Homeowners in midtown unite to seek a temporary moratorium on lot splits and teardowns.

The homeowners behind Preserve Midtown aren't looking to pick a fight, but they'd love to start a conversation.

The topic: infill.

"We just really want to get a collective voice to help the city in any way that we can to come up with a compromise and a solution," said Melissa Waller, one of the organizers of the group.

She and two of her neighbors in the Lewis Roads Estates section of Brookside, Barbara VanHanken and Patty Southmayd, formed the group two months ago.

Since then, they've been joined by another Tulsan who is concerned about the issue, Sue McKee, president of the Coalition of Historic Neighborhoods.

Their goal is a temporary moratorium on residential lot splits and teardowns in City Council Districts 4 and 9.

The group wants the moratorium in place until a neighborhood stabilization plan and/or a neighborhood conservation district ordinance can be enacted.

"As resident property owners, we don't have any rights, so we said, 'You know, we're going to put this organization together to give resident property owners some rights,' " Southmayd said.

Infill has been a subject of debate in Tulsa for years.

The word describes structures that are built to fill in a piece of property that has been cleared for redevelopment.

For Waller, Southmayd and VanHanken, the issue came to life last year when a builder tore down a single house in their neighborhood and applied to build two homes on the property.

They went before the Planning Commission to challenge the proposed construction and lost, but they found a cause.

"Most of us didn't know what our zoning is now, and (even) knowing it didn't know what it meant," VanHanken said.

They know now. One source of the infill controversy, they say, is the zoning code.

"The 1970 zoning code was overlaid on the city and didn't fit some neighborhoods," Southmayd said.

The women stress that they are not opposed to infill construction; they simply want it done in a manner that is in keeping with each neighborhood's character.

They are not out to tell anyone what style of house he or she can build, they said.

"It's about how big is the house on the lot," VanHanken said. "Are there setbacks? How tall is the house?"

Brian Hunt, vice president of CB Richard Ellis/Oklahoma, a commercial real estate company, called the group's request for a moratorium a "knee-jerk" reaction.

Hunt served on a task force involved in revamping the city's comprehensive plan.

With little new land available for development within the city, infill projects provide a much-needed source of sales-tax revenue, he said.

"I think it (a moratorium) would have unintended consequences," Hunt said.

Planning Commission Chairman Chip Ard said the first real chance to address the issue likely won't come until the city adopts a new comprehensive plan and a new zoning code to go with it.

The city's existing code is use-based, he said, but the trend nationally is toward form-based zoning.

It's an idea he'd like to see the city explore.

"We need alternative ways to use property so you can combine uses to create something functional" and in keeping with the neighborhood, he said.

Web site: Preserve Midtown:
www.tulsaworld.com/preserve

Kevin Canfield 581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com