Sunday Flashback: The Garner Stoll Legacy
Garner Stoll, 2000, NW 23 streetscape.
It’s difficult to believe it’s been a decade since Garner Stoll was literally forced out of Oklahoma City after a revolutionary stint as planning director. So, what did Garner do that was so wrong? His “crimes” – the ones I observed as City Hall reporter – included drafdting plans for revival of the Asian District, Paseo, MidTown and Automobile Alley (the evidence of those plans’ success can be seen today). He’s also “guilty” of introducing “streetscapes.” And he suggested that the city combat the problem of sign clutter and he dared to suggest this city’s sprawl was dangerous to it’s health.
What a horrible, horrible man. A decade later the council members who wanted Stoll removed are gone and forgotten. But his work lives on.
Leader’s exit leaves questions over plans
By Jack Money, Steve Lackmeyer
Staff Writers
Monday, July 10, 2000
For years, municipal planning in Oklahoma City was about where to build apartments, shopping centers and housing additions. Nothing too radical, nothing exciting.
But that traditional definition has changed, thanks to a relatively young planning department created in 1993.
Planning is now about creating tree- and flower-lined medians along major inner-city corridors like NW 23. It’s also about requiring sidewalks in all new neighborhoods, and the creation of an ambitious 200-mile urban trail system where residents can stroll, bike or skate throughout the city.
In their ninth-floor offices of the city’s Main Place Building, planners have spurred the creation of new jobs for people living in the poorest neighborhoods. New partnerships with other agencies are being credited with launching housing and commercial development in the inner city.
Ultimately, it’s about making life more pleasant for the nearly half-million people who live in Oklahoma City. And this new planning philosophy also is credited with involving the public in policy decisions about what kind of community Oklahoma City is and will be 20 years from now.
Former City Manager Don Bown, who created the department in 1993, is proud of its accomplishments.
“People at the local level usually only get active when their ox is being gored,” Bown said, citing as an example a city decision in 1994 to require rural residents to use city-provided trash service.
“You only typically see people when something is going on that is really big-time controversial.”
Bown said he liked the planning department’s efforts to involve the public in municipal issues because it educated people. Indeed, repeated efforts to involve those city residents have won the department rave reviews.
Still, despite all of its accomplishments, the planning staff is anxious these days. It faces an uncertain future after Garner Stoll’s departure as planning director. Opposition from developers, real estate agents and home builders stalled an effort to draft a new master plan. That left City Manager Glen Deck to conclude that Stoll lacked the political finesse to get things done.
Stoll is moving to Parker, Colo., a town aggressively fighting its own development explosion.
And though Deck intends to launch a national search for a new planning director, city planners are privately worrying whether they’ll continue to enjoy the autonomy that fostered so many of their accomplishments.
Efforts to involve the public in Oklahoma City’s future started in late 1993, in a competition for a $100 million federal Empowerment Zone grant. The grant required residents of the proposed zone to help make plans to spend the money.
Oklahoma City’s grant proposal, with others submitted by every major metropolitan area, were judged on their feasibility and on levels of public participation. Oklahoma City didn’t win the big prize, but it was designated an Enterprise Community and given $3 million to undertake improvements on a smaller scale.
Citizens were called back to draw up new plans that eventually included loans for new businesses, marketing programs for minority or disadvantaged entrepreneurs and a loan program for exterior business rehabilitations.
The meetings were not always easy. Some participants were distrustful. Others were angered that Oklahoma City’s crumbling school district was not addressed by the plan.
“The jury is still out on the trust issue, because there is still a lot of uncertainty out there,” said Theotis Payne, a participant in those meetings.
Payne, who owns a school in northeast Oklahoma City started with federal block grant money, said attitudes will be slow to change.
“The reality of it is that the city is still controlled by a bureaucracy,” Payne said. “But as long as small, minority-owned businesses have a place at the table, and have input, then I think the city is trying. And that, I believe, shows the city is making some progress.”
Other federal funds were sent to Oklahoma City because it won an Enterprise Community designation. But with the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing, the planning department’s priorities changed.
The National Endowment for the Arts and the Urban Land Institute both offered help in developing plans to rebuild bomb-damaged downtown. Design workshops followed, and again, Oklahoma City residents were asked for help.
That effort initially slowed the Planning Department’s plans to improve other inner-city areas, like the NW 23 Street corridor. Those projects were back on track, though, while a new division headed by an assistant planner got downtown property owners through the recovery process.
The Murrah recovery program processed 260 applications for assistance with bomb damage repairs. Of those, 169 were declared eligible for the grants. A new urban design committee modeled after one in Bricktown was created to make sure it conformed with the existing downtown area.
An example of the group’s work includes a new three-story building at NW 6 and Robinson Avenue, which replaced the bomb-damaged Kilpatrick Hotel. After urging by the design committee, owners agreed to build closer to the sidewalk and use a more elaborate brick facade.
In the midst of the bombing response, planners also were moving forward with a citizen-based discussion about trails in the city.
By 1997, the Oklahoma City Council endorsed a formal plan for the trail system that identified 100 miles of trails that could be built if money could be found. The plan also suggested about 90 additional miles of trails to expand the system.
Dick Coyle, a planning commissioner who was chairman of the committee that created the trails plan, said public participation has become part of every long-range plan the department has undertaken.
“It can be time-consuming, and sometimes, it can cause delays, but I think it is good to have public involvement in these types of issues,” Coyle said. Coyle has sat through hundreds of meetings since 1993, many about the trails.
Public meetings on a recently adopted Asian District, the NW 23 Street corridor, Capitol Hill and Stockyards, Midtown and others keep city planners busy.
“I think public involvement is helpful, because if you don’t have the support of those directly involved in those programs, then you don’t have a ball game,” Coyle said.
And throughout it all, Oklahoma City’s Planning Department bolstered the numbers of protected inner-city housing areas, nearly doubling the neighborhoods with Historic Preservation or Conservation District status.
“They really created an emphasis on the inner city,” said Nedra Jones, an area real estate broker. Jones, a Paseo resident since 1990, said planners were always willing to help Paseo find money for housing improvements, home buyer assistance programs and other improvements.
“And planning picked the sorriest area in Oklahoma City to do.”
Jones said Paseo had a 57 percent vacancy rate and the homes sold for an average of $4.11 a square foot before planners started working with residents. Today, vacancy rates are less than 5 percent, and homes are selling for between $50 and $65 a square foot.
Jones said she and other inner-city residents have enjoyed the support of the city’s planning department and wonder what will happen now.
“We are concerned we will get dismissed somewhat… and will have to fight harder to continue to bring the area back.”
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Thank you so much for remembering one of the most signifigant people to come through Oklahoma City and leave a legacy of his vision and foresight. I always found him to be far more willing to see past the nay sayers of saying that “we’ve never done it that way” and to see the possiblities of bring groups and interests together and going forward.
Again, thanks for your comments and being a reliable source of local information.
Kathi