Midtown Under Attack!

Everybody who has been through Midtown Tulsa lately has seen it…home teardowns, a proliferation of empty high dollar lots, two and sometimes three oversized McMansions or Snout Houses1 going up where once there had been one modest or even upscale home, and houses that simply don’t fit the existing neighborhood. On rare occasion, the home being torn down is dilapidated beyond reasonable rehabilitation, but in most cases the home being demolished is perfectly good older, and sometimes historic, housing stock.

This accelerating remaking of parts of Midtown Tulsa(generally thought to include the area between East 11th Street, East 51st Street, Riverside, and Yale) is attributable to a number of factors that include: (1) rising land values in the midtown area; (2) the City has reached its city limits in the more desirable areas for residential development, and must look to infill redevelopment for new housing construction; (3) well-to-do individuals who are tired of the long commute from their big South Tulsa homes and who want to recreate their suburban, automobile-centered home in the heart of the City; and (4) aggressive marketing by real estate speculators and builders to create a market for oversized, high dollar houses in midtown.

What’s Wrong With the Current Trend in New Residential Infill Development?

So, if there are buyers for these new and bigger homes on smaller lots, what’s wrong with this trend? Isn’t this just the free market at work? Many Tulsa residents say there is plenty wrong with it and the National Trust for Historic Preservation agrees with them. Indeed, in 2002, the National Trust designated “Teardowns in Historic Neighborhoods” to its list of 11 Most Endangered Places.

What are the costs of this unrestrained glut of oversized McMansions in Midtown Tulsa? Here are a few:

The fabric, character, and beauty of one of Tulsa’s greatest resources — midtown neighborhoods — are being eroded like a rapidly spreading cancer.

Some – but sadly, not all — of the oversized McMansions being built in Midtown neighborhoods may be otherwise beautiful homes in a more open setting. But crammed onto lots that are far too small to accommodate their bulk, they become unsightly and overwhelming. A good example of this phenomenon is on East 26th Street from Yorktown to Zunis.

The teardown/McMansion craze is destroying cultural and social diversity in Midtown by demolishing affordable middle class and even upper middle class homes in favor of McMansions that only the rich and near rich can afford. Take a drive through the area between East 22nd and 26th Streets and Lewis and Harvard Avenues.

The building of enormous homes on small lots cuts off air circulation and light to their more diminutive neighbors, destroys trees in the urban forest, and creates storm water run-off problems for neighboring homes.

The City loses historic housing stock that is a fundamental part of Tulsa’s history and development. Once gone….it is gone forever.

The oversized homes being built consume excessive amounts of dwindling natural resources to heat, cool, and light them, Teardowns put toxic materials like asbestos, chlordane, and lead paint into the urban air, soil, and sewer system. Teardowns and McMansions are definitely not “green.”

Those who argue that the current trend of residential infill redevelopment increases urban density and supports a more walkable, livable urban environment are ignoring the reality of the redevelopment taking place and oversimplifying what is needed to create their vision of the 21st century urban center. Replacing a more modest home with an oversized home does nothing to increase urban density, promote less use of the automobile, or add to urban livability. Houses that are built to accommodate 3 or 4 motor vehicles are merely adding to the glut of urban automobiles.

It takes infrastructure to create the 21st century walkable city, and this includes improved public transportation and the development of nearby town centers like Brookside and Cherry Street where an array of services and goods are available within walking or biking distance of neighborhoods (Form-based Codes, anyone?).

Likewise, those who assert that private property rights trump everything else still have one foot in the nineteenth century. The concept of land use zoning is itself recognition that the regulation of urban land use is necessary for orderly development. The time has come for neighborhoods to be an integral part of the land use planning that charts their own destiny – a process from which they have too long been excluded in favor of developer interests.

How Developers Are Able to Manipulate the Zoning Rules

How has this attack on the integrity and beauty of Midtown Tulsa been possible? There are essentially three strategies employed by land speculators and builders.

1. The Simple Teardown. This method is straightforward. A developer acquires a lot, obtains a demolition permit from the City (available simply for the asking without any meaningful review criteria), tears down the existing home and typically replaces it with a much larger home that is out of scale and character with the neighborhood. A variation on this process is for a land speculator to acquire the property, tear down the home, and “flip” the property to a South Tulsa builder who then constructs a South Tulsa suburban giganta-house.

2. The Teardown and Lot Split. Developers particularly look for properties where the existing zoning classification will permit the lot to be split as a matter of right. For example, a 150-foot wide lot in an RS-2 zoning district can be split into two lots, because RS-2 lots need only be 75 feet wide. Such lot splits can be obtained without any notice to the neighborhood, without any opportunity for a hearing before the Planning Commission, and without any review criteria that would consider harm to the neighborhood. The developer will then demolish the existing home and replace it with two much larger homes. These larger homes are crowded onto the split lots such that their mass and scale is completely out of character with the surrounding neighborhood.

3. The Teardown and Non-Conforming Lots. This method for cramming ever larger homes onto ever smaller lots is the unintended consequence of a zoning ordinance (Section 1404 of the Tulsa Zoning Code) that was designed to protect homeowners from being harmed by zoning rules passed after their homes were built. It is essentially a “grandfather” provision for those whose homes were built before the current zoning designations were put in place. For example, in an area that was originally platted with 50-foot lots before a Zoning Code existed, but which is now zoned RS-2 (requiring 75-foot lots), a homeowner who had built on a 50-foot lot would ordinarily be required to obtain a zoning variance to rebuild if his home were destroyed by fire. The zoning ordinance in question permits the homeowner to rebuild without a variance, even though his lot is now non-conforming under the present day zoning classification.

As a matter of history, however, many homeowners who built homes in some areas of Midtown before a Zoning Code was adopted in Tulsa often built them on 2 or 3 lots, so that properties that were platted as 50-foot lots were actually developed as 100 to 150 foot lots. An example of an area that developed in this fashion is the neighborhood lying between East 22nd and East 26th Streets and Yorktown and Lewis Avenues, immediately to the east of Cascia Hall School and Temple Israel.

Developers have discovered that the zoning ordinance in question provides a “loophole” in the law that permits them to tear down a home and then rebuild on the originally platted, but now non-conforming lots. The result of this practice is to jam enormous homes onto lots that were never designed to accommodate homes of such mass and bulk.

One of the most illustrative examples of this loophole at work may be seen at the northeast corner of East 24th Street and Yorktown Avenue. At this location, there had been a perfectly good older home built on three originally platted lots measuring 50, 50, and 41 feet respectively. Subsequent to the construction of the home, the area was zoned RS-2. A developer bought the property, tore down the home, and is now boasting that the property will be the site of three new residences, even though only one residence would be permitted under the current zoning classification. Other examples include East 30th Street and Utica and East 26th Place and Terwilleger.

Ultimately, land speculators and developers have been able to pretty much do as they please with infill development because the rules were originally developed by the good ol’ boys for the good ol’ boys. The Infill Development Task Force convened several years ago to study issues of infill development, for example, was dominated by developer interests and their lawyers. Moreover, there has been a virtual vacuum in leadership on this issue at City Hall. This lack of leadership will only change when neighborhood interests rise up and demand action from their government.

What Can Be Done to Fix the Problems Created by Unregulated and Unrestrained Teardowns, Lot Splits, and Infill Development?

The problems of McMansionism are not unique to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Indeed, cities and communities from coast to coast have already been wrestling with these issues for more than a decade. From large cities like Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta to mid-sized cities like Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, and Oklahoma City, city governments have installed a variety of strategies to preserve older neighborhoods and combat the ills of the teardown/McMansion craze. These include the creation of neighborhood conservation districts and the development of neighborhood stabilization plans. The approach that is right for Tulsa will ultimately be the product of discussion among city leaders, neighborhood interests, and builders, but any such approach must provide neighborhoods with tools for preservation. The problem is that city leaders have not even convened this discussion.

The Historic Preservation Zoning Overlay presently available in Tulsa is cumbersome, weak, and not suited for every neighborhood. There are many older midtown neighborhoods that would not be considered “historic,” but should nonetheless be preserved as a part of the mosaic that gives Midtown Tulsa its beauty, charm, and diversity.

Here is a proposal for bringing equity to infill development:

1. Close the loophole in Section 1404 of the Tulsa Zoning Code that allows developers to build on multiple non-conforming lots after they’ve torn down the existing home. This provision should be reserved for those who want to rebuild on a non-conforming lot when their home has been substantially destroyed by fire or natural disaster.

2. Subject residential lot splits to meaningful review by the Planning Commission, including a consideration of harm to the neighborhood. Lot splits can presently be obtained administratively without any notice to the surrounding landowners and without any public hearing to review whether or not the lot split will be detrimental to the neighborhood.

3. Enact the enabling legislation for the creation of Conservation Districts and/or Neighborhood Stabilization Plans. For a variety of reasons, many neighborhoods worthy of preservation may not meet the criteria for Historic Preservation zoning. Conservation Districts and Neighborhood Stabilization Plans are related methods for achieving such preservation. Conservation Districts are generally designed for the preservation of existing dwellings and design. Neighborhood Stabilization Plans typically focus on mass and scale rather than design. The Dallas Neighborhood Stabilization Overlay ordinance, for example, permits individual neighborhoods to select from a “menu” of criteria such as dwelling height, setbacks, lot coverage, garage location and orientation, and percentage of the front yard that may be paved. With either a Conservation District or a Neighborhood Stabilization Plan, a majority of the neighborhood would have to seek approval through the existing planning and zoning process, which involves review by the Planning Commission and approval by the City Council.

4. Impose a temporary moratorium on residential lot splits and teardowns in Council Districts 4 and 9 until the enabling legislation for Conservation Districts and/or Neighborhood Stabilization Plans is enacted. These Council Districts are singled out because they contain the neighborhoods that are most at risk for teardowns, lot splits, and residential building that doesn’t fit the neighborhood. A review process can be included to permit teardowns during the moratorium if the structure is dilapidated or blighted. Other cities and towns have used this approach, including the City of Nichols Hills in Oklahoma City.

To be sure, there are larger issues to be considered in the long run, such as the possible adoption of form-based codes or the creation of a Tulsa City Planning Commission staffed by City employees. And, of course, the updating of the City’s Comprehensive Plan is already underway. But, neighborhoods – particularly Midtown neighborhoods – need relief now! If relief from the lot split/McMansion trend is put off much longer, it will be too late. These four strategies will provide that relief before it’s too late.

What Can I Do Now to Help Preserve Midtown?

You are not alone in your desire to preserve Midtown neighborhoods from the teardown/McMansion craze. Thousands of Tulsans living both in and out of midtown want a voice in the future of their neighborhoods. Right now, the focus is on Midtown Tulsa because it is presently at the greatest risk for teardowns and lot splits. Preserve Midtown is a group that has formed to give you that voice. Preserve Midtown was born in the crucible of a legal battle between the residents of East 38th Street just to the west of Lewis and a land speculator and builder who has torn down two homes on the street and obtained a lot split on one of the lots. The battle on East 38th Street is a microcosm of the war now raging throughout many Midtown neighborhoods.

Neither Preserve Midtown nor anyone else who believes that neighborhoods should have a voice in their future is opposed to appropriate infill development. Preserve Midtown, however, believes and proclaims that developers should “build homes that fit the neighborhood.” If you believe as we do, then join with us to carry that message to City Hall. We need your knowledge, your efforts, your numbers, and your contributions to be successful in this endeavor. Put a Preserve Midtown sign in your yard to publicly show your support for its goals. Sign the online petition for a temporary moratorium on residential lots splits and teardowns. Please visit www.preservemidtown.com for more information.