Tulsa Zoning: November 2006 Archives

The following comment, by Tom Gulihur of CalCoast Realty, was posted on a much earlier entry, Will the Real New Urbanism Please Stand Up? Gulihur is a California-based real estate broker and financier with a fascinating resumé and deep Oklahoma roots.

This essay wasn't likely to get much readership in the comments of an old entry, so I'm posting it here. I think you'll find it as thought-provoking and well-written as I did.

I come from land rush era Oklahoman stock on both sides of the family and I lived in Oklahoma until I was ten years old, when my family moved to LA, like true Okies. Parents and grandparents are OU alums and paternal grandparents are OSU alums. I love Oklahoma in a nostalgic way, but I understand why many people outside of Oklahoma blanche at the corny Wal-Mart mentality there (and the rest of the South and Midwest).

But some real estate development business is bringing me back to OK. There's a downtown revitalization occurring in Tulsa and I'm involved in a project there. I've been reading gobs of information on Tulsa and urban renewal there and want to explain a fundamental challenge that Tulsans need to overcome. I've seen San Diego's urban renewal and have studied New Urbanism enough to understand how this has to work. First, the public has to buy-in to most of the concepts of New Urbanism or the whole thing will flop. Here is a quick version of what it requires:

• Create dense and intense development at the urban core using form based zoning code. That means don't classify building by use, but rather by their shape. Encourage mixed-use buildings but not only retail-office-residential; enable all mixed uses similar to the early 1920’s in America (it should basically look like Disney’s Main Street USA).
• Create a pedestrian-friendly environment. Expand public transit to de-emphasize the use of the car. Of course this is difficult in an economy that is based on big oil and Detroit steel (now Japanese and German steel too).
• Design an attractive public realm. Plant corridors of street trees, install traffic-calming devices, open corridors of greenbelts with paths and walkways to enable pedestrian and bicyclist activity, build 'vest-pocket parks'. Honor public institutions through architecture and placement. A well designed public realm, whether it’s a residential neighborhood (think of Georgetown, in Washington, D.C.), a public square, a village green, a park or a retail shopping street, they should all encourage people to want to ‘hang out’, ‘hang around’ or walk through it and walk to it. All this hanging out and walking around has a second major benefit to society besides the individual’s personal enjoyment of the experience, is that CRIME IS REDUCED where there are a lot of citizens with their eyes open. Democratic values are also strengthened when the public realm is strong.
• Build using environmentally sustainable techniques. Use all active and passive solar technologies available and use recycled or recyclable building materials.
• Mix housing types in random and close proximity. Don't just build high-rise condos that all cost from $300k to $500k because that fosters elitist classicism. This is the biggest challenge facing New Urbanists everywhere because of the conventional way residential projects are financed according to target market segments that naturally form socio-economic groups that lead to isolation of other groups. A truly democratic and vibrant culture occurs when a CEO and a janitor can live as compatible neighbors, although that's an extreme example.

It's important for the public to learn more about New Urbanism, which is also called Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), Transit Oriented Development (TOD), Smart Growth, or other similar concepts. The American leader in this concept is Andres Duany and his wife Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Their architecture and urban planning firm is at DPZ.com and at CNU.org (The Congress for the New Urbanism). Better yet, read Duany's entertaining book, SUBURBAN NATION, THE RISE OF SPRAWL AND THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM. Then you will ‘get’ New Urbanism.

Some conservatives see a political subcurrent to it and there really is an environmental concern and inclusionary aspect to it. But hey, the icecaps seem to be melting from global warming aren't they? Ten years ago you could argue against that assertion but it's different now. The inclusionary aspect of democratic society is an important part of New Urbanism that doesn't necessarily disagree with a conservative agenda, unless it includes environmental abuse.

In my experience, residential development always leads retail development because retail business owners cannot follow the ludicrous mantra of 'build it and they will come'. Retail will die on the vine if there it is not surrounded by a sea of 'rooftops', meaning the rooftops of consumers. So there's always a lag of retail development behind residential development. And the biggest complaint of the first wave of downtown dwellers when a city starts a downtown renaissance is that there is no convenient or good grocery store downtown. And there are the homeless, who often represent a security problem for wealthy urbanites.

But if Tulsa wants to be the next SOHO or downtown Vancouver, or Portland, or San Diego then it needs to loosen up the archaic liquor laws, IMHO. You need to get a Trader Joe's in downtown for sure, and TJ's needs to be able to sell its selection of wines and beers, which is probably only about 10% of their business, but a crucial 10%. So you guys need to dump the blue laws and welcome to the 21st century. Get out of the Wal-Mart fundamentalist attitude, open your minds and live and let live.

Tulsa has always enjoyed a more cosmopolitan flair than larger Oklahoma City (from where my family hails), although some people on the left and right coasts would snort at the words 'cosmopolitan' and 'Oklahoma' in the same sentence. What Oklahoma has all over the snobbier coastal societies is a warm friendliness that says 'you're OK!', to borrow a partial phrase from Transactional Analysis and Rogers and Hammerstein.

Good luck Okies! I'm rooting for you. But you'll need to loosen your liquor laws and learn about New Urbanism before real progress can move forward.

A couple of comments: (1) Of course I'm curious to know which downtown Tulsa project Gulihur is involved with, and pleased to know someone familiar with these concepts is involved in a downtown project. (2) There's a reference in his comment to financing, and Gulihur is involved in the financial end of real estate. One of the obstacles to building mixed-use or traditional neighborhood developments is that the money people don't understand it and don't have comparables to guide their lending decisions. (The Next American City had an in-depth article on the topic, "Why Building Smart Is So Hard," in the inaugural issue.) I'd be interested in Mr. Gulihur expanding on that issue from his experience.

The Marketplace radio program had a report on eminent domain reform ballot initiatives. In four states, the reform measures have a strange twist:

Reforming eminent domain is supposed to be about limiting the government's right to bulldoze a house to put up a freeway or a mall.

But some of these measures go much further. They would let citizens sue when government authorities enforce land-use or other laws they personally don't like and think might cost them money. Even though those laws are there to protect the community's interest.

So if you don't mind your next-door neighbors starting a disco nightclub at their house and then suing taxpayers when the government tells them they can't, these are the initiatives for you.

Sound absurd? Oregon enacted just such a law two years ago. Oregonians have since filed 2,700 lawsuits against state and local authorities asking for $6 billion of taxpayer money.

The idea behind these proposals is that any government regulation that limits use of a piece of property should be considered a "taking," and the owner should be entitled to just compensation. The Marketplace story suggests that the language of the amendment could provide a grounds for challenging any regulation, even if it has nothing to do with real estate.

The proposed eminent domain reform initiative in Oklahoma was of the same variety, something I wasn't aware of when I signed the petition. (Shame on me for not reading the whole thing.) In the end, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the petition on the grounds that it dealt with two separate topics, in violation of the State Constitution's single subject rule. Here's part of the Supreme Court ruling describing the provisions in question:

IP 382 next proposes that an owner of private real property is entitled to just compensation for any reduction in the fair market value of the property caused by the enactment or enforcement of a zoning law, with the following exceptions: 1) zoning laws that protect public health and safety; 2) zoning laws required by federal law or nuisance law; 3) zoning laws limiting the use of property for nude dancing or selling pornography; and 4) zoning laws enacted prior to the effective date of the proposed act. IP 382 also contains provisions placing the burden of proof on the public body and providing for an award of attorney fees, costs, and expenses to the landowner. IP 382 sets no minimum amount of reduction in property value to constitute an actionable claim, does not establish the method of valuing property, does not delineate how a landowner may establish causation between a reduction in property value and a zoning law, and sets no statute of limitations for making a claim. Construed broadly, IP 382 renders inefficacious any zoning law that falls outside of the exceptions in subsection 3.

Effectively, it's a zoning freeze amendment. It might even make it impractical for the city to approve zoning variances, special exceptions, and rezonings requested by the owner. Potentially, a neighboring property owner could sue the city on the grounds that granting the zoning change reduced his property value.