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Minneapolis bans single-family zoning
NOTE: I will be on KFAQ 1170 with Pat Campbell at 8:05 am on Wednesday, October 8, 2019, to discuss this issue, which was mentioned by Minneapolis police union president Lt. Bob Kroll in his interview with Pat Campbell this morning, as well as the City of Tulsa's plan to...
Pearl District rezoning proposals: Approval courts public cynicism
In less than an hour the Tulsa City Council will consider three zoning proposals to take specific properties out of the Pearl District Form Based Code -- which gives property owners a great deal of flexibility as to their use -- and place them under specific traditional zoning classifications....
Do new OKC skyscrapers have to go downtown? A Parisian possibility
Steve Lackmeyer has a story in today's Oklahoman about the dilemma facing Oklahoma City as surface parking downtown is being replaced with new development. Now, [Stage Center] is set to be torn down to make way for a tower rising at least 20 stories into the skyline. And if one...
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...
Small area planning kickoff, Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The City of Tulsa Planning Department will officially launch three small area plans this coming Tuesday night, February 28, 2012, at 6 p.m., at the Greenwood Cultural Center, 322 N. Greenwood Ave, in Tulsa. (Doors open at 5:30, the program will go from 6 to 7, followed by Q &...
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...
Regal Plaza developers connected to apartment bankruptcies
The daily paper has an appalling story about tenants in several Tulsa apartment complexes going without central air conditioning because of the complexes' owner's bankruptcy, which is tied to the previous owner's default on mortgages and alleged non-disclosure of said default: In a subsequent lawsuit in the same court, RC...
Notebook: Final UTW Column
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...
End the parking wars: Share parking on Cherry Street
An edited version of this column was published in the April 29, 2009, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Posted July 15, 2021. See the end of this entry for a postscript. Cityscope By Michael D. Bates Parking wars Will success spoil Tulsa's...
My mayoral manifesto
An edited version of this column appeared in the April 1, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Posted online June 15, 2016. Election Day 2009 is a mere seven months away, and a credible opponent to Mayor Kathy Taylor's bid for re-election...
New Urbanism on Lake Eufaula
There's an exciting lakeside community planned for Oklahoma, unlike anything in the state, but hopefully a model for many more to come. New urbanist city planner Andres Duany has been hired by former Oklahoma City mayor Kirk Humphries to plan Carlton Landing on 1600 acres beside Lake Eufaula. The result...
Council to consider Bomasada in Brookside
Thursday night the Tulsa City Council will consider a rezoning application for a block-sized, four-story apartment building at 39th and Rockford, in the area designated as residential in the Brookside Infill Plan, which has been incorporated into the City's Comprehensive Plan. (This should be a link to the Council's "backup...
"A city of spires"
Via Mister Snitch, a beautiful collection of photos of New York, arranged chronologically, beginning with 1885, when horse-drawn carriages and trolleys dominated Manhattan's streets. Most of the pictures were taken when skyscrapers looked like steeples, turrets, and minarets, before the 1960s influx of flat-topped glass and steel boxes. (Click the...
Off with his headways!
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I reflect upon last Thursday's "What about Rail?" public forum, which featured panelists involved with the Denver and Austin public transit systems and the National Transit Authority, the Federal agency that manages grants for things like light rail systems. Jack Crowley, the Mayor's special...
Neighborhood conservation districts: A proposal on the table
An edited version of this column appeared in the March 5, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive. Posted on August 4, 2018. Neighborhood conservation districts: A proposal on the table By Michael D. Bates "CALL YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE AND TELL...
Plaza sweet
To go back to an entry from last Tuesday, if Tulsa's Civic Center Plaza is a bad example of a public space -- in fact is one of many examples of failed plazas that can be found across the country, even in major pedestrian-friendly cities like Boston -- what makes...
Keep streetscaping simple
Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL has an analysis of a plan for redoing three blocks of Euclid Avenue in St. Louis -- paving, lighting, streetscaping -- the same sort of treatment we've seen here in Tulsa along Brookside, Main Street, and in the Blue Dome District. Steve's article is...
"A fundamental challenge that Tulsans need to overcome"
The following comment, by Tom Gulihur of CalCoast Realty, was posted on a much earlier entry, Will the Real New Urbanism Please Stand Up? Gulihur is a California-based real estate broker and financier with a fascinating resumé and deep Oklahoma roots. This essay wasn't likely to get much readership in...
New <em>Urban Tulsa</em>ism
Urban Tulsa Weekly has a bright and shiny new website! All the links in my archive category are now broken! But it's worth it! (And they'll be easy enough to fix -- it will just take time.) (There's a really simple forwarding trick they could do to fix all the...
Comprehensive planning -- looking to Dallas and Kansas City
A vision is a "compelling description of your preferred future," not a collection of public construction projects. This week's column is about comprehensive planning and developing a real vision for Tulsa's future. Tulsa's comprehensive plan is about 30 years old, but the process to get a new one is underway....
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