Urban Tulsa Weekly: July 2008 Archives

Thursday night the Tulsa City Council will consider a rezoning application for a block-sized, four-story apartment building at 39th and Rockford, in the area designated as residential in the Brookside Infill Plan, which has been incorporated into the City's Comprehensive Plan.

(This should be a link to the Council's "backup packet" for the Bomasada rezoning, but it's not. This is the second time a link from the Council's online agenda has led to the wrong material on this particular item -- it happened when the zoning request appeared before the Council Urban and Economic Development Committee. We need legislation that gives online public information the same importance as info posted on the bulletin board outside City Hall or in the legal notices in the paper. If the complete information isn't posted, the agenda item can't move ahead.. As it is, it's too easy to conveniently make a mistake and avoid making public info as available as it should be.)

My "op/ed extra" column this week in Urban Tulsa Weekly was about the proposed apartment superblock, which is a test of the Council's willingness to adhere to the Brookside plan and the credibility of all citizen participation in land-use planning, a salient question as we approach citywide planning workshops in September for our new Comprehensive Plan:

Whether you live in Brookside or not, all Tulsa property owners have a stake in the outcome, as it will show whether this City Council will stick with or set aside the development standards that were negotiated by homeowners, business owners, and developers and formally adopted by the city. Consistent application of the rules is the issue at hand....

In conducting in-depth interviews for Tulsa's new comprehensive planning effort, the public opinion research firm Collective Strength found a recurring theme: "Fatalism about lack of zoning and code enforcement and special favors for the wealthy." Approval of this development would only reinforce that well-founded cynicism and would undermine optimism that a new comprehensive plan would be fairly applied to all.

Brookside plan participants put in a great deal of time and effort. To set the product of that effort aside will chill enthusiasm for participating in future planning efforts. If all that negotiation and compromise comes to nothing, if the developer is always going to get his way, why bother?...

The ripples from their decision will extend far beyond Brookside. The new comprehensive planning effort, PLANiTULSA, will have its first public workshops in September.

If the council shows respect for the Brookside planning process by voting down the Bomasada development, it will signal to the public that they can have a positive and long-lasting impact by participating in PLANiTULSA.

If they set the Brookside plan aside for the developers, it will feed public cynicism about public land use planning and discourage participation from the very activists who have the most insight to contribute to the new plan.

Choose wisely, Councilors.

Brookside neighborhood advocate Laura Collins sets out the sound planning case against the Bomasada development. (I've added emphasis here and there.)

TO THE COUNCIL: The Village of Brookside Neighbors immediately surrounding 39th and Rockford, as well as Brooksiders in the area and other citizens of Tulsa who are friends of Brookside and have an interest in the precedent this proposal presents are in support of redevelopment as long as it is appropriate to the individual neighborhood. The Brookside Infill Task Force Redevelopment Restrictions specify the scale, rhythm, height and (width) open space requirements for redevelopment. We welcome Bomasada to present a design of dwelling which is compatible with these guidelines. Some would like to portray us as "anti-progress" or "against development". Nothing could be further from the truth. We have watched the subject property continue to decline under the ownership of Perry Properties and have wondered why the city, if feeling now that it is such a "blight" -- as was described by Roy Johnson and at least two of the TMAPC panelists during the May 21st hearing ----- which lasted nearly 10 hours!

POINTS OF CONCERN AND FACT:

• The neighborhood infill restriction on height, for example is 35 feet. Bomasada asked for and recieved a variance on height of 48 feet, with a maximum of 49' 4" additional height in order to 'screen A/C units on roof". On the Rockford side, which they claim will be 35 feet, they were granted a setback variance of 16 feet (from the street) and an additional 3' 8" in height -- again for hiding the A/C units on roof. Why such a difference in additional height the two requests? Is the setback measured from the curb or the centerline? This would make the building way too close to the homes across the street. What is the city average or guideline for setbacks? How can a building this mammoth in scale look 'in scale' with the homes near it so close to the street?
• Additionally, the Brookside Infill Plan clearly states that "monolithic forms that dominate area or disrupt vision should be avoided". This particular design chosen for Brookside is a clear example of everything the task force was attempting to prevent from being placed in Brookside . Again, how can this type of design look as though it is harmoniously 'in scale' with the one story homes across the street from it to the east?

1. Bomasada has numerous design models to choose from.... Our neighborhood association and petition group were not asked which design we felt fit our neighborhood. Bomasada V.P. chose it for us. It does not conform to the Infill Task Force Plan's restrictions on: Density, Scale, Open Space or Height. Most notably, it is a solid 'wall' of construction with very little if any visual break and negative space or green space as seen from the renderings provided us by the developer.

2. The infrastructure will not support this development without improvements. Will the city do this work now / during the development's construction or after the development has been in place? What is the cost to the city?

3. Are sidewalks planned around the perimeter of the property by the developer? Or are we really going to let them off the hook with a nominal waiver fee and make the city do it ten years from now? The neighbors do not want to wait 5-10 years for a sidewalk to be REPLACED.

4. Parking for the apartment -- for guests. At last hearing, they are providing 25-57 guest parking spaces for a 240 one and two bedroom apartments on three heavily traveled streets. Will parking be allowed on 39th or Rockford for guests? We hope not, as it will not be conducive to pedestrian safety.

5. Traffic study was not completed. How can we build without a plan for impact on neighboring streets and residential safety? Children walk to school (Eliot) and catch buses there -- while Rockford is already a busy street when school is open. What precautions will the city take to ensure the safety of neighborhood children? 4-way stops? Traffic signal at 41st and Rockford? Speed humps on Rockford? 39th? More police to catch speeders and stop sign runners?

6. Flood plain and environmental impact. Can we count on the city and the developer to avoid any increased stress on our storm water and sewer systems? Are they separate or combined systems?

7. Pedestrian-friendly access on and off the apartment property for the tenants into the Old Village Shopping Center? If not, why not? These are young professionals you are marketing to. Many of them will no doubt have bicycles and want this amenity.

8. We are generally disappointed with the lack of communication and respect shown us by the developer. Our inputwas really not sought out. There was never a specific meeting held for neighbors within 300 feet of the property by either the developer or the BNA. We therefore had to seek information, call for meetings, canvasse the area alone and in the end, we are portrayed by those in favor of this project (some members of the Brookside business community) as "anti-development" -- which couldn't be farther from the truth.

9. We look forward to redevelopment of this property. It obviously has not been properly maintained by the owner (Perry Properties) and the city was either unaware of the situation or never took any strong stand on enforcing the improvement of the property which the city now refers to as 'blight' at 39th and Rockford.

We have said all along ---- we look for a development from Bomasada that compliments our neighborhood design and is built within the zoning guidelines, taking into account safety and user-friendly priniciples and amenities for both the future enclave tenants and the surrounding homeowners and neighbors. All parties involved in the decision making process --- including our city leaders --- should feel a shared ownership of the neighborhood improvement project and forge a future partnership in goodwill, respect and teamwork ... embracing a shared vision for this amazing and very liveable section of the City of Tulsa.

We ask that our concerns for safety and the quality of life for our neighborhood residents already living in Brookside are remembered as you do the work of deciding to approve or disapprove, and work out the details of this new development positioned in one of Tulsa's most desirable and historic areas.

Many thanks to the readers of Urban Tulsa Weekly who have, for the second year in a row, voted for me as Tulsa's Favorite Blogger in the Absolute Best of Tulsa readers' poll:

Michael Bates, Urban Tulsa Weekly's own uber city news geek and pundit extraordinaire, is the man. With his encyclopedic knowledge of Tulsa's history and of the inner workings of city and county government and his piercing insight into the goings on of the city's elite, his weekly columns are often a source of both dread and delight to local leaders. The man is a machine, though, so a weekly column is hardly enough of an outlet for him to say all that he has to say, nor for readers to get their regular fix of his words and wisdom. So, there's always his blog at Batesline.com.

Congratulations to Tulsa World music writer Jennifer Chancellor for getting a "close call" in this category. Although many editors and writers at the daily have blogs, Jennifer is one of the few who is really taking advantage of the medium, updating on a near-daily basis. Most recently she's been posting lots of photos and video from Rocklahoma. I shall have to work much harder if I want a threepeat. (Or maybe lobby to have a separate category for music bloggers.)

I was also happy to see a win in the coffee house category for one of my favorite hangouts, the Coffee House on Cherry Street, with Shades of Brown, another favorite hangout, as a close runner-up. The two coffee houses set the standard not only for good coffee but for community gathering places.

(Note to PLANiTULSA team -- as part of your outreach to Tulsa's young people, hold some "bull sessions" at these coffee houses. Just plan to show up, hang out, and expect to have some great conversations about the city's future.)

I was also happy to see Callupsie win in the Local, Indie Produced Album for their recording debut:

No other established band in Tulsa is as hard-working as Callupsie. And their particular brand of indie jazz-punk is one of the most unique sounds to emerge from the city in quite some time. Produced by Stephen Egerton over just two sessions (the entire album took a total of several days to record), the debut is a ridiculously catchy collection of pop tunes (pop in the best sense) that is just waiting to be played on college stations across the country. To boot, they're four of the nicest musicians you'll ever meet. You all chose well on this one.

The ABoT issue includes some of the more interesting "fill-in-the-blank" responses to questions like, "If I were mayor," and "You are so Tulsa if you..."

My favorite: "If I were mayor... I'd build the Golden Driller a girlfriend." I know just the girl. She's somewhat older, but a lot better looking than the old roughneck. She's "The Goddess of Oil", a 1941 sculpture by Tulsa World staff artist Clarence Allen. The plan was to erect a 40-foot version of the sculpture at the next International Petroleum Exhibition, but the outbreak of World War II got in the way. The model was 19-year-old Marjorie Morrow. Although the full-sized version was never erected, the original sculpture stayed in Morrow's family, and her grandson, muralist William Franklin, hopes to see the original artistic vision realized. You can read all about it and donate to the project at goddessofoil.com.

In this week's UTW, I review the record of Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller and endorse Sally Bell as her replacement.

Since writing that piece, fired Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund has been pointing the finger at Miller regarding the decision to hold the Big Splash rent check.

According to the daily paper yesterday:

Rick Bjorklund, who was fired as president and CEO of Expo Square, said Thursday that he was instructed by County Commissioner Randi Miller to keep Big Splash Water Park's financial troubles "off the radar."

The fair board last week voted 4-0 to terminate Bjorklund after it was discovered that a check for half of the water park's 2006 rent had gone uncashed for a year and that it had yet to pay its 2007 rent. In addition, Big Splash's outstanding 2007 balance was never listed specifically on the financial reports presented to the fair board.

Bjorklund said Miller, who was fair board chairwoman in 2007, spoke to him about the Big Splash situation in about June of that year.

"The conversation (with Miller) was, 'Ease up on them and get it off the radar,'?" he said.

Bjorklund said he told fair board members about Miller's instructions during the executive session held to determine his fate.

"I turned to Randi and I said: 'You had given me instructions, Randi, to get it off the radar screen, and we did that.'?''

Miller denies Bjorklund's claim, but what he says makes sense. If Big Splash's financial troubles became public, it would show her to be inconsistent, making her look foolish or even evil for using Bell's business plan as a pretext for evicting them from the Fairgrounds. She had a vested interest in keeping Big Splash's financial problems "off the radar."

MORE: Responding to questions and comments from readers here and on the UTW story:

I was asked about my reference to "irregularities in [Miller's] personal life." In my column, I chose not to go into the specifics that the Tulsa World reported in a February 26, 2006, story headlined "Mayoral Mudfight," but you can read them at that link.

William Franklin posted a lengthy comment at UTW claiming that Bell's Amusement Park was in a state of terrible disrepair when it was evicted. His memory doesn't match with mine, and I think the Bell family did a fine job of keeping the park going when so many family-owned amusement parks in this region have closed, and despite the constraints of their location. They made do while continuing to be Expo Square's biggest rent-payer, and never asked for a taxpayer subsidy. (They were granted an extension in paying rent in the late '90s, but they made the payment with interest above prime rate.)

I took my kids to Bell's at least a couple of times each summer, and we steered them to spend their Tulsa State Fair ride tickets there, instead of on the midway. While the park was not up to Disney standards, it was at least as well-kept as Frontier City (which took my 10-year-old to in 2006), and I had no problem letting the kids on the rides or riding them myself.

Bell's had been making annual improvements to the property. The park introduced a new drop ride in (I think) 2005 and in 2006 had finally reached agreement with the neighborhood on adding a new roller coaster.

The possibility of a new coaster and a themed park first came up in 1998, not in the 1980s as Franklin asserts. Robby Bell and then Expo Square CEO Pat Lloyd made presentations to the Midtown Coalition of Neighborhood Associations that year about the future plans for the park and Expo Square as a whole.

The plan had Bell's expand all the way west to Louisville Ave., with parking for Bell's to the north, and a new main entrance on the north side of the park. The westernmost area was to be quieter uses (concession areas, souvenir stands, kiddie rides). We were shown sketches that had been done for Bell's by an amusement park consultant with a boomtown theme.

In December 2000, the Fair Board granted a lease for Bell's to expand to the west and add a roller coaster. The coaster's construction was held up by a lawsuit from the neighborhood challenging the County Board of Adjustment's decision to grant a special exception for the coaster.

It's true that the miniature golf course was no longer maintained. It was to be the site for the new coaster, once a compromise had been reached with the neighbors. There had been two courses when I was a kid. A single course was created out of the western part of both courses sometime in the late '80s or early '90s to make way for picnic pavilions for corporate events and group parties. I loved playing the course as a kid, but at some point, as mini-golf lost popularity in general (I can only think of one surviving course in Tulsa), I'm sure it became uneconomical to keep it open.

I suspect the reason Bell's didn't first think of building a coaster in that part of the property was because they intended to double the park's footprint and were granted a lease to build the coaster on land to the west, so there would have been no need to reuse existing park land.

The Fair Board could have solved the problem much sooner had it allowed Bell's to expand to the interior of Expo Square, rather than forcing any expansion to be toward the neighborhoods. Neighboring homeowner Scott Trizza proposed at the time that a new coaster could be placed north of the IPE Building, screened off by the building from the neighborhoods.

Attorney Frederic Dorwart sent an e-mail today to fellow downtown property owners defending the use of a downtown assessment district to fund a new downtown Driller stadium. (You may recognize Dorwart's name as he represented Tulsa Industrial Authority in its Great Plains Airlines-related lawsuit against the Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust. Dorwart is also the attorney for the Bank of Oklahoma.) I won't introduce him further because he does that himself in his opening paragraphs.

July 8, 2008
From: Fred Dorwart

As some of you know, I own Old City Hall located at 124 East Fourth Street. I have been providing legal services, without charge, to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor's Office to effect the exciting opportunity which the proposed Downtown Stadium and associated amenities in the Brady and Greenwood Districts presents.

Mr. Morlan's email contains five errors. I felt it important for you to know the facts when you decide whether the proposed Business Improvement District is in the best interests of all of us committed to a vibrant Downtown Tulsa. The five facts are as follows.

First, owners who have homestead exemptions will not be assessed. The Mayor and her advisors engaged in a careful weighing of the equities in establishing the manner in which the assessments would be levied. Many argued that to the contrary, but the Mayor determined it was important to all downtown property owners to encourage homestead ownership; consequently, the proposed Improvement District will not assess homestead owners. If you are a homestead owner and received a notice, the notice was in error. The adoption of the Improvement District includes a provision by which any erroneous notice may be corrected. Some confusion may exist because the existing Improvement District (which terminates June 30, 2009) does not exempt downtown residential property with a homestead exemption.

Second, property owners who are not homesteaders will pay only their proportionate share of the land square footage; the balance will be allocated to the homesteaders and exempt. For those property owners who are not homesteaders, the annual assessments Mr. Morlan states below would mean a studio unit has 1400+ square feet, a one bedroom unit 1,700+ square feet, a two bedroom 2,000+ square feet, and a townhouse 2,500+ square feet. I guess that's possible; you would know.

Third, only the downtown services assessment ($0.022 per square foot annually or only 34% of the total) will increase with inflation and that increase is capped at 4%. If services are to continue, the services should not be eroded by inflation. The assessments for the stadium and related facilities (66% of the assessment) will not increase with inflation. In fact, it is possible that the construction portion of the assessments may be paid off prior to the thirty year authorized period, depending upon how downtown Tulsa develops over the next several decades.

Fourth, the experience of many cities across the country demonstrates that an investment in downtown recreational facilities will dramatically increase your property values. The Downtown Stadium will be the third leg of Downtown success, leading the way with the BOK Center and the refurbished Convention Center.

Fifth, the construction of the Tulsa Downtown Stadium is authorized by Section 39-103 of Title 11 of the Oklahoma Statutes. The Business Improvement District has been carefully thought out. The Mayor has done a terrific job of balancing the equities to let Tulsa take this next big step forward. The Mayor and her advisors have spent substantial amount of time visiting with downtown property owners impacted with the new assessment and at this time the Mayor has support from over 50% of the downtown property owners on the proposed assessment.

Each of us must decide. Please decide based on the facts. Personally, I strongly support this initiative.

As I wrote in Urban Tulsa last week, I like the idea of the Drillers downtown, and the proposed location is an excellent choice. It helps connect activity centers downtown that are currently detached from one another. I like the idea of financing it using an assessment on direct beneficiaries rather than a tax on the general populace. I just wonder about the equity of the assessment on very distant property owners.

Just now getting around to linking this one: Last week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly was a summary of the first meeting of the PLANiTULSA Advisers and Partners, which featured presentations by lead planner John Fregonese and two members of his team, Robin Rather and Jon Roberts. (Here is a 4 MB PDF of the Fregonese and Roberts presentations.) PLANiTULSA is the City of Tulsa's first comprehensive planning effort in a generation.

In the column, I analyzed the composition of the 35-member Advisers group -- the inner circle of citizens who have been appointed by Mayor Kathy Taylor to oversee the work of the planners. Of that number, I identified 20 as registered Democrats, 10 as registered Republicans, and of the Republicans, they were all either connected with the development industry (6), leaders in TYPROS (2), or in academia (2). Of the 66 Partners (the "hoi polloi"), 22 are Republicans and 41 are Democrats. There are a few rabble-rousers amongst the Partners, but there is still a bias toward developers, the Mayor's political allies, and the non-profit sector.

Here is a map showing the residential locations of the Advisers (red "A") and Partners (blue dot) (click to enlarge):

You'll notice that most of the red As (Advisers) and blue dots (Partners) fall along the Money Belt line. If you were to overlay the map on a map showing results from the 1997 Tulsa Project or 2000 "It's Tulsa's Time," you'd see that nearly all of the dots and As fall into the precincts that voted yes on both. This is the part of town that feels plugged in, that feels its voice is heard, that feels it runs city government. I'm concerned that the marginalized areas of our city aren't represented in any significant numbers on these oversight committees.

MORE: Here's the article by Brian Ervin which I mentioned in the story. And mark your calendars for July 15: TulsaNow is hosting a forum at which John Fregonese and members of his team will be explaining how the comprehensive plan process works and presenting the results of their research to date.