Northwest OKC plan team set to assemble this week
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record
The Journal Record - Article (http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=96087)
February 17, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Northwest Sector Plan in Oklahoma City is waiting to be written.

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Ken Bryan, with the Oklahoma City Planning Department, is project manager for the northwest sector planning project. He will oversee a planning period over the next nine months to amend a portion of the Comprehensive Plan 2000-2020 adopted by the Planning Department in 2000. (Photo by Maike Sabolich)

The guidelines are in place, but what will materialize over the next nine months will help define the development of northwest Oklahoma City over the next 20 years.The northwest sector is the latest area of town to be addressed as part of a Comprehensive Plan 2000-2020 adopted by the Oklahoma City Planning Department in 2000.

In the years since adoption, four sectors have been identified for individual plans. The plans for the southwest and southeast sectors of the city have already been adopted. A plan for the northeast sector of town is also in the works. As each area is adopted it amends that portion of the Comprehensive Plan.

Ken Bryan, with the city Planning Department, is project manager for the northwest sector planning project.

He said the final report will look at future land use as defined in the comprehensive plan and make sure it is consistent with the goals of the city, business owners and area residents.

The plan team, made up of volunteers and stakeholders, will look at 100 square miles from the Broadway Extension on the east to the city limit at Richland Road on the west and from the northern city limit to Wilshire Avenue on the south.

When the group is formed this week they will meet every two weeks for six months, at which time they hope to have a draft of the final plan that will be submitted for citizen review and ultimately sent to the Planning Commission.
“We’re targeting adoption by the end of the calendar year,” Bryan said.
The plans are meant to address the new types of development that can occur, where the growth will be, and the services that will be required to support new growth and development.

“We’ll thoroughly address all the subject matter in the plan,” Bryan said.
Jade Noles, president of Caliber Development, is working on The Grove, a housing and retail project on 640 acres in northwest Oklahoma City. The first two phases of the project are done, and about 60 homes are completed or under construction. The master plan calls for more than 1,300 homes in the next decade with some commercial space.

Noles said infrastructure improvements and plans to widen two-lane roads near the development will help with its continued growth, especially the widening of Portland Avenue to expand Highway 74 to a four-lane, divided highway.

“The biggest thing for us has really been addressed and that is the need for infrastructure, especially along Portland,” he said. “That’s going to be a huge benefit to the whole north side of town.”

Very interesting. Thank you for posting Metro.

just me, but i always thought they (odot) needs to extend the "freeway" 74 up along portland and wrap around north edmond to i-35, not just widen portland with stop lights. why just end freeway 74 at 150th (i think it is)? no vision.

Gonna be lots of eminent domain work...

SH74/Portland has long range plans to be highway (like Lake Hefner Parkway south of Memorial) all the way to Danforth and 4-lane from there to Waterloo. It all comes down to money and demographics, the situation at the time (late-80's) dictated it to Memorial. That has been the long range plan since the late 70's and have bee acquiring right of way since then.

SH74/Portland has long range plans to be highway (like Lake Hefner Parkway south of Memorial) all the way to Danforth and 4-lane from there to Waterloo. It all comes down to money and demographics, the situation at the time (late-80's) dictated it to Memorial. That has been the long range plan since the late 70's and have bee acquiring right of way since then.

Do you have a source on this? I have been looking for this information for a while.

My dad was the project manager on the Lake Hefner Parkway project. I know I remember seeing some long range planning documents in the late 80's laying around the office. It was in the ODOT master plan that I saw, not OKC's. I would imagine that it is available from ODOT but may have been revised of course. I know that preliminary right-of-way plans for the extension were created, but I don't know how far they have gone with those plans.

My dad was the project manager on the Lake Hefner Parkway project. I know I remember seeing some long range planning documents in the late 80's laying around the office. It was in the ODOT master plan that I saw, not OKC's. I would imagine that it is available from ODOT but may have been revised of course. I know that preliminary right-of-way plans for the extension were created, but I don't know how far they have gone with those plans.

Thank You

It would be huge to extend on North even just a few miles. It is such a horrible bottle neck right now.

It is such a horrible bottle neck right now.
a BIG amen,
that is a really growing area and it needs more than just widening a road.