Your friends at Smart Growth Tulsa enter 2018 with renewed enthusiasm after experiencing some disappointing results from 2017’s fundraising efforts. There really is no way to sugar-coat it. Our hopes of generating sufficient revenue to fund a full-time executive director and administrative assistant have simply not yet materialized. After unsuccessfully appealing to several major local…
DetailsWhile some property owners predictably resist what they consider to be cumbersome and sometimes expensive regulations, they are arguably the ones who have the most to gain by them. It is a mistake by those who dismiss design standards as nothing more than unnecessary aesthetics serving as barriers to doing business.
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It’s not difficult to speculate on what’s behind the February 21st, 2017 Special City Council Meeting to consider a mayoral sponsored resolution regarding the future of a portion of Helmerich Park. Quite simply, it is damage control, and an
DetailsFor the second year in a row, Smart Growth Tulsa Trustees and Advisory Board Members assembled for an all-day planning retreat at the picturesque Lake Keystone home of Jamie Jamieson and Kathy Henry on December 3rd, 2016. We celebrated a
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Our new Zoning Code was adopted in January of 2016 after more than two years of collaborative effort. It is vastly improved in content and format over the 46-year old
DetailsPlease join us in welcoming the latest additions to our Advisory Board. The role of the SGT Advisory Board is simple, to give advice to the Board of Trustees. We are proud that these community leaders have
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G.T. Bynum is young, energetic, enthusiastic and is the only candidate calling on Tulsans to raise the bar for their expectations of a brighter future for our city. Dewey Bartlett appears old and tired; his enthusiasm is
DetailsWe’ve determined that the Tulsa mayoral election of 2016 is crucially important and made a collective decision to support Councilor G.T. Bynum. Our recommendation is based upon a clear, principle-based approach after a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the two leading candidates as we perceive them.
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This election is about far more than streets and public safety, so often the focus of campaign rhetoric. If Tulsa is to be competitive with our peers, the next mayor will need to deal effectively with a wide range of looming societal, technological, environmental, economic and political change. If you invest the time to read the questions and answers, we are confident you will gain valuable insight into the thought processes and energy levels of the two candidates. In some instances, the contrast is quite clear.
DetailsGet ready to speak up! After the Vision Tulsa election on April 5th, Tulsans can turn their attention to a matter of crucial importance to sustaining and improving the quality of life in the Arkansas River corridor. For well over a year, a group has worked to establish design standards and guidelines for new developments in what, if approved, will be the first Special Area Overlay District incorporated into the city’s new updated zoning code.
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I have a lot of confidence in the ability of voters to decipher the issues and support the community’s needs when they are presented logically, honestly and rationally. They almost always do. And when packages are not well conceived, are poorly timed, or lack sufficient public input, they almost always fail.
DetailsThe design changes are also consistent with Complete Streets, a policy that requires newly funded road improvement projects to provide for and accommodate all modes of travel, including not just autos, but pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users.
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Citizens seem to understand that solving the structural problems of financing city operations is needed and they are willing to use Vision 2025 to address them, even supporting a .4% tax increase to free up money for other worthy vision capital projects and programs.
DetailsOne of the more impactful things that is happening nationwide is that some of the historically worst offenders in terms of auto-dependent sprawl are now conforming to appropriate urban design standards and are massively profiting from it.
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There are many reasons why we as a nation changed our development pattern after WWII, but the point is that we are three generations into this experiment now and we have learned several hard lessons about how we can be building in more productive ways.
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