Very cool! INCOG now has, on its website, color-coded maps showing zoning classifications, covering Tulsa County and neighboring sections of Creek, Osage, Rogers, and Wagoner Counties.

It's all in PDF, so you will need Acrobat Reader. You'll also need broadband: The files appear to be quite large. Start with the index map, which shows county boundaries, municipal boundaries, major streets, and the township and range grid. Click on the place of interest, and a detailed PDF for the six mile by six mile township will appear.

Township boundaries run along 186th St. N., 126th St. N., 66th St. N., Archer St., 61st St. S., 121st St. S., and 181st St. S. Range boundaries run along 273rd West Ave., 177th West Ave., 81st West Ave., Peoria Ave., Mingo Rd., 193rd East Ave., 289th East Ave. Each map includes about 1/8th of a mile of overlap, so, for example, you can see both sides of Peoria through Brookside, even though Peoria is a boundary between map sections.

Here's the detailed map covering most of midtown.

The detailed map shows streets, lot boundaries, and zoning boundaries and is color coded for major zoning classifications -- green for agricultural, white for single-family residential, brown for multi-family residential, gray for industrial, red for commercial, yellow for office. Blue dashed lines indicate planned unit developments (PUDs), green dashed lines mark overlay districts, such as historic preservation districts. Labels show the legal zoning classification (e.g., RM-3, CS, IM, CBD), which will vary from one jurisdiction to another.

Of course, what you can and cannot do with a piece of land is affected not only by the underlying zoning, but also by any zoning overlay that may exist, the conditions and development standards attached to a PUD, if any, and any special exceptions or variances that may have been granted by the Board of Adjustment; you'll need to visit the INCOG offices to see the detailed records. But for most purposes, this will give you a clear and detailed picture of how our city can be built and rebuilt. The maps are current as of June 2007.

Next on the online wishlist: The comprehensive plan -- even though we're going to replace it, it would be helpful to have the current plan online, including detailed small area plans and master plans covering places like TU, the hospitals, and the Fairgrounds.

While we're wishing, maybe someday Tulsa County could have real estate records available online, navigable via a map. Sure, you can get to them when the library is open, but even then it isn't a user-friendly system. I've heard the reasons why not from our Tulsa County officials -- too expensive, privacy reasons, etc. But the website of Oklahoma County Assessor (and former Republican state representative) Leonard Sullivan provides access to records through a map viewer. Zoom in and click on a parcel, and it shows you who owns the land, how much it was assessed for, the physical description, the legal description (subdivision, block, and lot). A second click, on the account number, brings up a history of transactions, photos and sketches (used by the assessor to evaluate the size and condition of the house as part of assessing its value). Another click takes you to a list of comparable properties or a list of recent sales in the subdivision. It's all a matter of public record, everything the County Assessor's staff uses to do their jobs, and the Oklahoma County Assessor is making it as accessible to the general public as it is to developers and real estate professionals. The only flaw I can spot is that zoning information doesn't appear to be included. If Oklahoma County can do it, surely we can do it in Tulsa.

UPDATE: Commenter JW raises "the BS flag" on Tulsa County officials' cost objections to online land records:

This is nothing more than short sightedness and someone protecting their fiefdom. The state of Oklahoma offers tons of assistance to get counties land records online in a GIS web mapping application. INCOG and Yazel don't have a leg to stand on. Data can be obscured to protect privacy....

The data is already stored in GIS format. All they need is $800 in hardware and $0 in software to make it available online. Their excuses are borderline lies.

Another commenter makes the point that Tulsa County's data "is already made available and used daily by realtors and sites such as Zillow." Currently, a substantial fee has to be paid for access to the county data.

Here's Zillow's page for 2811 S. Columbia Pl., the 18,610 sq. ft., three-story, seven-and-a-half bath home of Mayor Kathy Taylor. If you enter a CAPTCHA code, you can see recent sales and tax data for the property. Zillow doesn't include ownership information, transactions other than sales, or data on non-residential property.