All right.

Welcome, welcome everyone.

We're live.

It is uh ten thirty.

Thank you, everyone.

Aaron is all loud.

No, we're we love the Aaron and Sure.

All right, welcome everyone.

Uh it is Wednesday, July twenty second, twenty twenty-six, ten thirty.

Welcome to the UED Urban and Economic Development Meeting.

My name's Anthony Archie.

I'm a Tulsa City Councilor from District Two.

Uh the first order of business, we call the meeting to order, and second, we want to welcome Hugh Lay to the table for a reappointment to the Asian Affairs Commission.

Term expires January first, twenty twenty-eight.

Attended nine of thirteen meetings.

So uh Hugh, welcome to the table.

Will you just share with us a little bit about who you are and why you'd like to continue to serve?

Yeah, so good morning, everybody.

Uh, my name is Hugh Lay.

I am I don't know how I would describe myself, but um put it in a simpler term is I'm just a friendly neighborhood helper where I would love to serve the community to the max extent that I can.

Um what I can share a little bit about myself is I am uh the founder of uh a nonprofit here in the city of Tulsa's called Empower Ed.

We support our young people in understanding the next steps at the high school, and we are the only nonprofit here in the country that opens a five twenty-nine savings account for each and every single one of the students that are enrolled in our program.

Yes.

Um if you wanted to like to learn more about that, I would love to have conversation one-on-one conversation with you.

In addition to that, um, I am also a realtor and investor in the city of Tulsa to help people go towards home ownership because home ownership is important specifically and especially to build generational wealth.

And why I would like to serve is I would like to continue to give back to my Asian American community to ensure that their voices are being heard.

Um I would leave I would like to leave it that it that as is.

Yeah, thank you for sure.

Counselor Gilbert.

Thank you so much for again stepping up and wanting to be stay on the Asian Affairs Commission.

I I truly appreciate that.

It's I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your uh busy day to to do that.

So I would love to hear more about your uh your pro your nonprofit that you have.

Um I too work with I did work with youth with Tulsa Public Schools at one time in my life.

So um always interested in learning what's going on uh with the kids these days and what we can do uh to work together to have a brighter future for all of them.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Wonderful.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right, cool.

Thank you for being here.

We are going to oh yes, that's it, yeah.

Oh, look it up, there we go.

Zoom it in air.

No, I have to the agenda.

Thank you.

Uh we're we will be voting on uh your appointment uh on the 29th of this month.

Oh you are free to to uh attend, and if you want to speak uh to the those in attendance, you can, but thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right, we are going on.

This is a be a tough one, guys.

This might be a tough.

I'm gonna have to recuse number three uh Christian Bangle, Counselor Bangle, the reappointment to the Tulsa Authority on Economic Opportunity.

Your term expires.

Uh June 30th, 2029.

You attended nine of 14 meetings.

Uh Council District 6.

Welcome to the table, sir.

Yeah, did you just talk about Hughes attendance?

I think I did, right?

All right.

I just want to make sure that by the way.

I want to make sure I got treated equally.

I'm just kidding.

Honestly.

So, yeah, I appreciate uh the consideration potentially to be reappointed to this.

Um, thank the mayor and uh for being willing to um reappoint me to this, and hopefully can with your confirmation, I'll continue to serve on this.

I'm excited about um where we are on a trajectory as a city, some of the things that are happening downtown, especially as we talk about the hotel motel tax, uh convention center hotel, you know, the potential of a soccer stadium and other things uh downtown and creating and revitalizing what is previously uh since I've worked downtown since 2011 has kind of been dead after 5 p.m.

But you can see there's a revitalization and a resurgence downtown.

Um so I love cons serving on this board.

I serve on another subcommittee or a couple of subcommittees, I think.

Um one is uh incentives and the other is workforce development.

So some of the uh microgrants that they're providing and some of the work that they're doing.

John uh Tankard just recently came on there, and so and Aaron is on there, so that makes me a little nervous that I have to you know have them sit there and eyeball me right now.

Uh but I love serving on this.

I love learning, you know, the different facets of the economic, some of the projects, you know, the uh renovation of some of the historic buildings and the intent to preserve that historic significance that uh Tulsa has in those buildings.

So I love serving on this.

Uh so hopefully you'll just allow me to continue serving on your behalf.

Great.

Anyone have any questions or comments?

Thank God.

All right.

It's either a good thing or a bad thing.

It's already been decided.

I know just walking.

We had a free reading.

We did not have a pre meeting.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

What makes you feel like you're qualified to continue to serve?

Oh.

Why do you go straight for the job?

I don't feel qualified.

I'll be honest with you, I don't feel qualified.

A lot of times I feel outmatched by a lot of the folks that are in that room.

They're very smart.

Just like some of you in here.

Um I wasn't counting her.

I wasn't counting her.

That's why you said that's why I use the word some.

I said some.

Some can be a different number.

So obviously I love being around these smart people, and you know what they always say.

Surrounding yourself with smarter people makes you smarter.

Yeah.

I already think of myself as being pretty dumb.

And so I think when you have those in-depth conversations about this, you learn a lot about how things work and how things fail and being able to ask probably some of the most general questions that most people probably wouldn't think of because they are so much smarter, and um being able to question everything, whether it's uh just even contracts that you know uh are they beneficial to us and um should we continue doing things the way we're doing.

Yeah.

I just appreciate you wanting to continue to serve.

Um I know that I mean this is one of our economic engines with the city of Tulsa.

So I I appreciate uh your willingness to continue to uh work with others to bring more jobs, more sales tax revenue to the city of Tulsa so we can thrive.

Thank you.

Great.

Uh counselor was that all excellent counselor dector Wright.

Thank you.

I think you have street smarts in a way that a lot of people don't.

So I appreciate your willingness to serve, especially as you take on more leadership for the council.

And what I do appreciate is you always recognize that you're in that seat because you are on the council and you bring all of us with you into the room and you're thinking about all of our districts and the things that are important to us.

So that has not always been the case when the counselor goes to sit on an authority board or commission, and so I appreciate that.

You're very diligent about that.

And so thank you for your willingness to serve and do the committee work.

It's um so important.

And especially as we have this um partnership between Aaron Persley's office and partner Tolson and things that come to us.

I feel like you at that table helps us get our questions asked and answered um ahead of time, which is always the best way to do it.

So that you know, one question leads to another question, leads to another question, then we get all of the answers before we're making those decisions.

So I appreciate you, and I think you are very intelligent and very smart.

Thank you, man.

Yeah, I'll double tap that.

I am um like uh double like it's uh double clip.

No comment.

Well, it's just I start you know, I serve on some boards and and whatnot, and you walk in and you are learning a lot, but um, I feel confident every time you know if Christian Bangle is in the room, I feel like hey, we're gonna be well represented, so I agree with all that confidence as well.

Uh great can do you uh we'll be voting on you when um on the 29th, you're free to speak if you want.

Um we will be you can attend the council meeting too.

Definitely can I say but can I sit up there with you?

We don't have to don't have to.

You're welcome to come, but you're not required.

All right, well, thank you so much, counselor.

All right, number four, rezoning application that is Z 7867 from RS3 to IM for property located at the northeast corner of West 37th place and Galveston requested by Westside Industrial LLC property owner, uh multiple owners in Council District 2 TMAPC voted 10 oh to recommend approval of IM zoning.

Yeah, I think that is with us.

Good morning, council.

Uh so yeah, this is a rezoning application, north east corner of 37th in Galveston.

Uh as you can look at this existing zoning map, there is a lot of industrial zoning in the immediate area.

This is actually a continuation of a project that has was approved I don't know the exact time, it's probably within the last year, south of 37th and further to the east from the same developer with the intent to provide a battery storage facility in conjunction with the BSO substation that exists on the west side of the river at that location.

Um so at the time these properties are still zoned residential, but there's a small pocket of residential properties there in that immediate area.

Um, and this is in conjunction with our comprehensive plan, which really slates this entire area to be seen as a transition to more industrial and employment type uses.

Um at the TMAPC meeting, we did have two public speakers.

Um, one of which uh was just kind of relaying concerns of some of the remaining residents in the area to try and understand better how the use would interact with those that do still live there.

Um the other public speaker was one of the owners who's included in the application and whose property is actually being purchased uh by the developer at this time, and really uh shared a lot of praise for the developer and the work they've done to interact with the neighborhood.

I think they did a lot of their own engagement ahead of ever making an application.

They're working very diligently with the owners from whom they're purchasing property to get them relocated to find new housing for them as they go through this process.

And so it was kind of good to hear from him and his experience, and he was very supportive of the project.

So as you stated, planning commission unanimously recommended approval of the rezoning.

Councilor Dutton.

Yeah, so how many homes are actually still located?

Resident homes.

There are some remaining homes to the north along what is uh 36th place and then to the west across Galveston and between the railroad and Galveston there, and then below to the south.

I believe there's two or three homes remaining there as well.

Go back to the aerial photo here.

So have they sold?

Are they wanting to sell you mean the ones that are not included in the application or the the homes?

Not the ones I I'm not aware of any.

I don't think there's I'm not sure if anything has sold outside of this boundary.

I believe this developer's under contract on the 11 properties that are included in the application.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Biden?

So my question is a pretty simplistic.

Um this is kind of a hard shift.

Right?

A what?

Hard shift.

Okay.

Um RS to IM.

So what what potentially are they building?

So the the proposal is for a battery storage facility.

So these are basically um, for lack of a better word, containers that are are set up to store energy for any time the grid is offline or we have power outages, they can provide backup power and they tie directly into the substation that's there on that location.

Uh it's probably worth noting that even with the rezoning to IM, the classification that's been assigned to this use is a major utility use, which is a required special exception in all districts.

So as a follow-up item, if if the rezoning were approved, they will still have to go back through the Board of Adjustment for an additional exception where they'll actually show a site plan and layout for how they're going to develop the property.

Is there an ODP in here?

There's not.

No, it's a straight zoning request.

And what so outside the how the housing that was acquired by the developer, what is the on the property line, what is the distance between the closest house or residence?

Um, I think on the property line.

Probably the closest proximity is on the north property line there.

Do you know what that distance is, Nathan?

I don't.

Uh I don't know specifically how far off it is from their property line.

Um, the industrial district in a situation like this where it will ultimately still be adjacent to residential zoning on the north side, does have a 75-foot setback on their property for buildings and structures from the residential district.

So, in addition to however far away that house is on its property, they won't be able to locate buildings closer than 75 feet to that north property line where they're adjacent to residential.

I'm a little bit challenged by that.

It's really about you know protection of the neighborhood.

Is there like some sort of potential screening or protection?

Like I don't I don't know the volatility of this type of development, to be honest with you.

So I'm only speaking from that direction and how this might affect you know potential neighborhoods, right?

Um, but if they've already done the engagement, your community is okay with it.

I mean, that that would be the only apprehension that I would have something like this on a hard shift from RS to IM.

Well, and I and I we're gonna transition to the councilor Hall Harper, but um I have not had engagement from the developer or residents as of yet.

So my desire is to have further conversation to receive clarity because I do want to know what ultimately would be the impact on houses that are left in the area or desirous to sort of phase out all housing in that area and have a just a block of uh industrial, but yeah, if there's like some screening or protection for the neighborhood, because like I said, if I don't know what the volatility of this type of development is, if there's should something happen, you know, what is what is the protection for the neighborhood?

So from a baseline, just the zoning code will require a certain landscape buffer and screening along that boundary with residential.

Um the homes that are located to the south of this property are actually already zoned moderate industrial.

So they sit in a district that would already be allowing certain industrial uses under the current zoning, and that that zoning's been there since 1970.

It was applied whenever these maps were adopted.

So there's there's a lot of homes.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

How are they able to be a homes?

The homes were there too.

So I is basically I think what happened is for decades, yeah, this this area has been planned for a transition to more employment and industrial uses.

And so at the time in 1970, when the comprehensive zoning maps were adopted, they went ahead and applied the industrial zoning to those areas, and the houses have just remained as as legal uses.

There's a lot of places in Tulsa that are that way.

Yeah.

Because like an apartment complex that's being built in the East Tulsa was zoned in 1970.

Sure.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm going to say, thank you.

It looks like there's 11 homes on the slide.

Yeah, as long as that's taken into consideration.

Obviously, I would prefer to weeks to that one.

Um the developer is here.

Should we bring them up to sort of uh no?

Okay.

Yeah.

I've I just wanted to double check.

Yeah, we'll connect afterwards.

Um other questions.

Councilor Harbor.

So along those same questions or concerns, are there any environmental?

I'm just asking for you know, future conversations.

Um environmental concerns.

I mean, we want to make sure they wouldn't have come to the or how do you take that into consideration?

So I don't know.

I don't know, have no clue.

I mean you just say containers, restoring power.

Right, yeah.

I mean they're batteries for a lack of a better word, like batteries that sit there and charge up and hold power until they're needed for those situations.

Uh I'm not aware of specific environmental uh issue around it, but I I do know that at the planning commission there was discussion about the potential for a fire, for example, and and battery fires can obviously be a concern people have.

There are prescriptive fire codes that apply to the uses like this, and and I'm positive um the developer when given the opportunity at your meeting will provide probably some more information uh on those details, uh, but those aren't something that we are are regulating from a zoning perspective.

Okay.

Um I missing anyone.

So today is the 22nd.

We're supposed to be voting on the 29th.

Sarah or someone who's more seasoned than I am.

Is it possible that we uh hold this, push it back so that we can I can have time with a developer and then have a community meeting to talk about this?

You can.

I don't know.

Did you send interesting pardon when we receive these from the planning office?

Um if there were people who spoke at planning commission, then we send them letters notifying them as a courtesy uh that when of this will be at the council, and so um there may be people expecting this to be on the council on the 29th.

So you you certainly you can move it to have those um community meetings, but we would want to have time then to reissue those letters so that we don't we don't misrepresent to people when that is gonna be.

And you said it was it was just two that had had reached out uh two people so it it might be possible just to like just call them and say, hey, you know, there's been an adjustment.

If we have phone numbers, we don't always have full phone numbers, but I think we just have mailing addresses for the two interested parties.

Um we can double check the sign-in sheets from the planning commission to see if that information's on there.

Yeah, I'd like just a little bit of time to so let's let's talk about that.

What uh is giving a little bit more time for a meeting and community meeting?

So do you have a date in mind that we can so the next possible dates are the fifth, but we do not have a meeting on the 12th and the 19th.

Let's do the fifth.

And if it that's just two weeks, that's time for community meeting planning and all that.

Yeah, I mean, I it looks it looks like a pretty compact community, maybe even some door knocking, just some walking, can uh gather the people together.

So all right, well, let's put it through on the fifth, and then we'll get together.

All right, any of any questions or anything else?

Thank you so much.

Thanks guys, appreciate you.

All right, number five, uh ordinance amending the fiscal year 26-27 budget to make supplemental appropriations of one million dollars recognized from unappropriated fund balance within the pandemic relief fund.

This is for the okay pop means we are with us.

uh gather the people together so all right well let's put it through on the fifth and then we'll get together all right any of any questions or uh anything else thank you so much thanks guys appreciate you all right number five uh ordinance amending the fiscal year 2627 budget to make supplemental appropriations of one million dollars recognized from unappropriated fund balance within the pandemic relief fund this is for the okay pop museum with us um yeah so this is a million dollars originally back in twenty twenty one this was a resolution was passed to uh give them a million dollars out of alpha funding um however as we went through things sort of it was contingent on them finding the match in 2023 you would determine uh wasn't really eligible for this type of project so the working group decided to switch that out with some CRF funds um again contingence on them getting their 18 million dollar match so they get match money from the state they now have the match um so this is just to appropriate those funds so that project can kind of start to continue any questions you said they do they do see down with their match they have their match yeah as of November late late late last year yeah so the plan is um they're in design phase right now through the end of this year uh construction through 2027 with uh spring 2028 open and did all right thank you Reese appreciate it all right uh moving on to item number six ordinance dissolving increment district number seven city of Tulsa created by the approval of the Admiral Place community development project plan by ordinance number two uh two three four eighteen on December 17th uh 2015 approved by the mayor on December 21st 2015 terminating as of August 15 2026 the tax appropriate uh apportionment financing authorized by the project plan and the ordinance adopting the project plan um this with us aaron is with us on my face well council bacon was his punch over you would like to both sides of the table can experience the presentation so counselor counselors we are doing some dissolving today with item six and item seven and so should I read seven two need to be separate they need separate no but we're doing dissolved so um because our counselor bingo has been so uh involved in this process I want to give them the chance to speak on item number six counselor's the star so obviously um this was a TIFF district that was created in hopes to get the output and all that ultimately went to jinx right um unfortunately this parcel of land um to the south side uh it's has a lot of floodplain that wouldn't have been developed um except for like some amenity and landscaping and things of that nature we've been reporting zero increment on this for almost a decade now and I said I'm tired of this thing collecting birthdays um next one I'm gonna bring a birthday cake for it um so obviously when we don't have uh the potential and to Aaron's credit he was willing to go out and do an RFI uh potentially to see what this could potentially be uh in its current state the landscape is shifted significantly in that corridor um to the north side of that property there was an encampment uh that was there previously and now LDF um is building on that north parcel and so I'm not sure what the South or other pieces of that property you know uh if that's the same landowner but this is obviously an increment that has zero intent of collecting any um incentive or increment on it so it might as well be dissolved so thank you for the work I'm I'm no they're tired of hearing me say it councillor Gilbert well even though we didn't get the outlet mall it's still named up for us it's the Tulsa premium outlet and jinx so we our name is on the file.

Yeah um you said that LDF is building out there are they aware that this is or would they have been a part of it yeah okay what this TIFF was created specifically and exclusively for the horizon outlet proposal which never materialized I just didn't know if they were okay with CDF I'm sorry they're a distributor of alcohol distributors averages okay thank you as well I'm gonna know that and then they expand what's not LDSL because the the outlet model that's in Jinx was going to be on Turkey Mountains.

Because the the outlet model that's in Jinx was going to be on Turkey Mountain.

I think that was the other site.

But yeah, but I wasn't familiar with this.

Um there were two kind of going through simultaneously way back in 10 years ago.

Yep.

Um Councilor Hull Harper, did you have something to say before I go?

Okay.

Counselor Dutton.

Yeah, so I remember when that was brought to the table that there was that possibility for that shopping outlet.

Um but nothing could materialize to create it was a sales tax only TIFF that was created specifically for an outlet mall.

Okay.

Um we did not see any interest from any larger retailer that could have brought forth anything in relation to what we had inside the plan.

Okay, yeah.

Well that makes sense then to dissolve it if it was just intended for that specific purpose.

Yeah, and don't forget, if a project does come to that area, we could do a whole new TIF in the area.

That would lose the time, it's already gone into this TIFT has already happened.

So we're that area continues to be a recognized enterprise zone.

So it is still right.

So it would also be applicable to receive the funding from the state.

Um well it it could qualify for anything under local control, which is abalorum and traditionally sales docs.

So as an enterprise zone, wasn't that what we talked about last week?

Opportunity zones we talked about.

Well, the two different two different things.

So opportunity zones, one thing, enterprise zones, separate separate.

Oh, because I thought opportunity zones came with those three caveats.

The enterprise zone can be in an opportunity zone.

But it's not necessarily vice versa.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Anyone else?

All right, item number seven, ordinance dissolving tax increment district number 10.

City was also created by the approval of the downtown area economic district project plan ordinance number 2383.

Um this is another one, but we're actually dissolving this TIFF for a whole different reason.

It has achieved its actually overachieved.

It's increment at this point.

And so we are dissolving it because they have collected sufficient funds to beat their project demands as for the project plan.

And so I could say we're done.

Yeah.

Statutorily, we are required to end this TIFF whenever it reaches its budget cap.

As of January when the county transferred over the Avemorum payment, we reached that point.

In fact, we went beyond it.

So we are at the point we need to end it through council action through an ordinance, and then we will remit back to the uh county treasurer all of the over collections to be distributed to all of the taxing entities that were affected.

So yes, this one was a success.

We have made it all the way through the process.

Uh Councillor Bingle, explain the term.

The term.

Yeah, the term of the two.

Oh, okay.

So this is included inside of the downtown area economic development project plan.

That was adopted, I believe.

Back in 27 or sorry, in 17 or 18.

And here we are, not even 10 years later, we reached the budget cap that was set in the project plan.

That was set at $5 million in collections.

This is for the arts district.

You may remember there were two other iterations of TIFF that came prior to that on that same area.

Umce it reached that budget cap, we are required to end the TIFF.

Had it not reached that budget cap, it would have continued for its full um expected term of up to 25 years.

The the way the statute reads is either up to 25 years or until sufficient funds are collected to meet or to realize the projects.

And we hit the second of the two terms.

So obviously the intentionality of me asking that question is incentives work.

Yeah, when we leverage them properly.

Right.

And then downtown is on the move.

Yep.

Aaron, did you have your hand up?

Resting my hand on my chin.

All right.

Anyone else?

Thank you all so much.

Um counselors.

Well, yeah, absolutely.

Those of you joining us on television and on internet, join us back at 2.30 for our uh our next meeting.

But uh with that we are adjourned.