It is also a quality of life issue. While I have seen some ADA compliance issues that seem very arduous or even unfair (to the point a business owner says "not worth it"), keeping a sidewalk clear 36" wide seems to be good not only for people in wheelchairs, with walkers, strollers, large people, lovers holding hands or the visually impairment, but also simply to allow the free flow of people in both directions.
Even if the ADA doesn't come into play, seems logical to me.
The
TGOV video of the August 11th, 2016 City Council Urban & Economic Development Committee meeting provides more explanation as to what the City is trying to do with licensing agreement policies. For the moratorium discussion, see Agenda Item #17, which begins about 1 hour and 39 minutes into the recording.
Jarrel Wade's August 12th
"City clarifying moratorium on license agreements for private use of public rights of way" Tulsa World article mentions that Paul Zachary "showed city councilors numerous examples from recent years where contractors built on public property without the proper licensing and then asked for forgiveness later. Other examples were from downtown properties that built into public property legally but then lack of a comprehensive policy caused unintended side effects." The same August 12th
Tulsa World article states that several of Paul Zachary's examples involved not enough room left on sidewalks for a wheelchair to pass.
The
minutes of the August 11th Urban & Economic Development meeting state that a PowerPoint was presented, but I can't find any footage of the PowerPoint presentation in the video. Perhaps it was off-screen for the TGOV video.
Anyway, Karen Gilbert begins the discussion by stating that she had been contacted by frustrated developers who had been told that there's a moratorium on licensing agreements with the City. Dawn Warrick and Paul Zachary responded by explaining some of the issues that the City and developers are facing with the current licensing agreement policy. According to Zachary, a developer had offered to pay for the use of a right of way, and Zachary felt that was beyond the scope of licensing and getting into the area of leasing. Evidently, Mark Swiney was absent from the meeting. To me, it sounded as though he has been the contact within the City's Legal department, working on the licensing agreement policy review.
Regarding ADA and access issues, there was some discussion about the narrowness of Tulsa's sidewalks, ramps built on public rights of way, doors swinging out over public sidewalks, and movable sidewalk café furniture blocking pathways on sidewalks (sometimes, if someone happens to pull a chair into a pathway). Blake Ewing mentioned Tulsa's "ridiculously wide streets" and "ridiculously narrow sidewalks," and he expressed some hope that planning for wider sidewalks could happen soon.*
Regarding clearways on public sidewalks, Zachary told the councilors that the City likes to maintain at least eight feet around the BOK Center and ONEOK Field.**
Phil Lakin questioned the City Council's ability to revoke a license agreement at whim, with or without cause. Lakin expressed concern about a business spending lots of money on sidewalk furniture, for example, at the risk of having the City suddenly revoke the business's license agreement. Warrick replied that she could not think of any city that didn't have a revocability clause, as Tulsa does.***
Toward the end of the discussion, Gilbert once again mentioned the "moratorium" fallout, and Warrick replied that she thinks that the "moratorium" has been cleared up. In my opinion, I suppose it has been cleared up, to a degree. But it leaves me wondering why a moratorium was ever mentioned at all, and why there was a front page story published,
specifically about a moratorium halting sidewalk cafés. Either Jarrel Wade or someone else at the
Tulsa World first used the word "moratorium" to describe what was going on, or someone else described it that way to Wade or his editor. Someone started this "story" for some reason. I'd like to know who, why, when, and how. Both Gilbert and Ewing mentioned that the news of the moratorium generated some unhappy calls to their offices.
Also, I'm wondering about those examples Zachary reportedly showed to the councilors. When did that happen?
*There have been plans for wider sidewalks and narrower streets downtown, such as those on Boston I mentioned in a previous post in response to The Artist. The plan on Boston, for about five years, was to narrow the street from fifty-six to forty feet and to widen the sidewalks from twelve to twenty feet. Traffic studies supported widening the sidewalks and narrowing the street. But Chris Bumgarner complained. He didn't want the sidewalks to be twenty feet wide. He wanted them to remain twelve feet wide. Go down to Mod's or Decopolis and see who got his way, despite the plans, despite the traffic studies, and despite Downtown Tulsa Unlimited.
**Eight feet is less than the six-foot clearway recommended by the author of
Walkable City in his
Downtown Walkability Analysis report for Fort Lauderdale. The authors of
Suburban Nation state that a sidewalk twelve feet wide is ample enough for al fresco dining, but they don't mention a clearway width.
***In my research into licensing agreements, I've discovered the same revocability clause in every instance.
