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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...
Crosbie Heights neighborhood threatened by blight claim, slashed property values
Homeowners in a revitalizing historic neighborhood west of downtown Tulsa are feeling threatened by a sudden drop in the County Assessor's valuation of their lots and the persistent interest of the Tulsa Development Authority, the agency that seeks "blighted" property for redevelopment.
Tulsa City Council District 4: No endorsement
"I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing 'GET KNOTTED' in." -- Tony Hancock, Hancock's Half Hour, "The Election Candidate" I share The Lad's sentiments about many of the races on the August 28, 2018, runoff...
Preaching to the choir
I was involved in a vigorous, in-person discussion the other night over the Nashville Statement. While everyone involved professed agreement with the historic Christian views of sexuality and sexual identity, some felt that the timing was poor, in the wake of the Hurricane Harvey catastrophe. Others couldn't see the point...
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...
Bartlett Jr boots Riverside sidewalks
It has been the City of Tulsa's policy for at least 15 years to build sidewalks when rebuilding arterial streets. During the recent reconstruction of Yale Avenue between 21st and 31st Streets, utilities were moved and sidewalks were built on both sides of the street, allowing safe passage for pedestrians...
Festival takes over Tulsa parking crater Sunday
Tulsa's Young Professionals are holding a mile-long street festival tomorrow, Sunday, May 4, 2014, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the southern part of downtown Tulsa. The event, Street CReD 2014: Urban Core, will thread its way through Tulsa's championship parking crater with "music, art, food trucks, vendors, family-friendly...
Urban roundup 2013/04/01: Tulsa zoning code update, zombie development, and more
Preserve Midtown has posted a note from Theron Warlick, City of Tulsa urban planner, on the status of Tulsa's zoning code update: I'm the lead planner on the zoning code update and I think I can shine some light on the process. For about nine months, I've been working with...
Pearl District plan on TMAPC agenda today, September 5, 2012
The Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will cast its final vote today, September 5, 2012, on the Pearl District Association's request for a form-based land use ordinance covering the neighborhood. The new rules governing the Pearl District would be phased in to replace the existing use-based zoning code. The Pearl...
Bill Leighty on historic preservation
Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission chairman Bill Leighty has an excellent op-ed in the latest issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly about the importance of historical preservation to Tulsa's future. I'm tempted to quote the whole thing. The heart of the article is an account of a recent Preservation Leadership Training...
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...
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...
Texas Playboys' 1930s studio doomed?
As with Tulsa's struggle over applying new fire codes to older buildings, Dallas is experiencing a battle between historic preservation and downtown revitalization on the one hand and strict enforcement of building codes on the other. The building in question is at 508 Park Avenue, a three-story Art Deco building...
PLANiTULSA: Which scenario is rosiest?
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...
More Tulsa and Oklahoma blogs
Some recent finds worth telling you about: Here are two fairly new "news around town" blogs devoted to Tulsa: Tulsa Loop and This Tulsa. This Tulsa has a very cool logo (featuring the BOK Tower, the Mid-Continent Tower, and University Club Tower), and they encourage readers to submit links of...
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...
Walkability and ice storms
No one had left the house since I got home from work Friday afternoon, and the plan was that no one would leave the house at all today, until my daughter woke up complaining of a very sore throat. So I made a trip to the drugstore late this morning,...
Another field of <s>schemes</s> dreams
A week from Tuesday, Springdale, Arkansas, citizens will vote on a tax package to build a $46 million AA-quality minor league baseball stadium in the southwestern part of the city. According to the Grand Slam for Springdale website, a AA team would relocate to Springdale if a new park is...
A Tulsa mom writes about the impact of suburban sprawl
Found on a MySpace blog during a Technorati search for "Tulsa", this is from Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck: Another word for dependent is burden, and that term better describes these parents' perception of...
6th Street Infill Plan before TMAPC today
Today the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) is to consider recommending to the City Council the adoption of the 6th Street Infill Plan as part of the Comprehensive Plan. The TMAPC meets in the City Council chamber at 1:30 p.m. today. The 6th Street Task Force has been working...
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