I didn't read the Staff report but they did really write that this lot is not suitable for development?
I didn't read the Staff report but they did really write that this lot is not suitable for development?
WTF is up with city staff? Are their jobs threatened if they make sensible recommendations? Any qualified planning person would recognize the growth of Midtown and the importance of that intersection. Is there some Attila the Hun type running around over there scaring the daylights out of people? If this is approved there is something cancerous happening with our city staff.
The rights of property owners don't matter much on this forum, huh?
City staff don't have control over policy. They can recommend changes, but it's up to City Council to adopt policy. Parking lots are permitted by right in downtown. Therefore, if so many of you are so passionate about not having them, go lobby City Council to remove the by right permission and make them conditional, special permit, etc.
This was approved under the perspective that the vacant building at 6th/Hudson has been impossible to rent because of the parking problem that it has. The argument was made that the surface lot can be converted as market conditions allow. Marva Ellard got up and spoke against it.
What a waste of space. How soon can we expect the vacant building to be rented? Did they not see the 100 parking spaces across the street?
LOL, look at the first sentence of the description on this webpage: http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/16229...ahoma-City-OK/
That could actually be a livable building if they removed that arrow feature on the roof and used the horizontal awnings shown on the Guyutes proposal.
JTF: sorry for the late response... busy day. I am not the person who wants to build the parking lot nor do I support a parking lot at this location. I am a strong supporter of the rights of property owners, and I feel that a lot of posters on this board express a general lack of empathy. The property owner is locating a business to downtown from the suburbs and occupying a building that has been vacant for years. If he has to build a surface parking lot to support this move, so be it.
No worries - it got approved so on to the next battle. Do you know what business is moving and which building they will be occupying? As for the property rights angle, this country has never had the kind of property rights many people think it had. When the first town was founded in America they had restriction on building placement and land use and it has been that way every since. Personally, I think we have gone to far in catering to the automobile and the resulting land-use patterns from doing so have hurt us in every conceivable way - from excessive taxation to build and maintain urban sprawl, to obesity, to drug use, to crime, to wars in the Middle East, to texting while driving (and the list goes on and on).
I think it is probably a stretch to say that suburban drug abuse is necessarily more prevalent than urban, but it is undoubtedly different and likely contributed to by the suburban lifestyle. The school of thought is that living in the suburbs makes you more disconnected from others, bored, depressed, inactive. Kids specifically don't have as much supervision or adult interaction and have too much time on their hands...there was a book written about this in 2000 called Bowling Alone - The Collapse and Revival of American Community. You can find a number of studies publicized online that seem to support those theories.
I have no doubt whatsoever about the other items JTF lists. You can make a strong argument for every one.
That is it Urbanized and thanks for the book link as well. I have not read that and based drug use on my own personal experience growing up in suburbia. Most people I grew up with that used drugs did so out of pure bordem. Fortunately I started working at a very young age (8 years old) so I had places to go and people to see that kept me active.
This company: http://www.estinc.net/
This building at 6th & Hudson: http://www.oklahomacounty.org/assess...19368001rA.jpg
The development standards of this city are so shockingly low it's ridiculous.
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