulsa at a competitive disadvantage. If someone is willing to buy that ticket for a dollar more than previously, that's a dollar that could have gone to the promoter instead of the city. The argument goes that the BOK Center is generating sales tax revenue, and we shouldn't balance the city budget on the backs of these promoters.

In reality, the voters chose to subsidize those promoters to the tune of $178 million, and it will take at least a century for the arena to generate the same amount of local tax dollars that we put into it.

Here's the math: The BOK Center has remitted over $1.2 million in city and county sales tax revenues in the eight months since it opened. It's impossible to know exactly how much of that revenue came from Tulsans reallocating their disposable income from other entertainment and dining options, although it's reasonable to think that the vast majority of the revenue is coming from local residents.

In the six months reported by the Oklahoma Tax Commission since the arena held its first paid event last September, sales tax receipts in Tulsa County increased by 4.7% over the year before. But statewide, sales tax receipts for the same period increased by 5.5% over the year before, suggesting that the BOK Center didn't provide an added boost to Tulsa over and above the improvement to the general state economy.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that all of the sales tax paid by the BOK Center represents new money. At that rate it would only take about 100 years for local taxpayers to recoup in city and county tax revenues the $178 million (not including interest on the bonds) that we put into the facility.

Former Councilor Chris Medlock, in his May 19 medblogged.com podcast, took debt service into account and calculated 122 years before the arena will generate as much local sales tax as was spent to build it.

My calculation and Medlock's figures both optimistically assume that the BOK Center will continue to bring in big acts and draw the same big crowds as it has during what Bolton has called a "honeymoon period," although Bolton himself has warned Tulsans not to expect that to happen.

No one can know for sure whether the BOK Center has increased local tax receipts over what they would otherwise have been. What we can say for sure is that popular music venues like Cain's Ballroom, the Marquee, and the Mercury Lounge haven't been subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The owners of those venues paid to rent or buy and to renovate their facilities. Those costs are passed on in the price of each ticket.

BOK Center management and show promoters should be overflowing with gratitude to the taxpayers of Tulsa County for giving them, at no cost to them, a brand new, state-of-the-art venue where they can put on their shows and make big profits. They shouldn't try to dump even more of their operating cost onto city taxpayers.

# # #

Anytime I hear about a downtown church expanding, I cringe. For many years, that has meant that another historic commercial building will fall to make way for more parking.
It's wonderful that our downtown churches, with their historic and beautiful buildings, have survived and continue to thrive, drawing congregants from all over the metropolitan area, but their hunger for surface parking makes them a mixed blessing.

First Presbyterian Church's approach to expansion, however, deserves praise and warrants emulation.

Rather than tear down the old Masonic Temple across Boston Ave., Tulsa's oldest congregation renovated it for use as church classroom and event space and offices for non-profit organizations. Now called the Bernsen Community Life Center, it serves not only the church but the whole community. Barthelmes Conservatory, for example, has its office there and holds its public concerts in the center's various performance spaces.
In the same spirit, First Pres is about to eliminate some surface parking and put something beautiful in its place. A new worship center and reception hall, welcome center, and educational building will fill up the half-block west of Cincinnati Ave between 7th and 8th Streets. The new additions will be in the same Gothic Revival style as the 1925 sanctuary. The buildings will form a U around a courtyard, reminiscent of a cathedral cloister.

The church has also acquired the Power House gym at 8th and Detroit, which served many years as Chick Norton (later Jim Norton) Buick - one of the few downtown auto dealership buildings still standing. Power House is the new home for the church's youth ministries, and it is already under renovation.

The congregation has pledged over $14 million toward a goal of $18 million, to be matched dollar-for-dollar by Charlie Stephenson, a co-founder of Vintage Petroleum, and his wife Peggy.

There was something else on the drawings that I found especially encouraging: A new parking garage on the southeast corner of 7th and Main, directly to the west of the Bernsen Center, taking the place of an existing surface lot. It's not clear whether this is part of the current fundraising drive or something for the future.

A parking garage would set a great example for other downtown churches, by accommodating more cars in a smaller area. It would be even more exciting if the garage included street-fronting retail spaces, which would help rebuild a pedestrian-friendly connection between the downtown office core and TCC and the south downtown churches.

# # #

I'm told that, after the first week of the PLANiTULSA survey, ranking four scenarios for future growth, only about 600 had been collected or submitted online at planitulsa.org. Planners are hoping for 20 to 30 times that number by the June 18 deadline.

Please take time to submit a survey: The more Tulsans participate, the harder it will be for city officials to ignore the results.

As it's my 194th and final weekly column for Urban Tulsa Weekly, here are three parting observations about PLANiTULSA:

1. PLANiTULSA is finally delivering what Bill LaFortune promised with his July 2002 "vision summit." 1100 Tulsans gathered to express their dreams for the city's future, but instead of the process leading to a comprehensive strategy and plan for Tulsa's future development, the result was a grab-bag of disconnected projects scattered around the county.

With the PLANiTULSA process, Tulsans are finally putting together a vision of the sort defined by futurist Glenn Heimstra at the 2002 summit: "A compelling description of your preferred future."

2. The results of the PLANiTULSA citywide workshops, represented by Scenario B, and to a lesser extent by C and D, vindicate the "Gang of Four" - Councilors Jack Henderson, Jim Mautino, Chris Medlock, and Roscoe Turner, who served together from 2004 to 2006 - as genuine advocates for the City of Tulsa's growth.

The four took a lot of flak from the development industry, which pushed the unsuccessful 2005 attempt to recall Mautino and Medlock. They were tarred as opponents of growth, but the quartet's real offense was working to focus Tulsa's resources on encouraging new, high quality, compatible growth within Tulsa city limits rather than fueling suburban expansion at Tulsa's expense.

Those efforts began in 2003, when Medlock and then-Councilor Joe Williams proposed a future growth task force to address the stagnation of the city's sales tax base as new retail followed residents to the suburbs.

The task force was put on the back burner by Mayor Bill LaFortune, but in 2004, the coalition won funding for a study potential big-box retail sites in Tulsa. The Buxton study identified US 75 at 71st St a prime location to capture retail dollars from customers in upscale suburban subdivisions. Medlock won approval of a Tax Increment Finance district for the area, which made possible the development of the Tulsa Hills shopping district.
The four, along with Sam Roop (for a time), held up the reappointment of two members of the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority, the city's water board, over concerns that the TMUA's long-term water deals with the suburbs benefited suburban growth to the City of Tulsa's detriment.

This same coalition began pushing for a new comprehensive plan in 2005 and included funding for the process we now call PLANiTULSA in the 2006 Third Penny package.
Assuming survey responses reflect the same preferences on display at last fall's workshops, it will confirm that Tulsans share the desire that motivated these often-vilified councilors: to see new development in the City of Tulsa that respects existing neighborhood character, brings more people into the city, stimulates new retail development, and generates more tax revenue to fund basic city services.

3. In my very first UTW column, back in September 2005, I wrote of the importance of walkable neighborhoods for Tulsans who don't have the option of driving a car.
"Most of Tulsa is designed for the private automobile, but there ought to be at least a part of our city where those who can't drive, those who'd rather not drive, and those who'd like to get by with just one car can still lead an independent existence. At least one section of our city ought to be truly urban."

PLANiTULSA scenarios B and D would get us closer to making that goal a reality.

As you fill out your PLANiTULSA survey, by all means think about which scenario comes closest to the kind of city that would best serve your needs. But take a moment to consider which of the four scenarios would best serve those who by reason of age, infirmity, or poverty are unable to drive.

And with that I'll say goodbye for now. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been part of the UTW team for almost four years. Many thanks to the UTW readers who took time to read my words, who wrote in with praise and with criticism, and who voted my blog, batesline.com, Absolute Best of Tulsa two years in a row. Best wishes for continued success to the staff, management, and advertisers of Urban Tulsa Weekly.

An edited version of this column was published in the May 21-27, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. The date of the PLANiTULSA scenario rollout was May 12, 2009, not March 13. Posted October 25, 2022.

Cityscope
By Michael D. Bates

Which scenario is rosiest?

About 500 Tulsans were present at Cain's Ballroom on Tuesday, March 13 [May 12], to see the unveiling of four scenarios for Tulsa's future growth and development. A short presentation was followed by dozens of spirited conversations that spilled out on to Main Street and down the hill into Soundpony and Lola's and other Brady Arts District establishments.

The event launched a survey called "Which Way, Tulsa?" It's the latest step in the PLANiTULSA process of developing a new comprehensive plan for our city.

Four different directions have been offered for the public's consideration:

Scenario A, "Trends Continue": Continue along our current path, with most new development and population growth in the suburbs.

Scenario B, "Main Streets": New growth in and near downtown and along street and transit corridors. These corridors become like Main Streets, centers of activity for the surrounding neighborhoods.

Scenario C, "New Centers": New growth is concentrated in and around new hubs of activity with significant concentrations along N. Peoria; along 21st & 145th East Ave. in east Tulsa, and along US 75 south of I-44 in southwest Tulsa.

Scenario D, "Centered City": New growth is focused on downtown and surrounding areas and along transit corridors; the lion's share of transportation dollars goes to mass transit instead of roads.

Scenarios B, C, and D all represent a significant departure from the trend. Although the three differ in emphasis, you can find elements of each in the other two. All three involve medium- to high-density development in downtown. "Main Streets" has new centers (albeit less concentrated) along the BA at Memorial and Garnett, and around 71st and US 75. "New Centers" and "Centered City" have Main Street development along 11th St., Peoria, and elsewhere.

Between now and June 18th, Tulsans can express their preference by filling out the survey in the back of the glossy "Which Way, Tulsa?" brochure or rating the scenarios online at planitulsa.org.

In the days since the launch, I've heard a number of anxieties expressed about the survey and how the results will be used. Let me try to respond to the concerns.

First, it's important to understand that we're not voting on a final comprehensive plan. The maps may create the impression that, by voting for a particular scenario, you'd be voting to redevelop or up-zone a specific piece of land as depicted on the scenario map. That's not the case.

The general direction and preferences expressed in the survey results will be used to guide the planning team in creating a draft comprehensive plan.

But there are specifics - a lot of them - backing up each scenario. The Fregonese team placed specific types of development at specific locations, in line with each scenario's general approach, and fed those specifics into their computer models to calculate selected indicators, such as population growth, housing mix, job growth, commute time, land consumption, and emissions.

The indicators that were deemed to be of general interest were published in the Which Way, Tulsa booklet; more can be found on the planitulsa.org website.

The survey at the back of the booklet (and online) allows you to choose the preferred scenario according to each of seven different criteria and then to pick an overall favorite and second favorite scenario.

The planning team will tabulate the survey results and create a draft comprehensive plan. What that plan looks like will depend on whether one scenario is a strong favorite or multiple scenarios have strong support. If a favored scenario is weak for a specific criterion, the draft plan would be tweaked accordingly to address the shortcoming.

The draft plan, which will be detailed and specific, should be released sometime this fall. Public feedback will be used to refine the draft comprehensive plan before it goes to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) and the City Council for adoption.

But there's much more to be done once the plan is adopted. City officials will have to decide if and when to fund new roads and transit. Scenarios B, C, and D all assume the use of new mixed-use development types that are either illegal or not economically feasible under Tulsa's zoning code and development standards. The city's ordinances will need to be amended if we want to depart significantly from our current development trend.

Even then, it will still be up to private developers and investors to turn development concepts in the plan into real buildings and neighborhoods.

Another frequently voiced worry goes like this: "There's a pink or purple blob right over my house! I like this scenario in general, but I don't want ugly infill development in my neighborhood."

The colors on the scenario maps, ranging from light pink to dark purple, show where new development would go and how dense it would be; the darker the color, the higher the density. The blobby shapes on the map aren't meant to be precise: "The four scenarios present generalized concepts of how the City can grow."

The guiding principles for the PLANiTULSA process, adopted in February by the citizens' advisory committee, affirm a commitment to protecting the history and character of our neighborhoods:

"Future development should protect historic buildings, area neighborhoods and natural resources while also enhancing urban areas and creating new mixed-use centers where people can find everything they need in vibrant communities. It's vitally important that the look and feel of new construction complement and enhance existing neighborhoods, rather than simply being added on."

Carrying out this principle, the PLANiTULSA team created a map showing areas of change and stability, accompanied by a statement which shows that the planners get the difference between good infill and bad (see sidebar). The areas of stability include "environmental areas such as rivers, creeks, floodplains, parks and open space; single family neighborhoods; and historic districts." In stable neighborhoods, compatibility would be the foremost criterion when building on a vacant lot or replacing a dilapidated structure.

Even if we treat areas of stability as off-limits for new development, there's plenty of room to accommodate more people and jobs within the Tulsa city limits. Scenarios B, C, and D would see Tulsa grow by 72,000, 101,000, and 102,000 new residents respectively, three to four times the 28,000 new residents we can expect if the current trends continue.

How we house all those extra people is where C differs significantly from B and D.

Under scenario C, two-thirds of additional housing over the next two decades would be single-family. That's consistent with current ratios.

Under scenario B, only a third of new housing would be single-family. Half would be multi-family and the remaining sixth would be townhouses.

Scenario D drops the single-family share down to 19 percent. Two-thirds would be multi-family, and 14 percent would be townhouses.

Despite the big differences in the mix of types for new housing, the total housing mix (old plus new) would remain majority single-family under each scenario.

For one of my friends, a resident of a suburban Tulsa subdivision, the lowest proportion of multi-family housing was reason enough to pick scenario C. But don't dismiss B and D, just because you don't like the way Tulsa has traditionally built apartments.

For many Tulsans, the phrase "multi-family housing" carries connotations of transience and impermanence, terms that could apply to the buildings and to the people who live in them. An apartment, the thinking goes, is where you live when you're just out of college or when you can't afford to own a home.

For suburbanites, multi-family calls to mind sprawling apartment complexes. Midtowners may think of the up-zoning of Riverview and Kendall-Whittier about 40 years ago from single- to multi-family, as one craftsman bungalow after another was torn down and replaced with a flat-roofed, four-unit apartment building on the same lot.

But multi-family can also mean luxury condo towers or the sort of sturdy, brick, three-story apartment buildings that coexist harmoniously with single-family homes in the Swan Lake historic district.

By lumping all types of multi-family housing together in a single percentage, the "Which Way, Tulsa?" material fails to paint a clear picture for the citizen weighing each scenario's pros and cons.

The detailed indicators (which you can find at planitulsa.org/agendas under the April 14, 2009, meeting) show that the bulk of multi-family housing for scenarios B and D would be in mixed-use developments combining residences with retail and office space. Only 15 percent of new housing units would be apartments in strictly residential developments.

It's my sense that many Tulsans would prefer not to have the hassle and expense of maintaining their own home and would opt for multi-family housing if a greater variety of living situations were available, particularly if it meant being able to live near jobs, shopping, entertainment, and transit.

I'm still mulling it over, but at the moment I'm leaning toward scenario B. The "Main Streets" concept seems to make the best use of existing infrastructure, while reconnecting Tulsa's urban fabric and improving walkability for more neighborhoods, helping to create the kind of city I'd like for myself and my children.

Whatever your preference for Tulsa's future growth, be sure to express it by filling out the "Which Way, Tulsa?" survey.

# # #

SIDEBAR

PLANiTULSA statement on Areas of Change and Stability
http://www.planitulsa.org/whichwaytulsa/background/changestability

The four scenarios present generalized concepts of how the City can grow. As we move forward with the plan, we will refine desired growth patterns to target areas that Tulsans have told us will benefit from new investment and revitalization, such as undeveloped land, struggling commercial corridors, vacant lots or vacant and underutilized nonresidential sites. We will also respect areas of stability and historic significance, such as single-family neighborhoods.

The term "infill" can have a negative connotation. It is often used to describe huge houses or apartment complexes out-of-scale with existing neighborhoods. PLANiTULSA intends to differentiate good infill from bad infill. Good infill should add appropriate development that a neighborhood has been missing. Good infill is the right use and scale and adds to the overall neighborhood.

Good infill often takes place at the edge of an existing neighborhood that could benefit from a new cafe or small grocery store. Reinvestment in a dilapidated home or building a townhome on an empty lot can help improve property values. Infill development can and should be considered a community benefit when done appropriately and sensitively.
The following maps show areas where change is quite possible and other areas that should remain stable in their current form. The areas of potential change could experience new investment in the form of infill, new development and construction. In areas of stability, the focus is on programs to protect and enhance existing neighborhoods.

Mapped areas of stability include environmental areas such as rivers, creeks, floodplains, parks and open space; single family neighborhoods; and historic districts.
While the areas of potential change and areas of stability map is not a parcel by parcel map, it is intended to show overall how different areas of the city will be treated in the Comprehensive Plan. This differentiation in types of areas will be carried through into policies that treat areas of change (for example an abandoned industrial site) different than areas of stability (an existing single family neighborhood.)

About 500 Tulsans turned out at Cain's Ballroom last night for the debut of the PLANiTULSA "Which Way, Tulsa?" survey. There were audio problems: The speakers were hard to hear. The music after the presentation was good but too loud for conversations. I found myself in front of Cain's, standing in a light mist and talking about parking requirements, then continuing the conversation over a beer at the Soundpony, then, on my way to my car, bumping into some friends in front of Lola's, where I was invited inside by another friend to join the planning team and some of my fellow members of the citizens advisory team. So the loud music drove the conversation about PLANiTULSA out into the surrounding neighborhood.

The survey is online, along with a lot of background information. I haven't cast my ballot yet -- still studying the options. These detailed scenario maps go beyond those printed in the survey, showing locations of the types of development that were used to calculate the population, employment, and infrastructure numbers for comparing the scenarios. (I'd like to see a version that allows me to zoom in and turn layers on and off.)

A friend suggested holding a public discussion group about the pros and cons of the scenarios -- not as big as a forum, small enough to have a real conversation. I'll keep you posted if one is held.

Tonight at Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main, from 6 to 8, the PLANiTULSA "Which Way Tulsa?" survey will be unveiled tonight. Four different scenarios for future growth and development will be on display, and Tulsans will have the opportunity, online or on paper, to rank the scenarios according to preference. The results of the survey will guide Fregonese Associates in the preparation of a new comprehensive plan for the city, which will ultimately go before the City Council for final approval.

You can read more about the scenarios and the survey in my column in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.

The Tulsa metropolitan area is projected to grow by 164,000 people and to add 53,000 jobs over the next two decades. The scenarios provide different answers to the questions that are at the heart of a comprehensive plan: How much of that growth do we want the City of Tulsa to capture? What do we want that growth to look like? Where in the city would we like it to go?

There's a related question Tulsans need to answer: How much of the roughly $2 billion that will be spent on new transportation infrastructure during the next 20 years should go to street and highway widening and how much toward various forms of mass transit?

How we answer those questions and the development policies we adopt as a result will influence the kind of city our children and grandchildren will experience.

Today's Tulsans are living with the impact of planning decisions made more than 50 years ago, when our expressway network was mapped out and a development pattern for new neighborhoods was established. That pattern of single-use development, segregating where we live from where we work, shop, worship, study and play, was enshrined in our vintage 1970 zoning code.

MORE: Also in the current week of UTW, nominations have begun for this year's Absolute Best of Tulsa awards, which has an expanded music section for 2009.

An edited version of this column was published in the May 7 - 13, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. Here is the blog entry I wrote at the time, linking to the column, and a blog entry reporting on the rollout. The published version is not available online. Posted October 25, 2022.

Cityscope
By Michael D. Bates

PLANiTULSA scenario launch

In just under a week, PLANiTULSA will launch a public survey, asking Tulsans to rate four scenarios for our city's future growth and development. The survey is expected to draw the most participation of any step in the year-and-a-half-long process of developing Tulsa's first new comprehensive plan in a generation.

It's also the final significant opportunity for public input, so it's important for you to understand what the scenarios are, whence they emerged, and what will be done with the feedback you provide.

So pay attention! This is important. This material will be on the test.

The kickoff event for the PLANiTULSA survey will be at Cain's Ballroom on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from 6 to 7 p.m. Described as "part pep rally, part social event," the party will be catered by Eloté Café (renowned for fresh Mexican food), with music by Little Chairs, a local roots rock band in the "Tulsa Sound" tradition.

Beyond the food and music, the goal of the kickoff is two-fold. In addition to giving citizens a chance to see scenario details and ask questions of the planning team, the aim is to generate enough buzz to get thousands of Tulsans to respond to the survey.

Planners are hoping for about 15,000 responses. That would be a very strong level of involvement compared to similar surveys that Fregonese Associates, lead planners for the PLANiTULSA process, have done for comprehensive plans in cities and regions around the country. There's hope that the enthusiasm that led to an overflow for last fall's citywide workshops will carry over to these surveys.

The six-county Grand Traverse region of northern Michigan went through the same process last October and November. 11,603 surveys were submitted, representing just under 6% of the region's population. (Visit thegrandvision.org to see their results.) A proportional response for Tulsa would be around 22,000 surveys.

The Fregonese team has put together four growth scenarios based on the input received during the citywide workshops last fall, each representing a different approach to new growth. One scenario represents continuing on with our current growth pattern; the other three represent frequently recurring patterns in the maps developed by workshop participants.

The Tulsa metropolitan area is projected to grow by 164,000 people and to add 53,000 jobs over the next two decades. The scenarios provide different answers to the questions that are at the heart of a comprehensive plan: How much of that growth do we want the City of Tulsa to capture? What do we want that growth to look like? Where in the city would we like it to go?

There's a related question Tulsans need to answer: How much of the roughly $2 billion that will be spent on new transportation infrastructure over the next 20 years should go to street and highway widening and how much toward various forms of mass transit?
How we answer those questions and the development policies we adopt as a result will influence the kind of city our children and grandchildren will experience.

Today's Tulsans are living with the impact of planning decisions made over 50 years ago, when our expressway network was mapped out and a development pattern for new neighborhoods was established. That pattern of single-use development, segregating where we live from where we work, shop, worship, study, and play, was enshrined in our vintage 1970 zoning code.

The Fregonese team has run each scenario through their modeling software to estimate the scenario's impact on population, jobs, commuting time, and demand for new infrastructure, among other key measurements.

I'll be able to provide a more definitive analysis once the final versions of the scenarios and the survey have been released. For now, here's a summary of the four scenarios, based on drafts that have been shown to the PLANiTULSA citizens' team, of which I'm a member.

As you read these descriptions, keep in mind that the planners have already taken out of play those areas which would be unlikely or controversial to redevelop. These "masked out" areas include single-family neighborhoods, historic preservation districts, parks, and floodplains.

Remember too that these descriptions are necessarily oversimplified. Maps showing new development, shaded to represent density, will be in the survey literature. I'm hoping that the website will provide more detailed information, showing the locations of different types of development and transportation as separate map layers.

Scenario A represents the current trend, which could also be called "business as usual," with the bulk of new development occurring in the suburbs, dominated by single-family housing. Under this scenario, only 17% of metro area population growth would take place within the Tulsa city limits. (The other three scenarios have Tulsa capturing 44% to 62% of metro area population growth.)

Scenario B is modeled after the aggregate of the more than 100 maps created by participants in last fall's citywide workshops. Workshop participants showed a strong preference for high-density, mixed-use development that brings together homes, jobs, shopping, and entertainment, as evidenced by the "chips" (representing various types of development) they selected and placed on their maps.

Scenario B, subtitled "Main Street Redevelopment," reflects this preference, putting the highest density development downtown and in nearby neighborhoods that want redevelopment, such as the Pearl District and Crutchfield.

While 62% of Tulsa's households are in single-family homes, only 33% of new development under Scenario B would be for single-family; the remainder would be multi-family and townhouses. (The resulting housing mix would still be 57% single-family, a shift, but not a massive one.)

Arterials that already have something of a Main Street character would see that character reinforced and extended, with mixed-use pedestrian friendly development replacing auto-oriented commercial development. For example, you might see a modern version of Brookside-type development further south along Peoria toward 71st, and along North Peoria as well.

Other opportunities for increasing density exist in other parts of the city, where underused retail centers and their vast, underused parking lots could be replaced with a mixture of apartments, townhomes, shopping, and offices.

Scenario B imagines turning industrial areas along highways and railroad lines into transit-oriented mixed-use development - for example, along the old MK&T tracks near 11th & Lewis, 41st and Memorial, and 51st and US 169.

Scenario C and D represent development approaches are variations that were each embraced by a substantial minority of workshop participants.

Scenario C, "New Centers," is similar to B in that it puts growth downtown and along key arteries. But it puts more emphasis on single-family housing, and it would create new centers of development in places like 21st St. & 145th East Ave., North Peoria, and near 71st St. & U. S. 75. These new centers would have housing, jobs, shopping, and services all in close proximity and would be linked by transit to one another and downtown.

Scenario D, "Central City," is the sustainable development option, with most of the growth downtown and near downtown. This option is the most effective at putting residents near parks and open space. It also consumes the least amount of vacant land.

Scenario D is the most transit-focused option, putting 73% of future transportation capital dollars to transit. Scenarios B and C are split 59% for road improvements and 41% for transit improvements. (The trend is 99% for roads, 1% for transit.)

I was surprised to see that, according to the Fregonese models, Scenario D's significantly higher transit investment only boosted the percentage of regular transit riders, pedestrians, and cyclists by two percentage points, from 15% for B and C to 17% for D.

(All three were significant improvements over the 5% transit/pedestrian share for Scenario A, the current trend.)

So now that the planners have put together these four potential growth scenarios, they're asking Tulsans for feedback. There will be a booklet showing each of the scenarios and how they compare on key indicators.

A survey on the back page will ask you to rank the scenarios on how well each fits your needs and desires for housing, transportation, and job options, and how they match the kind of city you want to live in. You can mail, fax, or drop off the survey.

You'll be able to answer the same questions online (via planitulsa.org).

The planners will use the survey results to put together a detailed comprehensive plan, which will be presented to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) for consideration. The final draft may be a blend of scenarios, reflecting the likes and dislikes expressed in the survey.

Adopting the plan is a legislative act, so the final decision is with the City Council. As with any ordinance, the mayor could choose to sign or veto, and the Council could override a veto with a two-thirds vote.

The exact timing of the final steps is still up in the air. It would be ideal to have the draft plan presented to the TMAPC sometime in late summer, so that whether to adopt or not would be the central issue of this fall's city elections.

A big turnout at Cain's next Tuesday, May 12, would be a great way to launch this important public input process. I hope to see you there, but whether or not you can make it, please take time over the next few weeks to fill out a PLANiTULSA survey and let planners know how you want Tulsa to grow.

From the City of Tulsa Planning Department, notice of a meeting to gather public input on how best to use Tulsa's share of federal historic preservation funds:

The Tulsa Preservation Commission invites Tulsans to participate in the development of the City of Tulsa's Annual Certified Local Government Program.

A meeting will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 14, 2009 to receive public input. The meeting will be held on the 10th Floor of City Hall @ One Technology Center, located at 175 E. 2nd Street in downtown Tulsa. Parking is available at the southeast corner of 2nd & Cincinnati.

A portion of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Historic Preservation Fund is allocated for participation in the Certified Local Governments program. Each year, the Tulsa Preservation Commission uses this money to facilitate preservation within our City. Citizens can provide assistance in identifying ways to best use the 2009-2010 funds.

Funds can be used for such projects as:

• Inventory and/or National Register Nomination of historic resources within the community;
• Increasing public awareness of historic preservation; and
• Preparing amendments or updates to the Tulsa Historic Preservation Plan and Historic Preservation zoning program.

With your support we can continue to build on Tulsa's preservation achievements.

Please contact Amanda DeCort, City of Tulsa Planning Department, at (918) 576-5669 for more information.

Here's a very insightful comment by someone with the handle "innercityartisan," posted next to my column about the PLANiTULSA small-area workshop for Forest Orchard, about the way expressways and other barriers to pedestrian and auto traffic on surface streets can blight a neighborhood. It also provides a picture of living in and near downtown a generation ago. (Emphasis added.)

I was there at the meeting. And I grew up in this area in the 50's and 60's. The more I think about the idea of removing the east leg of the IDL, the more I like it!

As kids, we walked or took the bus downtown to the movies. I walked to Central H. S., my gym class played field hockey in Central Park. At noon we students ran around a very busy downtown for lunch and did all our teenage shopping in the department stores and record store. We knew all the "secret" ways to get from one building to the next and across alleys. We were at home downtown, we felt safe and in a way we were supervised by the tens of thousands of people that lived and worked in the inner city.

My grandfather, a geologist, had his office in the Mid-Continent Building. We went to parades, enjoyed the Christmas lights and explored eateries with him.

I am now involved with the Pearl District and where I grew up and work in my home between the Gunboat Parks within the IDL. I am also involved with the Brady Arts District and the East Village at 3rd and Lansing. All these areas suffer because of the "Great Divide."

As has been recognized by other more recognized writers and activists, any city area that runs up against a large "dead" tract of land such as an expressway right-of-way, with no through foot traffic, tends to die and shrivel away. Large parking lots such as those around Hillcrest Hospital or cul-de-sacs and turnarounds that stop through traffic and long chain link fences can mean blight to a neighborhood.

After all, how can your neighborhood become an area that people discover and want to visit or live in if no one ever goes into or through it? And how can you feel safe living, walking or playing with no one around to keep an eye on things?

The only people to "discover" the Brady district have come for events at Cain's and the Old Lady on Brady and most of them don't stay. The Brady area is not so "alive" with activity in many continuous storefronts that a person can feel completely safe walking alone at night. Few people live there. Visitors don't tend to stop and explore. Hopefully the Ball Stadium will increase the number of buildings and residents.

I'm concerned that the vision for the Pearl District with shops and restaurants, small grocery stores, dry cleaners etc. will not happen in development areas placed next to the IDL. This condition also effects the "East Village" or "East End" which is directly across the IDL from the Pearl district. And yet these two neighborhoods could exponentially increase, the interest, excitement and potential resources available for walking residents and visitors if they were actually more connected and accessible to each other. The existing few overpasses between these areas feel long, exposed and very windy!

Get rid of the IDL or cross it with overpasses that have buildings on them. Something that encourages people to hang out and provide a friendly safe environment.