Truckin'

As the deadline nears for local residents to review four potential development scenarios and vote for their favorites under the PLANiTULSA process, work soon will begin on a draft vision of the final plan that likely will be unveiled late this summer.

John Fregonese, president of Fregonese Associates--the Portland, Ore.-based urban and regional planning firm charged with coordinating the city's comprehensive plan update under the auspices of PLANiTULSA--said his firm has received roughly 2,000 online responses and 1,000 paper responses to the four potential development scenarios for the city's future it unveiled during a rally on May 12 at Cain's Ballroom.

The deadline for submitting responses is Thursday, June 18. Fregonese said last week his organization was making a coordinated, last-minute outreach effort to get input from as many groups as possible by circulating surveys at churches, rallies and meetings of various organizations. He said the firm was specifically targeting Tulsa's Hispanic community for more input.

In the end, Fregonese said, his firm expects to have 4,000 to 5,000 responses--a number that would be proportionate to what the firm's comprehensive plan update work in cities such as Austin, Portland and Salt Lake City has attracted.

"It's going pretty well," Fregonese said. "We're pushing to get as many votes as possible in the last couple of days."

Fregonese said once the voting comes to an end, his firm will take all the surveys that have been completed and use that input to put together a draft vision--"sort of a broad outline that kind of describes the Tulsa that people want and the different ways of getting there," he said.

Fregonese expects that document to be presented shortly after Labor Day. Another period of public comment will follow, he said. Eventually, the plan will be refined again before being sent to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission and the Tulsa City Council for action.

The survey spotlights four development scenarios titled "Trends Continue," "Main Streets," "New Centers" and "Centered City," each reflecting a distinctive vision of the city's future. Those scenarios were crafted after input was taken from a series of public workshops conducted by Fregonese Associates from September 2008 through February. Those responding to the survey are asked to express a preference under one of the four scenarios for questions that deal with such topics as population growth, housing, public transportation, and parks and open space.

The scenarios and survey can be found at www.planitulsa.org.

Fregonese said that in broad terms, the input that has been generated so far from the voting process indicates that

Tulsans are eager to see a variety of development types, particularly in places that have been overlooked in the past.

"I think people want to see a livelier city, one with a vibrant economy using Tulsa's strengths to give young people a reason to stay here," he said.

Fregonese described his firm's work to update the master plan as different from the last time that process was undertaken 30 years ago. When the plan was updated in the 1970s, city officials more or less approached it with the idea that growth was going to happen and it was their role to control it.

This time, Fregonese said, the goal is to determine what kind of growth occurs and where.

"People do want to change direction, and they want to make sure change happens," he said.

Fregonese said the PLANiTULSA process is still within its budget and largely on track to be finished by the end of the year, although he said that deadline could be pushed back a month or two.

"It's hard to predict the end of the process," he said.

Fregonese said the cooperation his firm has received from the community at large has been excellent, especially from local foundations and members of the development community.

"Sometimes, suspicions arise, but we haven't had any of that," he said.

In fact, Fregonese said the enthusiasm of the public at large in Tulsa has helped differentiate his firm's work here from its experience in other cities.

"We always have good workshops, but there seemed to be a pent-up demand to have this kind of discussion here," he said. "I had the feeling we were releasing a dam, so that's kind of unique. It gives me hope that a lot of things will change. I think there's an untapped reservoir here that can make these things happen."

Fregonese's firm is being paid $1.3 million for its work on PLANiTULSA. Funding for the project has come from the city of Tulsa, Tulsa County and private sources.