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Tulsa Election 2020, District 4: Kathryn Lyons questionnaire
Back on August 12, I sent the three eligible candidates for City Council District 4 a questionnaire using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. The questionnaire included the 18 questions I asked the mayoral candidates, plus a question about neighborhood conservation districts and...
Save the Pearl Coalition launched
A press release issued on Tuesday, November 12, 2019, announced the organization of a group to rescue Paul Harvey's childhood neighborhood from demolition for redevelopment under the guise of stormwater management. Save the Pearl: New Group Formed to Oppose Tulsa Development Authority's Eminent Domain Plans A community in Tulsa joins...
Saving Paul Harvey's neighborhood: Next steps
I had to be downtown last night, and I decided to go for a walk. On a whim, I walked under the east leg of the IDL to Paul Harvey's old neighborhood, which the City of Tulsa is acquiring, lot by lot, house by house, to convert to a...
Tulsa detention pond threatens Paul Harvey's neighborhood
A stormwater detention pond planned by the City of Tulsa is displacing owners of historic homes, affecting Paul Harvey's childhood neighborhood.
Zoning should keep walkable neighborhoods walkable
Tulsan Sarah Kobos has another insightful essay up at the Strong Towns website, illustrated with her own photos of lousy urban design right here in our hometown. While she's willing to forgive the urban design errors of the post-World War II decades, she politely asks cities to stop making them...
Finally: TDA to allow Wilkinses to develop across from ballpark
A proposed hotel/office/retail development in the Bob Wills District that was stymied in 2008 by Mayor Kathy Taylor and the Tulsa Development Authority now looks to move forward, five years later and after a lawsuit and settlement. The half-block west of Elgin between Archer and Brady is owned by the...
Bill Christiansen for Tulsa Mayor
Another day, another mendacious attack mailer from Dewey Bartlett Jr. If I had known there were enough Tulsans who objected to rising city budgets, county tax initiatives, the City Hall move, the Great Plains Airlines bailout, and accepting Federal stimulus money to justify a mail piece targeting those concerns, I...
Tulsa BoA denies Riverview apartment complex variances
Congratulations to the Riverview Neighborhood Association and well done to the City of Tulsa Board of Adjustment (BoA). On Tuesday, May 8, 2012, the BoA denied variances that would have allowed a 10-unit townhouse complex on a single lot, once occupied by a single home, at 21st and Cheyenne. (BOA...
QuikTrip's attempted street-snatching: Will it be stopped?
UPDATE 2012/05/04: The answer is no, by a 5-4 vote to approve the PUD "amendment" and close the street. Thanks to Councilors Blake Ewing, Karen Gilbert, Skip Steele, and G. T. Bynum for upholding the plan and the notion of public infrastructure for public use over the demands of a...
Keeping the promise to the Pearl District
UPDATE 2012/04/03: The City of Tulsa Planning Department has issued a "policy analysis" of the Pearl District regulating plan, "a supplemental review of adopted plans of the City intended to provide the Planning Commission with a full understanding of the issues and policies created to address them." Attached at the...
Tulsa Election 2011: Blake Ewing in District 4
Blake Ewing, Joe Bates, and Rocky Frisco, September 9, 2011. Photo by Trish Molina. Copyright 2011 Aithne Studios. Used by permission. Of the seven City Council races on today's ballot, the District 4 race, the only one in which I'm allowed to vote, is the only one in which...
Clarification
In my entry, "Tulsa District 4: Blake Ewing on historic preservation and infill," I wrote "Here's some infill development by one of Democrat nominee Ken Brune's political contributors." The sentence accompanied photographs of the development, or lack thereof, between Troost Ave. and Utica Ave. south of the Broken Arrow Expressway...
Tulsa District 4: Blake Ewing on historic preservation and infill
I'm sad to say that Democrat voters in Tulsa's District 4 made my choice in the general election an easy one. Friends and supporters of incumbent Councilor Maria Barnes appreciate her commitment to defending neighborhoods against inappropriate encroachment, a problem in District 4 where modern-day commercial development (and its accompanying...
Tulsa Metro Chamber's 2011 election manifesto
Here is the Tulsa Metro Chamber's "candidate priorities" -- effectively the Chamber's "manifesto" for the 2011 City of Tulsa election. Candidates seeking the endorsement of and funding from the Chamber's PAC (TulsaBizPac) were interviewed and questioned about these issues. I have added bold font for emphasis on the most controversial...
Assessor Yazel plots plats; time-lapse picture of Tulsa growth
Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel has added a cool new feature to his office's already very useful website. It's a Google Maps application showing boundaries of Tulsa County subdivision plats filed between 2001 and 2010. A subdivision plat defines blocks, lots, and easements for streets and utilities. It establishes a...
Flashback: 2000 paper on neighborhood conservation
Had hoped to write about Saturday's Oklahoma Republican Convention, Blake "Joe Momma" Ewing's announcement of his candidacy for Tulsa City Council District 4, and the disappointing State House redistricting map, but instead I solved an internet connection problem, monitored and prodded the oldest through his homework, did laundry, and organized...
PLANiTULSA final draft, my comments
Today at 4 at Tulsa City Hall is what may be the final session of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission's public hearing on the PLANiTULSA comprehensive plan. (You can download the June 2010 Final Draft of the PLANiTULSA policy documents here.) Work obligations preclude me from attending today, but...
OKC downtown plan, seven years later
Nick Roberts has dusted off the Downtown Oklahoma City Strategic Action Plan 2010, published in 2003 by the OKC Planning Department, and has graded his city's performance against its plan. For the most part, Roberts is not judging outcomes, but inputs -- whether city government has taken the steps it...
Eric Gomez on TMAPC? Seriously?
"He is either totally clueless or absolutely in your face, one of the two." "I guess he wants everybody mad at him." "He's appointing a councilor that threatened to sue one of his constituents over a planning issue to the planning commission?" Those were the instantaneous reactions of my lovely...
PLANiTULSA TMAPC hearing reaction
I wasn't able to attend the March 23, 2010, TMAPC hearing in person, but I watched the last hour or so of the hearing on TGOVonline.org. The on-demand version should be posted in a couple of days. I submitted an email comment in response to an impassioned speech that seemed...
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