[OKC] Smart growth in Journal Record

[Jennifer Gooden]

OKC saw some wonderful exposure for smart growth and sustainability on
the cover of the Journal Record today in article about our recent smart
growth speaker, Hans Butzer.  It's great to see the economic side of
smart growth highlighted; it hits home for everyone when we talk about
an inefficient use of tax dollars.  For anyone who didn't see it, the
text is below.  It was accompanied by a great photo of Hans.
 
Jennifer Gooden
Program Coordinator
The Homeless Alliance
312 W Commerce
Oklahoma City, OK  73109
(405) 632-7431
www.homelessalliance.org <http://www.homelessalliance.org/> 
 
 
 

Sustaining growth: OU architecture professor stresses need for more
efficient design in downtown OKC, surrounding areas 

by Kevan Goff-Parker 

The Journal Record 

5/12/2006  

  

OKLAHOMA CITY - Hans Butzer, principal of design at TAParchitecture,
said Thursday he's heartened by comments made by Oklahoma City Mayor
Mick Cornett during the fifth annual Mayor's Development Roundtable. 

"It sounded as if we were reading from the same script," Butzer said,
who recently gave a lecture titled "Building a Great City: Now's a Good
Time" at Oklahoma City University. "Mayor Cornett spoke about how
Oklahoma City and its surrounding communities, like Midwest City and
Bethany, can become more efficient in providing services like police,
fire, utilities and trash service. I'm very excited." 

 

And Butzer, an associate professor of Architecture and Urban Design at
the University of Oklahoma who teaches sustainable design, has a right
to be energized. He takes such issues as urban sprawl and inefficient
planning to heart. 

 

In 2003, Butzer led an OU research design class focused on developing a
medium-density, mixed-use vision for a 35-acre area of downtown Oklahoma
City. The team tackled downtown Oklahoma City's sustainable-development
issues. Today local developers use the comprehensive vision, known as
the Triangle, as a basis for further exploration. Butzer said the
Triangle represents development that is place-specific and
resource-efficient. 

 

"A part of my research at OU is an extension of my practice in Germany,"
he said. "It has to do with trying to encourage greater efficiency in
the way we design our city and design our buildings. A city like
Oklahoma City strikes me as being inefficient in how big it is as
compared to its population." 

 

Butzer said he doesn't enjoy paying taxes and finds it frustrating when
his tax dollars are inefficiently spent or when they are used to
subsidize development that harms Oklahoma City's fiscal, physical and
environmental well-being. 

 

"Forethought in the design of Oklahoma City's periphery seems to be
lacking," he said. "Inefficient development contributes to worsening
health conditions of the population, which in turn can contribute to
high health care costs. It seems we continued to develop at the
periphery, and it doesn't seem like we're stepping back." 

 

He said one of the jobs of the architect is to measure small-scale
decisions relative to the larger picture. 

 

"It is inevitable that when we see sprawl, you can't stop it, but
development at the periphery can be done in a more efficient manner so
that the rate of inefficiency starts dropping," Butzer said. "The
downtown Oklahoma City area is so fertile with redevelopment sites,
which, for starters, allows for us to capitalize on MAPS and MAPS for
Kids investments. You are starting to see this widely published now -
the high-quality, mixed-use lifestyles that even give people the option
of walking to work in the downtown area." 

 

He said it is imperative when one does dense development that green
spaces like parks are included and that developers follow LEED
(Leadership, Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines. 

 

"A lot of the sites that we are looking at developing on and planning
for include brown-field and gray-field sites," Butzer said. "They are
sites that have previously been built upon or that might contain some
ground contamination that once they are cleaned up, can be used. We
don't want to eat up farmland or destroy habitat." 

 

He said challenges, of course, do remain in forging the future of
downtown Oklahoma City, including higher development costs. 

 

"What we try to do in our work is to look at the cost at a larger
scale," he said. "The price of adding utilities when you add a house in
suburbia, you end of paying more in the long run. Roads aren't
maintained as well, police and fire protection diminishes and the city
keeps creeping outwards." 

 

He said such sprawl sometimes causes the core of a city to fail first,
followed by layers of maintenance and infrastructure. 

 

"Who pays for all that and maintains it?" Butzer asked. "It's a huge
piece of the puzzle. What I see in downtown Oklahoma City is an
opportunity to work with existing infrastructure and keep building with
higher density, as opposed to proposing new neighborhoods at the city's
periphery." 

 

He said the rising cost of fuel and the ongoing need for wider, longer
highways mean that Oklahoma City's transportation opportunities need to
be expanded through options like commuter rail. 

 

"Sprawl is going to continue, but we can certainly slow it down and be
more efficient," Butzer said. "One way to do this is to improve
transportation options, especially for people who live at Oklahoma
City's periphery. Ultimately higher density and more efficient design in
both downtown and at the city's edge will contribute to a healthier,
more efficient Oklahoma City lifestyle." 

 

Butzer's presentation was a part of the "Smart Growth" series, sponsored
and organized by Sustainable OKC along with the Vivian Wimberly Center
for Ethics and Servant Leadership at OCU.

 
 
<http://www.homelessalliance.org/> 
 
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