Popsicle Plan with Teeth

[kwa3]

The form-based code event on the 27th sounds great. Im a big fan of this movement. I would love to see central Tulsa redevelop into a mixed use, pedestrian viable place.

But lets get real. Most of central Tulsa is built. Unless there are serious plans for demolition, the form based vision will never happen.

Most Tulsa neighborhoods are 1/2 to 1 square mile swaths of residences. Its unlikely these home owners will want mixed uses next door. To get her popsicle the only other option will be for the child to walk to a car dominated main arterial, (51st, 21st, Harvard, etc.) where the store most likely sits in a dangerous asphault lagoon with its back to the neighborhood.

Has Tulsa Now seriously consiedered what it would take to make a difference on these streets?   Even if the city is on board with form based codes, lets face it, true change will requrie some land owners/developers to completely rebuild an entire street or retail pod. The current site design cant be dressed up. It will have to be redone.

Who's on board? Whos's going to tear down their strip mall or fill in their parking lagoon to make real the urban vision inherent in a form based code? Somebody at the event should ask.

Perhaps the next step is to agresively seek out as many developers/land owners as possilbe who are willing to take these risks. Institutional land owners like OSU Tulsa might be a good bet, as well as strip mall owners, or even city owned property like old school sites.  Maybe Tulsa Now should make finding these developable sites and willing owners its next mission.

Otherwise, regardless of the new codes, the form-based vision is never going to happen in Tulsa. We need a "popsicle plan" with teeth.