Proposed Strategies

Several over arching, big-picture changes need to occur as Tulsa transforms this vision into reality:

1. Remove Barriers to Desired Actions: Tulsa’s land-use program and enforcement regulations must be driven by the goals they are meant to achieve. Owners, for example, must be able to determine easily and efficiently how property can be developed. Variances should be granted rarely if allowed uses are clear and support a community vision. When something supports the vision—such as filling a key niche along a main street or reusing a vacant building—it should be encouraged.

2. Coordinate Public Investments: Infrastructure investments, particularly in roads, mass transit, water, and sewer systems, have a tremendous impact on how land is developed. The city will need to realign its public investments in infrastructure, planning, and other basic functions of government with the strategies outlined in the comprehensive plan. This means ensuring that underdeveloped land within the city is served by the infrastructure it will need to accommodate new businesses or homes. New infrastructure for communities on undeveloped land should be extended in a coordinated way—avoiding costly, ineffective and unattractive “leapfrog” development.

3. Create New Strategic Partnerships: Finally, the city will need to think differently—and creatively—about new strategic partnerships and initiatives with key stakeholders. Among the primary stakeholder groups are educational institutions, including public school districts, universities and colleges, and other public and private schools. This initiative could include collaborating to develop college/university campuses supported by vibrant mixed-use areas, and working with primary and secondary schools to ensure students can safely walk or bike to school. The city also can continue to partner with Tulsa’s major foundations
   and philanthropic organizations as well as the chambers of commerce to support projects and investments to diversify the city’s housing choices, expand the employment base and cultural offerings, and accelerate the pace of neighborhood redevelopment.

Plan for Action

Each of these initiatives represents a change in the way the city does business. The planning process will not end with the vision document, but instead must be fortified with key objectives and implementation steps. Long-range plans take time to implement, but they will languish if substantive progress does not occur soon after adoption. Plans at the city- and neighborhood-levels should be aligned with a capital improvement timetable, and where possible, innovative projects should be used to jump-start community momentum.

Tulsa has the opportunity to use the PLANiTULSA process to reframe the way it plans, invests and collaborates with key stakeholders and communities to achieve on the ground results. This means setting high-impact, achievable goals, both for city departments and the community. For example, the city should ensure that land development approvals can be more swiftly and easily completed in Tulsa than in competing communities—then implement a process to make it possible. Through defining such performance measures, the city will find ways to reshape itself to deliver on PLANiTULSA’s greater objectives. The residents of Tulsa have shown we believe our community can be a better place. Now we look to our public and private leaders to lead the way.

Proposed Strategies

Specific implementation strategies to reshape fundamental aspects of Tulsa’s approach to land use, transportation, and economic development will build and sustain the vision.

Step 1: Revise the Zoning Code

Realigning the city’s zoning code with the new comprehensive plan is a critically important step. A zoning code is the enforceable policy behind the plan’s recommendations and guidelines. For every new development, the zoning code addresses the most pertinent details, from required parking to building height. Most zoning codes, like Tulsa’s, are designed to protect people and to prevent harm. While this is important, it is just half of the whole picture. A complete zoning code protects from harm and helps a developer understand community priorities for a particular location and how to build successfully there.

Tulsa’s zoning code should:

• Be Easy to Use
• Allow More Diverse Building Types
• Enable Innovative Parking Solutions
• Align Development Incentives with Goals

Step 2: Create a Redevelopment Strategy

Tulsa has the opportunity to forge a redevelopment
future revolving around its downtown, urban corridors, defunct industrial sites, new town centers and currently struggling urban neighborhoods. Redevelopment should broaden the range of housing options, create new spaces for different types of employers, and make efficient use of existing infrastructure. Collaborative partnerships between the public and private sectors will ensure that vital areas of the city become more sustainable and socially and aesthetically vibrant. 

Build on Existing Assets

Tulsa has experienced a range of successful projects in the central city that lend support for more ambitious efforts. Recent examples include the BOK Center, Drillers’ Stadium, the adaptive re-use of several historic buildings that have reinforced the promise of urban living (e.g., the Mayo Building, Mayo Hotel and Lofts, Philtower, and the Tribune Lofts).

Tulsa has an abundance of land in and near downtown that is currently under used and a number of vacant buildings. These structures can all be reused in new ways to help rebuild downtown’s role as the regional center. Tulsa is also well-positioned to learn from the experiences of other cities about what kinds of redevelopment efforts succeed, which ones fall short of expectations, and why. With many examples from which to draw, Tulsa can make more informed choices and avoid common pitfalls.

Tulsa has established local philanthropic foundations such as the Tulsa Community Foundation, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation, and the Zink Foundation, with the commitments and resources necessary to help build a better city.

People do not drive or take transit just for the sake of traveling, but rather to go places and do things. Allowing more types of land uses—retail, offices, and housing—along one corridor that is served by transit can greatly reduce the distance between those destinations. This reduces the length of trips they must take, and makes walking, biking, and transit more viable alternatives.

Step 3. Develop a New Transportation Strategy

To meet the vision formed through the PLANiTULSA process, a high level of coordination must be established between the city and other key agencies, notably the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG), Tulsa Transit, the Tulsa Parking Authority, and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. These agencies should have a comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted transportation and land-use challenges and a consensus approach for solving them.

The following programs, strategies and policies would address these common issues:

• Create Livable Networks
• Improve Transportation Modeling Techniques
• Manage Transportation Assets
• Use Context Sensitive Solutions
• Modernize Transportation Funding

People do not drive or take transit just for the sake of traveling, but rather to go places and do things. Allowing more types of land uses - retail, offices, and housing - along one corridor that is served by transit can greatly reduce the distance between those destinations. This reduces the length of trips they must take, and makes walking, biking, and transit more viable alternatives.

Step 4: Conduct Neighborhood and Small Area Planning in Key Areas

Tulsa already has a strong tradition of neighborhood-level planning. Small area or neighborhood plans can serve a range of places, from single corridors to districts of thousands of homes and businesses. The City of Tulsa Planning Department should lead the neighborhood planning process in key areas where redevelopment will help move the city toward the vision.

Because so much of Tulsa’s future development will take shape as redevelopment and reinvestment, working with existing residents and stakeholders will be an important part of achieving the vision. The neighborhood planning function should continue its use of citizen engagement, visioning, and design and enhance it with additional techniques developed during the PLANiTULSA process. Neighborhood plans should include an implementation and funding plans consistent with PLANiTULSA, and be supported by a cross-departmental team to move them forward.

Step 5:  Develop key PLANiTULSA prototypes as demonstration projects

The PLANiTULSA team developed several innovative mixed-use building models that illustrated—both physically and financially—how infill development could take place in the city. They represent the kinds of new development Tulsans supported during the public input process, and will help guide development of the city’s new zoning code.

The city should form a strategic partnership with the development community and area foundations to locate and build several of these models as actual projects. The designs and locations should be carefully chosen to ensure success and build momentum for further development. The city should use the experience to establish a standard easy-to-implement development process that will enable similar projects to be built by the private sector without city or foundation involvement.

Step 6:  Organize Planning and Development Functions for Implementation

Taking PLANiTULSA to BUILDiTULSA

Our Vision for Tulsa lays out an ambitious agenda for change that will require a high degree of coordination and skill to accomplish. The city will adopt the comprehensive plan, but most of the key projects will be built by the private sector. Therefore, it is crucial that the process of development is clear and easy to follow. Cities that have been successful implementing visionary plans have carefully coordinated their long-range and current planning, capital improvement, economic, and redevelopment programs to reinforce one another.

Organization matters, and currently Tulsa’s planning and development functions are spread between many agencies and departments. Development services and economic development functions reside in different departments. The city’s redevelopment activities and programs are carried out by the Tulsa Development Authority, and staffed by the City’s economic development and real estate management staffs. Neighborhood planning functions are a part of city government. While the city is leading PLANiTULSA, long range planning and zoning is staffed by INCOG under contract with the City, and the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) with both county and city appointees is the key planning advisory body and is responsible for both zoning and comprehensive planning.

For PLANiTULSA to be successful it is critical that the city coordinate development-related activities so they work together to effectively address changes desired by Tulsans. Tulsa should enhance staff capacity and technical skills and consider organizational changes that will allow the city to lead in local land use decision making. These changes could include more direct coordination of zoning administration, permitting, long range, and community planning between the City of Tulsa, INCOG and the TMAPC. These changes could also include consideration of the consolidation of some or all small area planning, long range planning, capital planning, economic development, community development, zoning administration and development permitting functions into a Community Development Department within the City of Tulsa. It is also important that the city continue to support regional transportation and land use planning, economic development and growth policy initiatives as well.  The city should establish measurable goals based on the PLANiTULSA strategic plan, make sure the departments and agencies have adequate resources to accomplish them, and hold them accountable for performance.

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