Riverside RDO

[Conan71]

This Wednesday, May 18th, the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will consider the proposed Arkansas River Design Overlay District during two public hearings. The proposed RDO will address uses, building placement, design and site features, parking, landscaping and screening, lighting, signage, circulation and access for any proposed new developments in Tulsa's river corridor.

Public hearing agendas
Slide12RevisedThere are two related agenda items scheduled for public hearings. The first, agenda item #8,  CPA-43, an amendment to the text of the Comprehensive Plan to establish and define an Arkansas River Corridor Land Use category and boundaries; and amendments to Land Use and Stability and Growth maps in support of the proposed River Design Overlay District. (CD 2, 4, 8 & 9) (Related to ZCA-1) Exhibit

The second, agenda item #9, ZCA-1 – Amendment to the City of Tulsa Zoning Code to add Section 20.050 establishing the regulations of a Special Area (SA) overlay district (River Design Overlay), and an amendment to Section 70.010-F.3 and Section 70.010-F.4.b (Public Hearing Notice) (Related to CPA-43) Exhibit

The plan is expected to go before the council for adoption in June. Click here to view the RDO Public Hearing Process and schedule At this point, a second TMAPC Public Hearing has not yet been scheduled, but would certainly be welcomed by many if not most, on such an important land use policy decision as this. The City Council will also hold public meetings on the proposal before voting on it, likely in June.

If you are just getting up to speed on the issue, we invite you read our earlier posts: River Design Overlay Public Engagement Begins and Proposed Arkansas River Design Overlay District. A steering committee made up of city councilors, planners, architects, business owners, representatives of the Mayor's Office and others have been working on creation of the development guidelines for the Arkansas River corridor within the city-limits of Tulsa.

In a couple of public meetings last month, planners rolled out a  River Design Overlay Draft and its accompanying Zoning Map after months of work by the steering committee. The public meetings included a well-crafted multimedia presentation including slides and 3-D videos illustrating design concepts that would meet the new design guidelines and ensure high-quality river development.

http://smartgrowthtulsa.com/river-design-overlay-follow-up/

This is an excerpt from the email they sent out regarding this.  SGTC is highly critical of the majority of this work reflecting the steering committee's recommendations rather than public input.  Again, fox guarding the hen house, when we allow developers to exclusively write our planning and development codes with little to no public input being mandated.  My time is too important to me to waste on public input sessions which will eventually be ignored so I doubt I'll ever participate in another public planning input session.  I find it condescending and demeaning to ignore public input when you ask for it.

River Design Overlay is Moving Forward
This Wednesday, May 18th, the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will consider the proposed Arkansas River Design Overlay District during two public hearings. The proposed RDO will address uses, building placement, design and site features, parking, landscaping and screening, lighting, signage, circulation and access for any proposed new developments in Tulsa's river corridor.

Smart Growth Tulsa recognizes that the RDO represents a significant step forward in getting Tulsans accustomed to the notion of an overlay district. With those sentiments in mind, our talented group of planners, urban designers and activists have collectively formulated some observations and recommendations which we feel will help enhance and improve the overlay.

One thing is clear. The documents the TMAPC will consider this week largely reflect the work of the steering committee and do not echo any of the alterations or recommendations offered in public feedback. For Planning Commissions and or City Councilors to just rubber stamp the draft without considering those public comments would a clear violation of elected official's promise to keep an open mind throughout the process.

[DowntownDan]

RDO-3 would be a good way to develop the city even away from the river.

[Townsend]

  My time is too important to me to waste on public input sessions which will eventually be ignored so I doubt I'll ever participate in another public planning input session.  I find it condescending and demeaning to ignore public input when you ask for it.

I felt like a dumbass after all the time I spent around those round tables participating in public planning only to learn all had been shelved/ignored.

It reduced me from an excited participator to a sidelined bitcher.

[Conan71]

I felt like a dumbass after all the time I spent around those round tables participating in public planning only to learn all had been shelved/ignored.

It reduced me from an excited participator to a sidelined bitcher.

You too?

[PonderInc]

(Note to Admin: we already have a thread on this topic in PlaniTulsa and Urban Design.  This should probably be merged.)

From looking at the River Design Overlay, I think it's a really exciting step forward.  This is the first time Tulsa will have ever implemented a character overlay as part of the new zoning code.  My only concerns/questions were very minor, and I'll submit those for public comment.

Can anyone offer any specific examples of things that should have been included that were not.  Or things that were included that should be modified, removed?

I'm looking for something more specific than: "I participated and they didn't include what I said."

While this is an emotion I completely understand (it's often a symptom that you're ahead of the curve of local thinking...hurray!) it's not useful if you give up and go home to mope and chain watch netflix.  Stay involved!

It's very common for the city to create a draft ordinance, so everyone has something to review. Ideally, the TMAPC will respond to public comment and ask for specific edits to the draft.  They may hold an additional public hearing after that, or they may just forward it to the City Council.  The CC will have the final say about what edits will / will not be included.  They may remove something the TMAPC adds, or they may ask for other changes/additions.

Of course we know that the TMAPC is not really qualified to to make planning and urban design recommendations...their main skill being rubber stamping zoning changes.  So I would strongly recommend that you reach out to your city councilors, who are not appointed for life, and will be more open to hearing your concerns.  You'll want to talk to them before it comes to the City Council for public hearings.  Most of the work will occur in afternoon work sessions prior to the public meeting.  This is where the councilors and city staff and INCOG will hash out recommended changes.  (These are open to the public and shown on TGov, but citizens are not called to speak during these sessions.)

So don't just sit around feeling slighted. Be productive and make your voice heard.  QT and some suburban sprawl developers will certainly not hesitate to shout  loudly about anything they don't like. In the past, transformative ideas have been crushed by uninformed troglodytes.  So don't let their voices be the only ones that are heard.

[Townsend]

So don't just sit around feeling slighted. Be productive  

I am productively looking for areas to relocate. (thumbs up emoticon)

[TheArtist]

RDO-3 would be a good way to develop the city even away from the river.

Oh, don't say that out loud! You will jenks it, the fear of that is one big reason why the "big guys" will marshall all their forces against even this. Have you no sense man!? Saying that will just make them work all the harder in the fight.

[Conan71]

Let's merge this into the original thread.  When I started this, I was looking under development and not urban planning/Plani-Tulsa.

New post:

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21272.msg307540#msg307540

[heironymouspasparagus]

I felt like a dumbass after all the time I spent around those round tables participating in public planning only to learn all had been shelved/ignored.

It reduced me from an excited participator to a sidelined bitcher.

Welcome to the real world!!   Glad you are here!

[TheArtist]

Oh, don't say that out loud! You will jenks it, the fear of that is one big reason why the "big guys" will marshall all their forces against even this. Have you no sense man!? Saying that will just make them work all the harder in the fight.

Aaaand to drive home the point....


(The mayor said he wants to be sure the development community is onboard with the proposed overlay.

"They are the ones who invest the money, risk the money," he said. "I want to make sure that there is a representative group that has the ability to take a look at it.

"If they feel comfortable with it, good. If not, than I think we need to revisit it.")

[LandArchPoke]

Can people say some examples of what was proposed and left out? Only thing I've seen from Smart Growth is they are pissed because they want the 71st/Riverside site as R1 instead of R2 and they don't like that the expansions have creeped up to 50% from 20 or 25%. Neither one of those I see as a reason to be that upset over.

What else? I'd rather see some examples so they can be discussed versus just saying "they didn't listen to me, now I'm mad. I'll never participate in anything public again" (by the way, that's what people like Dewey want).

Tulsa is taking steps to listening to citizens, frankly 10 years ago the REI would have already be up and open. It's important that even if ideas are still "trampled" over that people keep speaking up, keep going to meetings, and grow the support for better planning and development. Don't throw your hands up and say forget it.

[Conan71]

Can people say some examples of what was proposed and left out? Only thing I've seen from Smart Growth is they are pissed because they want the 71st/Riverside site as R1 instead of R2 and they don't like that the expansions have creeped up to 50% from 20 or 25%. Neither one of those I see as a reason to be that upset over.

What else? I'd rather see some examples so they can be discussed versus just saying "they didn't listen to me, now I'm mad. I'll never participate in anything public again" (by the way, that's what people like Dewey want).

Tulsa is taking steps to listening to citizens, frankly 10 years ago the REI would have already be up and open. It's important that even if ideas are still "trampled" over that people keep speaking up, keep going to meetings, and grow the support for better planning and development. Don't throw your hands up and say forget it.

On a case by case basis, the city is getting better.  Simon/Turkey Mountain and REI/Helmerich are two really good examples.

As you may or may not be aware, I was the strategist behind the public and government appeal with the TUWC to move the Simon outlet project elsewhere from Turkey Mountain.  I also met with councilors and staff at INCOG.  Sitting through TMAPC and PRC hearings, I did see a thoughtful approach and willingness to listen by board members and planning staff and I always had an open door with most of the council members.

My issue stems from the huge public outreach on Plani-Tulsa and the thousands of hours citizens lent to the process only to have that process more or less shelved and ignored.  I've been a part of small area planning sessions which everyone felt great about and then they've eventually been completely ignored as well.  The recent change to the zoning code seemed largely devoid of public input, but rather ended up with mostly input from the development community.  

In spite of public input, well-connected companies like QT can obtain variances quite easily.  Ask people who put countless hours into the Pearl FBC how happy they are their input was ignored on that one.

The RDO is yet one more example, at least according to SGTC, is also largely devoid of public input, thus far.  

That said, I ended up having lunch with a city council member on Tuesday quite by accident and they were lamenting another councilor's insistence that there be more time allowed for the RDO to have town hall meetings with the public to seek their input.  For the most part, our council is starting to become much more in tune with progressive development concepts and I applaud them for this.  I hope public input really is used in the RDO, and I hope companies like QT can't simply walk in and get a variance which ignores the overlay.  

I will never stop communicating with councilors on issues like this, but I don't see any point in taking time from my busy schedule to attend public planning sessions when I've provided multiple examples where public input has been asked for then summarily dismissed.

I hope I was specific enough to show why my cynicism and skepticism is well-founded when it comes to overlays, small area plans, and master plans.