 Katie has served as the principal planner for current planning and urban design for the city of Oklahoma City Planning Department, overseeing current planning functions, six design review districts, and the city's historic preservation program. Now, prior to that, she served as the city's preservation officer and CLG coordinator. So she, and also spent some time in Boston by the way I should mention, where she served as executive director of preservation Oklahoma. And then, so she has a tremendous amount of experience in the area of preservation planning, and her work has taken her across the country and most recently they have developed a really forward looking preservation plan for the city of Oklahoma, which I hope that you will tell us a little bit about tonight. So Katie, it is such a pleasure to welcome you back. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm just really honored to be to have the opportunity to speak and to this group and come back to Columbia, virtually, I'd rather be there in person, but we'll make do for now. So let me see if I can share my screen. Okay, can you guys see that. Yes, that's perfect. Thank you. All right. So, yes, again, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to the group I'm really excited to be here, and to tell you a little bit about our preservation program in Oklahoma City, and the preservation plan that we've just recently completed. I'm going to offer a little bit of a background on the city of Oklahoma City and lay the groundwork for developing the preservation plan with the comprehensive plan that preceded it, and then go through the process of creating and getting the plan adopted. So before I start, I want to give a little bit of personal information about me. I grew up here in Oklahoma in Midwest City. It's a town that developed around Tinker Air Force Base just outside of Oklahoma City during World War Two. It is build, it was build as America's model city as you can see in their lovely signage and had all the latest mid-century planning and design innovations. Just more what Midwest City looked like when I grew up there, kind of your standard suburban mix of houses, strip malls, auto repair shops, schools and churches, and the unmistakable Long John Silvers that is no longer a Long John Silvers. Katie, I'm sorry to interrupt. There is a like a window picture within pictures showing up in our screen. There you go. Okay. They're perfect. Thank you so much. Thanks for telling me. So I share this with you, because I know some of us come to historic preservation and come to Columbia eager to go back to someplace that we want to revitalize that we think is historic. And others come from a hometown where we really kind of want out and are looking for preservation opportunities elsewhere. When I was in the program at Columbia, I really appreciated and was encouraged by hearing folks speak that came to our classes from farther afield and not just from New York. It showed me that there are places everywhere with value and significance that were worth preserving even my little hometown it turns out. So I hope this talk gives others that encouragement to think about all the places where you can make a difference with your work. So now for the actual subject of the talk Oklahoma City and preserve okay see the city's first historic preservation plan. Before we go into the preservation plan. We have to know what we're preserving so I'm going to start with a brief history of Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City smack in the middle of Oklahoma smack in the middle of the United States as westward expansion pushed Native American tribes from the southeast they were relocated to Indian territory and what's now Oklahoma. In 1889 the central portion of the territory called the unassigned lands was open to settlers via land run. This Oklahoma City just prior to the land run. It was a water stop on the Santa Fe railroad. And at noon on April 22 1889 tens of thousands of people rushed across the prairie to stake their claim in assigned lands. By nightfall it said Oklahoma City had a population of about 10,000 people with an ideal location along the railroad and the river. This is the same railroad stop that you see here in the bottom right that was shown in that previous slide with nothing on it just about 12 days after the land run. In 1907 Oklahoma was a state and soon after that Oklahoma City was declared the state capital. You see here the state capital building under construction on what was the far northeast edge of Oklahoma City at the time. We're proud to be the only state I believe with our state song written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. If anyone wants to stick around later, we can sing just throwing that out there. The country Oklahoma City was a booming little town, spurred on by proximity to the river and to multiple railroad lines crisscrossing downtown skyscrapers rose and streets car three cars spread out to reach suburban streetcar neighborhoods, and new commercial centers and areas that a few years earlier were just farmland. We're struck in the 1920s, the city boomed once again with oil wells popping up even on the front lawn of the state capital. That picture in the top left is looking out from the steps of the state capital building on to all the oil wells. Oklahoma City continue to grow dramatically over the next decades annexing hundreds of square miles by the 1960s. This growth was anticipating a population boom, and also a race against surrounding communities to control the land and future tax base. For reference, this is roughly to scale illustration of Manhattan in the middle of Oklahoma City to give me an idea of what a large land area, it covers. I worked really hard on that I think it's accurate, but while we were growing we were also demolishing a lot urban renewal a vision to transform downtown in a medical complex by architect I am paid called the pay plan was adopted by the city. This along with construction of new highways throughout the historically African American Center of the city wiped out hundreds of buildings. While some of those bold projects were completed others were not leaving large areas of vacant land in Oklahoma City for decades. The next decades were still more ups and downs from the economic highs and lows of the oil market to the incredible loss of the bombing of the Alfred P Murrow building in 1995 and the transformational rebuilding of a community in response to that attack. Decades of public investment have brought back thriving neighborhoods and commercial districts created tourism destinations and diversified the city's economy. Today Oklahoma City is the 25th largest city in the country by population and the eighth largest by land area. We are a racially diverse city with some solid hints of progressivism in the middle of a very conservative state. We are the state capital and the headquarters of large corporations and home to the largest cattle market in the world. As someone who grew up here moved away and came home. I think Oklahoma City is a great place to live, but there's still work to be done, which brings us to the world of planning and preservation planning. In 2015 Oklahoma City completed a multi-year effort to adopt a new comprehensive plan named Plan OKC. This plan has been recognized by the American Planning Association with the Daniel Burnham Award for a comprehensive plan. Its development included extensive public engagement in depth analysis of current conditions and projections for the city's growth and development. And I should say I worked in the planning department when this plan was being developed. I was not terribly involved in the development of the plan other than helping with some preservation components within the document. So I can't take much credit for the awards and the recognition. Plan OKC addresses a wide array of issues that impact the character, quality of life and economic and environmental health of Oklahoma City. These are all the different issues that the plan identifies and lays out in its introduction. The plan breaks down all of the different topics, issues, goals and policy recommendations into what are called elements, each looking at different ways in which we the city can shape our community for the future. This looks at everything from the nuts and bolts of land use and public services to the qualitative ideas of place making arts and culture. At the heart of these issues is an analysis of the development trends and their impact on Oklahoma City's future. As I said before, Oklahoma City rapidly expanded its land area to over 600 square miles in the 1950s and 60s. Development has crept outward into those annexed areas at a very low density ever since. You can see all of that yellow area is one housing unit per acre, which is not very much. This type of development doesn't provide the tax base to support things like road maintenance, public transportation, police and fire services and other public infrastructure like parks and trails over such a large area that are expected of a city. It also abandons established infrastructure and existing buildings for greener development, green field development. Plan OKC uses growth scenarios to illustrate the trajectory of the city's development with varying degrees of change to the current trends. So this is projecting what would happen if we make certain changes to the way the city is developing now. By and large, the scenario with the best outcomes and the most public support was scenario C, concentrating development in and around the core and encouraging investment in existing infrastructure neighborhoods and commercial districts. So if you look at those areas, you can see the green is new population and employment spreading out the outer edges or as you work your way down concentrating in the core, the brown is abandoned buildings, which becomes more and more of a problem as we allow sprawl to continue. The growth scenarios identify a need for the revitalization of established parts of the city. Nearly all of the plan elements touch on this theme, but the enriched elements specifically addresses historic preservation along with arts culture and community appearance. It provides policy recommendations on ways to improve urban design and strengthen cultural institutions and arts programs. One of the most specific and detailed recommendations and enrich is to create a citywide historic preservation plan. Plan OKC calls for the preservation plan to comprehensively address the identification retention preservation and revitalization of our historic resources. I should note that plan OKC recommends developing several other standalone plans, a few of which have also been adopted at this point. Doing these plans separately from the plan OKC document has allowed us to really devote the research and the time and the substance to topics like historic preservation and sustainability that we wouldn't have been able to have they been just subsections within plan OKC. With the groundwork of plan OKC laid out planning department staff began to gear up for developing our own preservation plan. We were able to start quickly by doing the plan in house rather than waiting for a budget to hire the project out. We probably moved slower because we were doing it in house while also doing our full time jobs, but it allowed us a lot more flexibility than if we've been working with contracts and budgets and consultants and that sort of thing. When I say we are team consisted of three planners and two interns that worked on pretty much the entire document. We looked at preservation plans from other communities at Oklahoma statewide historic preservation plan and at the Secretary of Interior Standards for preservation planning. We also looked at what tools we already had available to us and where there were gaps. And this was our projection along the way where we kept changing the dates every time we had a setback or hit a bump in the road of the process to get through the plan. Before going any further into how we developed the plan I want to talk about Oklahoma City's existing historic preservation program. Our historic preservation ordinance dates back to 1969, like many cities Oklahoma City came to the realization as the National Historic Preservation Act was established that we needed local tools as well. The city's early focus was on residential areas neighborhoods that had fallen into decline as residents left for the suburbs. The city adopted preservation zoning that required review and approval for changes to buildings and also limited the uses that could be introduced in historic neighborhoods, seeking to limit conversion of large homes to offices businesses and apartments. There was concern about the impact of urban renewal and demolition of landmark structures as well. The Commission began a program to provide honorary recognition to historic buildings, but quickly realized this wasn't a strong enough tool after losing a fight to save the hails building shown here. The Commission worked with the National Trust for historic preservation to adopt an ordinance for individual landmark designation or historic landmark overlay that was established in 1979, 10 years after the original ordinance was adopted. The city went on to designate several individual landmarks in the early 1980s. I can't say for certain, but the timing of when the individual landmark designation stopped appears to coincide with the 1982 failure of Penn State Bank in Oklahoma City, which devastated our economy. Priorities in that time period shifted back to neighborhood revitalization and historic district designation. The survey work focused on low income areas tap tapping into federal funding programs for housing and rehabilitation, a variety of zoning tools were utilized to encourage revitalization and protect neighborhood character. Urban conservation districts, district overlays were put in place serving for some neighborhoods as a stepping stone to historic district designation. HP zoning was used as a tool to improve neighborhoods addressing issues like commercial encroachment and property maintenance. Today Oklahoma City has nine historic districts, primarily in residential neighborhoods. We've also added new individual landmarks in recent years. I like to say that since 2015 we've more than doubled the number of individual historic landmarks which is technically true. We've gone from four to a whopping nine as of last year. In the ordinance, we hold a preservation easement on one property, and we're also a certified local government. We do survey work and national register nominations annually. And we review all national register nominations for Oklahoma City properties. About half the tax credit projects in the state are in Oklahoma City. So we see a steady stream of nominations and projects. We're moving to the plan with a relatively healthy active preservation program and decent community support for and participation in historic preservation. But we also knew that preservation was compartmentalized, not really seen as expandable beyond the established districts and the same old tools of designation and national register listing. Not always seen as a key player in those broad efforts for economic development, environmental sustainability, place making highlighted in the comprehensive plan. Early on that we wanted Preserve O.K.C. to break out of that box and look at all the ways preservation could be impacting the city and all the ways that the city's actions impact historic preservation. With those goals in mind we continued with the development of the plan. We were fortunate to follow on the heels of plan O.K.C. and be able to utilize that effort surveys and studies and many resources and documents that had been assembled. We had a public kickoff meeting for Preserve O.K.C. and launched an online survey. Beyond those broad efforts we took a more focused approach in our public outreach, meeting with a stakeholder committee regularly as well as the Historic Preservation Commission and workshops. Meaning with small focus groups and individuals representing the interests of neighborhoods, commercial districts, developers, preservation consultants and members of various review committees. We wanted to hear from people what their priorities were for historic preservation, what tools or programs they thought would be successful here and what they saw as barriers to historic preservation projects. After months of meetings and brainstorm sessions and writing we had a draft plan ready to circulate. But right around the same time as the plan was ready to go historic preservation suddenly became a hot topic in Oklahoma City. Our warm and fuzzy plan suddenly came under much closer scrutiny. That's the dun-dun-dun part. I don't have a soundtrack. This is Oklahoma City's first Christian church listed in the National Register but without any local designation. It sits on a large site at a prominent intersection, is zone commercial and had come up for sale. By the beginning of 2019 rumors were flying that it was going to be sold and demolished. Anticipating support from at least a few City Council members, the Historic Preservation Commission did something they'd never done before. They initiated landmark designation and the accompanying demolition delay over the owner's objection. Demonstrators rallied at the church, which is lovingly known as the egg. Not everyone was pleased with the efforts to designate the church though. Just as we were launching the last stages of public review for Preserve O.K.C., City Council members came forward with an amendment to the Historic Preservation Ordinance to limit the commission's ability to designate a landmark over an owner's objection. Heated meetings ensued, various ideas about how to limit the commission's powers were evaluated. Eventually a compromise was reached with only minor changes to the demolition delay component of the ordinance. But now we had to sell a preservation plan saying, let's do more preservation to a newly skeptical City Council. I'm proud of our plan, but I think at any other time it likely would have gone through Planning Commission and City Council review pretty much under the radar. Because of the heated moment we'd found ourselves in though, we ended up hosting a joint workshop of the Planning Commission Historic Preservation Commission, the Mayor and City Council complete with all the local news media to present the plan and respond to questions. In the end the plan was well received. As I go through the plan next I'll highlight some of the issues that were of concern, but by and large officials were happy to see recommendations that would make preservation more accessible, approachable and understandable. We were really pleased in the end to have City Leader's support on including an official position on Historic Preservation in the plan that mirrors the key themes of Preserve O.K.C. And you all can read that on the screen, but you know we were excited to be able to say that the City values Historic Preservation as a significant benefit to our economy, our environment, our sense of place and identity for residents and visitors. Just to get that done on paper and adopted and received by all the applicable bodies was great. So, what is the plan? We started with an introduction that establishes some overall principles and purposes for historic preservation and overview of what we as a community want to preserve and why, and then go into the four big ideas to identify goals, initiatives and make policy recommendations. Similar to Plan O.K.C., Preserve O.K.C. includes an implementation matrix that lays out specific policies and actions to be taken in implementing the plan. The plan lays out why we as a community should engage in historic preservation beyond protecting historic resources. This section ties back to Plan O.K.C., illustrating the connection between historic preservation and neighborhood health, the economy, place making and cultural tourism, and economic and environmental sustainability. The plan lays out what historic resources have already been documented and recognized and what areas and resource types have been underrepresented. It highlights the need to update older survey work to identify and document the earliest structures in Oklahoma City on the rural outskirts that have never been evaluated to take a fresh look at all of our mid-century modern resources and to better address underrepresented populations in our preservation work. Identifying priorities was done using a historic resource inventory built out as part of the plan's development. This incorporates into GIS decades worth of survey data, local designations and national register listings. A goal of the plan is to more actively add to and maintain the inventory and make it widely available to city departments and to the general public. The real need of the plan is captured in the four big ideas, similar to the elements of Plan O.K.C. Within each big idea are more detailed initiatives that recommend specific actions. Preservation starts with the public at large generally and with the community leaders in particular understanding our city's history, the significance of our historic resources, and the value of historic preservation. Big Idea 1 focuses on strengthening public support for historic preservation, on education and awareness, ranging from activities that reach broad audiences like tours and workshops, down to more focused outreach through training and specifically for professionals that work in preservation and community leaders. These initiatives address in more specific detail ways to increase community awareness of our historic resources and engagement in historic preservation and to reach community leaders about the value of historic preservation. Big Idea 2 is to lead by example in the city's consideration and treatment of publicly owned historic resources, basically to practice good stewardship of the buildings over which we have control. The city has a strong legacy of maintaining its historic resources, whether they're structures that we the city built like City Hall, or rehabbing and reusing historic facilities like the Santa Fe train depot. The city can build on that legacy and continue to proactively evaluate and protect historic resources that the city owns and controls. This big idea focuses on strengthening our practices for how we maintain historic resources we already have, and on ensuring that we give consideration to historic resources in decision making processes for things like acquiring and redeveloping property. This big idea drew some questions from city leaders concerned that city work would be hampered or projects halted. The goal with this is really to create our own mini section 106 review for city actions to identify, evaluate, advise, mitigate impacts on historic resources when the city takes some form of action. We emphasized with this big idea that considering historic resources early in the city's decision making could head off preservation battles further down the line. Big idea three is to protect historic resources citywide by using existing regulatory tools and developing new regulatory tools to address historic preservation. Big idea three is the lengthiest section of the plan and drew the most questions from leaders. This big idea addresses regulation which makes everybody nervous. We emphasized in this section that we have, we already have functional tools from design review to zoning codes to an abandoned buildings program that can be built upon to better address historic resources. The initiatives in big idea three refer back to the historic resource inventory and use and using that throughout Oklahoma City to identify historic properties. This big idea looks specifically at the existing design review program and ways to better equip committees with training guidelines and policies that support historic preservation goals. We have in addition to our historic preservation districts, six design review districts that have each has their own committee. They cover key areas of Oklahoma City like downtown. The stockyards area which is a main street program other generally commercial corridors and they are not specifically focused on historic preservation but they all contain historic resources and have varying degrees of detail in their guidelines about protecting and preserving historic properties. This big idea looks at zoning regulations outside the design review districts that affect people's ability to redevelop property and ways to ensure that rehab is at a minimum no more difficult than demolition and new construction. It looks at the ways we regulate abandoned buildings and opportunities within that effort to prioritize retention and rehabilitation of historic buildings over demolition. One particular topic that garnered lots of discussion in our meetings was initiative three and tools to be developed outside our established districts. Oklahoma City has struggled with the loss of undesignated historic structures and the introduction of increased infill and density and historic but undesignated neighborhoods. Many in Oklahoma City are reluctant to place limits on property rights, some worry that restrictions will inhibit investment in neighborhoods that desperately needed, or will thwart efforts to increase density in the urban core, which plan okay see emphasizes. The plan advocates for processes that establish clear standards and provide owners in the public with clear expectations and predictable outcomes. We can develop tools to provide some oversight and public input into demolition. So I lost my spot into demolition of buildings that are potentially significant but are not under any form of design review. We can use new tools to redevelop in our historic areas in ways that accommodate the innovative design and increase density but remain compatible. Big idea for is to incentivize and encourage preservation through new and existing programs for financial and other forms of assistance. This is the you catch more flies with honey big idea. We know that many of Oklahoma City's preservation successes came about because of incentives, either financial or procedural that tip the scale in favor of a preservation project. People will often take the route that's quickest cheapest and easiest, we want to make sure historic preservation is on that route and not seen as being more difficult than new development. Oklahoma City has existing incentives that are not specific to historic preservation, but we want to make sure they support and encourage and prioritize historic preservation. Oklahoma City has been really successful in using tax increment financing districts to redevelop key areas of the city to get specific projects done and reinvestment. We've heard in in different areas of the city and lots of those have happened to have been preservation projects that have been really wonderful and have also used historic tax credits, but it hasn't been something that was explicitly a goal of those incentive programs. We can develop additional incentives beyond that to specifically encourage historic preservation. These include can include tip districts that are specifically created for historic preservation areas. We can also include incentives as well as what we've referred to as procedural incentives, zoning that encourages and accommodates adaptive reuse increased awareness of building code requirements that accommodate existing historic buildings, all those types of things can help to tip the scales and balance of doing a preservation project instead of scraping the site and starting from scratch. We can also help nudge projects in the direction of using historic tax credits by taking the first step to get buildings and districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Following the joint workshop and presentation of the plan preserve okay see went through a public comment period and then through the official adoption process. So the historic preservation Commission adopted the plan in January of this year planning Commission adopted preserve okay see as an amendment to the comprehensive plan in April, and the city council received the plan which is the action they take with amendments to the plan in July. The theme of a celebratory packed house at city council with all of our stakeholders and Commission members was replaced by zoom meeting. Thank you coven, but even with coven we got it done, and that the plan adopted and received by all the appropriate bodies. Now we implement the next steps on the horizon include a potential amendment to an existing conservation district overlay to better address historic preservation concerns that we've heard from those neighborhoods. Getting the historic resource inventory into a format that the public can use and using preserve okay see to inform and update to the city's zoning code, which will be a big multi year effort. Now continuing to do the regular work of the historic preservation Commission, reviewing applications and identifying new historic landmarks. My concluding thought as I've been working on this presentation and I apologize if this seems mushy or overly dramatic, but here it goes. Well, with everything happening in the world that can be hard to find meaning in the work that we're all doing, somewhere in between the minutiae of looking at a mutton profile and a soft panel, and the long range planning efforts that will probably come to fruition after I'm at least retired if not dead. I struggle to find that sweet spot of feeling like what I'm doing right now really matters. But as I've worked on this presentation and as we worked on this plan, I can't help but feel like what we are doing does matter. The physical fabric of our community and the stories that we empower our communities to tell about themselves shapes the world for all of us, including people who can't always shape it on their own. I hope that preserve okay see helps to connect those dots for Oklahoma City residents and strengthens our ability to build a better build a city that better represents and serves everyone. And that is the end of my presentation contact information if anyone would like it. And I would love to answer any questions you might have. Thank you Katie I'm the official clapper for the group. That's wonderful really great. We, we, these zoom calls have developed their own protocols at GSAP one of which is to use the chat for questions and answers but I find that very, very cumbersome. And since we benefit from being a we know we know each other we all know each other. I'm going to encourage everyone to. Well, I, there we go, Erica has has used her to follow Erica's lead and and use your little blue hand to raise your hand if you want to ask a question and by all means, turn on your camera if you so desire and and, or if you're, you know, obviously it's being recorded so if you don't have to turn on your camera, but it's always nice to see everyone's face especially for our speaker so Erica, please go ahead with with your question. Hi, Katie. First of all, thank you so much for a terrific presentation and congratulations to you because I sincerely appreciate the investment needed to make a plan like this go through and to get all of that kind of investment and stakeholder buy in that's required so I, you know, I want to underscore for the students here, just how heavy a lift that is so thank you, thank you very much appreciate it. I have a question that has two parts, because you talked about how, as part of the preserve okay see plan you are seeking to bring under represented heritage, you know, to the four. And so to issues kind of pop out for me in the context of Oklahoma City. And so one of the things that you mentioned early on and the fact that there were native Native American populations who occupied these territories. And so one question is how did the Native American perspective and publics participate in this and how do you see it reflected in the plan. And then the second was a is a question that, you know, many cities are grappling with right now. What is the history of racially restrictive covenants and the way in which oftentimes we as preservationists are choosing to preserve neighborhoods that were racially restrictive. And I know that in the case of Oklahoma City, there were, you know histories of racial restrictions so how, how did those things come into play, if at all, in the context of your planning process. Sure. So we, I have to say we didn't get a great amount of input from the Native American population here, Oklahoma City is a little bit different than some other parts of the state because when we say it was the unassigned that means tribes were not assigned there. So whereas up around Tulsa and Osage County you have some really and other parts of the state as well you have some really impressive structures that were built by tribes before Oklahoma became a state Oklahoma City's region of the state really didn't have that architectural legacy. Now of course there were tribes that were in the state, prior to relocation. And there is not an insignificant Native American population here in the city, although many of them come from other parts of the state and other parts of the country. Whether they were, you know relocated here in the 1970s, or just have moved to be in an urban area. I feel like that is something that we have yet to really tap into, we didn't have as strong of a built environment to reference for that Native American population but it is certainly something that is a priority for, you know, future outreach efforts to to reach that part of the city. As far as the neighborhoods with covenant restrictions that sort of thing Oklahoma City absolutely has that history. We initially had, well, pre statehood the city was pretty free and not there. There are lots of stories about that are not being really aggressive segregation in place in Oklahoma City, but with statehood. Lots of you know all the Jim Crow laws came into effect immediately that was pretty much the first thing the state legislature took on when we became a state. So the city implemented zoning ordinances that specified where African Americans could live in the city. And, you know, defined a certain boundary for an area on the east side of the railroad tracks, moving from the river to the north. Those were eventually struck down as unconstitutional, but of course, the covenant restrictions cloud restrictions that said you can't sell this property to an African American. And the gentleman's agreement between kind of real estate brokers and that sort of thing about where who they would sell a house to and where continued for decades and decades. And really to this day shapes the way our city is populated the way our public school system functions. So many things about the way our city still is to this day. It has come up many times in discussion about preserving single family neighborhoods in general, versus increasing density in those neighborhoods that they have a legacy of racism. I know that many of our earliest neighborhoods were platted without any of those restrictions because they were platted pre statehood and didn't go into that detail in the class we have some that are, you know, handwritten with a hand drawn seal on them, because I guess they didn't have sealed yet. But that is definitely something that is associated with neighborhoods of that era and that today people see as really problematic so it's a it's an uphill battle I think for preservation here and in many other cities to preserve that of preserving the character of a neighborhood the physical massing and design of a neighborhood doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to preserve the the policies that shaped it into what it is today. Other questions. Thank you. Thank you. I know that Andrew wants to ask about the Oklahoma. Maybe not maybe not. We're not going to ask you to sing it Katie. Okay. Just following up on Erica's question. I am so intrigued by the notion of place making and community appearance coming, you know, the way that those are brought together. You know, and obviously, there is a degree of kind of the plan is object centric it's kind of built environment centric what what what one understands community appearance to be what do the buildings look like, not so much what do they look like. But of course they're related, I imagine. So, so how did the question of defining a community's appearance. Get discussed in those community meetings because I can imagine, for example, right. Certain communities wanting to, you know, and have it the street differently. And and and have be, you know, take over the street maybe I'm thinking, I'm just thinking out loud, you know, you know stalls with food being distributed on the on the street. You know, I know. I don't know really the whole makeup of Oklahoma but I can imagine that that might lead to some clashes or just some, you know, discussions about what is appropriate or not appropriate to do on the street or or or how is what is a street as a as a public or as a public space where we appear in public. Is that present in terms of your discussions. Yeah, so we have, you know, we have numerous populations that are from different parts of the country different parts of the world. Oklahoma City has a significant Hispanic population, much of it concentrated in South Oklahoma City around an area called Capitol Hill, and there is certainly a different aesthetic to the businesses and the way they decorate their their businesses their signage their color schemes there's also a different aesthetic to the types of home renovations that we see happen we have a significant. A significant part of the population that does masonry work and does construction work and they will do work on the homes in the area. We're going to show an off brickwork reclaiming skills things like that, and you can drive through areas and you absolutely know that's the population that lives there and that's the kind of work that they're doing and the look that they're going for with those properties. We have an Asian district that we have a pretty large Vietnamese population in Oklahoma City that came here as refugees during the Vietnam War. Obviously, those businesses that population has yet another aesthetic for how they want their their properties to look their shops and their restaurants and signage and things like that. So, it is something that has come up in discussion about the plan and about other tools that we've discussed developing going forward that how do you incorporate sensitivity to the transitions that have happened in these parts of the city. And the populations that now live there and that have ownership of those areas as part of their identity and not just hold it to a more traditional strict kind of preservation aesthetic. And it comes up to with, you know, even areas that don't have a certain ethnic identity tied to them, even just looking at business districts where we know historically they were very cluttered with lots of signage that today we don't think looks pretty. Getting people over that hurdle of preservation doesn't necessarily mean it has to look pretty. It didn't always look like Main Street USA and Disneyland so I'm thinking as well about the things that people tend to find aggressive or negative or like sounds and smells on the street. Your plan is mostly about visual regulation isn't it. Yeah, it really is sound offenses or olfactory offenses. Yeah, we didn't go into that. I was struck by the the core. One of the one of the mentions during the during the talk about the desire that you had which I thought was so interesting about making preservation, the quickest and the cheapest route to development. I think that it would be essentially lowest hanging fruit in the development. That seemed to me so, so smart. And so obvious in a way to, but but, but how, how did that play out how did you come to that. I think as working in preservation and we're even working in planning in general, we all have these, these goals in mind and these ideals of what development should look like and you think why, why wouldn't everyone just do that. It's, it looks wonderful and people will love it. And then as we talked to developers and architects and builders. We realized how, how many hurdles can be in the way of renovating a historic building that no longer meets code for the parking requirements, or for the setbacks that their signage doesn't comply so they have to go get a variance if they want to, you know, reconstruct their historic sign. They, it's an eight plex but it's in a neighborhood that's now not zoned for multi family. And saying that you know, we look at those projects and say well why wouldn't you just do that that would be the best possible outcome and they look at them and say, it's going to take me another three to six months to get that done, and I'm going to have to pay all these other fees for all of these other, you know, appeals and variances and rezoning applications. It's easier to just scrape the site, which I can do with a demo permit and no other requirements, and then build something that meets code, you know, to the letter. So that was a big, a big point for us, I think to say as we launched this code update that's the next step of the comprehensive plan. So we're going to look at whether or not our code is really encouraging and facilitating the development that we want, or is it keeping people from doing those projects that we want to see. I know there's a few people here that have been looking at codes and have been looking at, and looking at the relationship of historic preservation to different building codes. Anybody, please jump in. But was your approach to essentially wave historic properties from those kinds of code constraints. So in order to ease the preservation process. So for example, ADA codes or perform energy performance codes, or other such restrictions is, was that the approach. There will probably be something that is a tiered approach to looking at buildings that are just existing buildings, it's, you know, a large area of the city where everything was built within a certain time period. They may or may not be doing a true, you know, tax credit eligible preservation project but they're keeping the building. Let's make sure that the code fits the existing development pattern, so that they can do what they need to do in that area. Then we have also suggested having kind of another tier of buildings where they are truly doing a rehab, maybe they're willing to do an easement on the building, you know, a preservation easement or maybe they're willing to designate it as a historic landmark. And then we can provide some additional kind of zoning relief for a project that has even more hurdles to get over with a change in use or, you know, other matters that don't meet the established codes. And the zoning code side of things where we have, you know, the planning department and planning commission really has the ability to use that to craft the development that we want to see when it comes to building code we're a little more tied to what the state requires what the, you know, city has adopted, but we did talk as part of the development of the plan about the fact that the city has adopted the international code for existing buildings but it's not really offered up to developers. It's not something that city staff automatically pulls out and references when a project comes in for an existing building you have to know that that's the code that you need to use you have to be familiar with it and be able to reference the sections. So, I think there's a real education opportunity there both for the development community and for city staff to make sure that we are using that to its fullest extent. This is so great Katie I love this because we're in the weeds we're in the weeds of code and something that I think it's so important for students to hear because there's something utterly perplexing when you go to file for a permit a building permit in New York City, for example, but it is true and as you're mentioning in Oklahoma as well, where you get to pick under certain conditions, which building code you're going to be reviewed under. And you can say no no I want to I want to or I can be because of these particular circumstances be reviewed by the 1934 code or the 1964 code or whatever code. Yeah, so there. And that happens because one, when you're submitting your, you know that and you can you can make the ask. And if you don't know that you, you just reviewed by whatever the latest code is. Yeah. So, so here you are telling us that that you really have to be a very sophisticated developer to be able to walk up to the building department and make us make a request of that kind. I mean this is not every man's knowledge you know not everybody walking off the street is going to be able to know that. So do you find that it is really the large developers that are getting the benefit and the small modern pop kind of, you know developers they have a, maybe a small commercial building that they want to develop are kind of not getting the benefits of the code. You know, Oklahoma City is a really, really big small town, and as big as we are, you know, the 25th largest population in the country. There, there is a relatively small community here that is doing construction doing development doing legal work for development. So I think a lot of people, just within those local networks are able to navigate to what they need to do, but there is definitely a divide between people who have the time and the resources to hire an attorney to hire, you know an architect who knows how to process versus someone who is just coming in with a very small project, you know a contractor that they've hired, and it's just going to walk up to the desk and wait to be told what's allowed. So. Again, anybody that wants to ask a question please jump in I don't want to monopolize the conversation so raise your hand, turn your screen however you want to jump in. I just want to say, you know, how impressive it is to see what you've done in such a short period of time. I mean what a meteoric career you've had seriously you know because now you're at the top of the food chain in Oklahoma City making all the decisions, right. And that's truly impressive and and for me really rewarding to see how much of the, the preservation ethos has stuck with you, and has driven your career. And how you brought that to the world of planning in a way to better planning and better the process. So that's really, really impressive. And the other thing that really struck me when you when you were speaking was this question of just how very little was landmarked in Oklahoma. Yes, 30 years ago and how much work there is still to do we tend to think of you know preservation being so, you know, old in a way as a practice. And it's showing us that it's, you know, that in 2015 there were only two landmarks to individual. Yeah, there were four in 2015 and then we've done five more since then. And that was a real. But an undercurrent of the preservation plan and trying to grow the program and say we have to start doing these where we do have that property owner support, and people are proud of the project they've done and they want it to be a landmark to get people used to the idea that this is a tool we have and a tool that we can use so maybe someday will be able to use it on a property that actually is threatened to make a difference. Erica. Yeah, kind of drawing from some of the points that Jorge raises he was, he was talking about codes he was, he was, he was noodling me because I've been working on energy codes project in relationship to preservation. So I was curious because in the plan okay see there was clearly an element that looked at, you know, I think it was green okay see and was, you know, focused on conservation from an energy and sustainability perspective. But Oklahoma is an oil rich state it has a long history of, of, of oil exploration. So, can you talk a little bit about how preservation and renewable energy or sustainable energy interface in your process like were there discussions of how do you retrofit and improving retrofits or use for example of photovoltaics things like that. So, in 2012 actually just prior to me starting with the city, the Historic Preservation Commission adopted new guidelines that are the design and sustainability guidelines and standards for Oklahoma City historic districts, and that addressed things like solar things like wind things like substitute materials and insulated windows and using storm windows for improved insulation. So those are the things that generally homeowners are asking to do to make their home more energy efficient. So that was one thing that had had been accomplished, to some extent, prior to the preservation plan. Parallel to the development of the preservation plan within the planning department was the development of a sustainability plan and it's called adapt okay see we went through the whole. We had the benefit of not getting in the local media whole bunch for, you know, controversially trying to designate a historic landmark and making lots of people mad. But beyond that we kind of paralleled each other through the development and the adoption process. And that plan looks at all the different things that the city can be doing to be more environmentally conscious to have more environmentally conscious development looks at the the impact that our current development pattern is having and is going to have on the development of Oklahoma City and the environment here. One kind of neat project that our sustainability office has been working on is looking at some urban core historic neighborhoods they weren't specifically looking for historic neighborhood but that's just the area that they settled on that have really serious flooding issues, and that that is increasing annually and getting worse and worse, and looking at how do we mitigate that in an area that is fully built out you know you can't just say make a, you know, put this over here and put that road over here where everything's already where it's going to go. And what do we do to have most minimal impact on, you know, the established built environment so that you don't disrupt people while mitigating that environmental change that is very clearly happening here. I mean that's certainly a challenge all too often we keep thinking that this is a coastal problem and it's not, you know, the latest research shows that it's all inland, you know, there's so much more inland waterway related flooding that's happening and it's not being given the same attention as the coast. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. Katie, I just want to again thank you so very much for joining us for for this virtual homecoming. We'll do it in person once once we are able to we will we owe you a dinner. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge your experiences and, and, and, you know, inspiring our students with the wonderful possibilities of preservation planning. Thank you so much. And again, if anybody has questions that you didn't want to ask on screen, feel free to email me. Happy to talk anytime. So thank you guys again for the opportunity. Terrific. Thank you so much Katie.