Smart Growth Tulsa Coalition

[Ed W]

This popped up in  my FB news feed and it piqued my curiosity. The author is Bill Leighty, and frankly I've never heard of him, but I don't get out much.


Our Comprehensive Plan, adopted in July of 2010 has been compromised and victimized. A lack of imagination and lethargy appear to rule at City Hall. We are falling behind the cities we compete against for growth....Since the last Mayoral election many Tulsans have felt demoralized and have quietly expressed a sense of resignation that meaningful progress in Tulsa has stalled out. While many individuals, groups and organizations embrace change, their voice has been compromised by a lack of organization and harmony. A unifying leader and spokesperson for our comprehensive plan has been missing.

http://smartgrowthtulsa.com/announcing-the-smart-growth-tulsa-coalition/

It's inevitable that this becomes political, so I posted it in local politics. While there are some ideas I agree with - like re-invigorating downtown - other ideas are somewhat hazy on details. How do we change the city's infrastructure in order to discourage single occupant vehicle use, for instance, or get people to adopt a healthier lifestyle that includes locally grown produce and more exercise? The devil is always in the details.

[TheArtist]

Will have to dig through all of that.

But one thing first, the new Comprehensive Plan has been "adopted", but not implemented?

As in currently, most of the zoning and such is still following the old plan for the new zoning apparently is not yet in place (except perhaps in part of the Pearl District and I am not even sure what exactly is going on there).

[sgrizzle]

Bill Leighty is good people and was on the TMAPC until his appointment recently wasn't re-upped by Dewey. Several times where a TMAPC vote went south and it was like 8-1, Bill was the 1.

Bill has been trying to push form-based codes, transit, and planitulsa. All things that have been approved and our city needs, but usually a few special interests slow or block implementation.