The modern house in the center of the 1300 block of South Gary Place stands in contrast to two early 20th Century houses next to it. The area is predominantly filled with Craftsman and Colonial-style bungalows.
The modern house in the center of the 1300 block of South Gary Place stands in contrast to two early 20th Century houses next to it. The area is predominantly filled with Craftsman and Colonial-style bungalows. Credit: Judd Slivka / Tulsa Flyer

At the corner of East 12th Street and South Gary Place sits a house you simply “can’t miss.” Nestled in midtown Tulsa’s Renaissance neighborhood, it’s bigger than the others and has dark gray panels. It doesn’t look like the single-family, Craftsman and Colonial-style houses neighbors take pride in.

Bothered by this outlier and an incoming three-story apartment complex, residents looked to the neighborhood association board for changes. Building plans are supposed to align with the Renaissance neighborhood’s character overlay, but this house still made the cut. 

“That’s how we found out our overlay, as it is right now, is really nothing like we thought,” said Tamra Moore, president of the Renaissance Neighborhood Association board. “It doesn’t preserve the look at all.”

An overlay helps protect the neighborhood’s overall look and feel by putting things like driveway widths or garage placement into zoning code. Renaissance was Tulsa’s first to get a neighborhood character overlay in 2022. Residents wanted to push back on replacing existing homes with new, bigger builds, like they saw happening in nearby Brookside. 

At first, neighbors were against the overlay, which was created by the neighborhood association and submitted to Tulsa City Council. They pointed to the many city neighborhoods with historic preservation status, where there tends to be strict rules on what you can do to your home. 

“People don’t like being told what they can and cannot do with their own property,” said Arena de Foddis, vice president and historian of Renaissance Neighborhood Association.

Tamra Moore, left and Arena de Foddis are leaders of the Renaissance Neighborhood Association.
Tamra Moore, left and Arena de Foddis are leaders of the Renaissance Neighborhood Association. Credit: Milo Gladstein / Tulsa Flyer

But as these out-of-character builds popped up, Renaissance neighbors started to see holes in their overlay. de Foddis says what they first submitted to the city wasn’t what they got, likely because this was a new concept to everyone. If their overlay had applied to residential multi-family homes, neighbors may not have complained about how the apartments were built. 

Renaissance Neighborhood Association held a special meeting in early March to propose edits on their character overlay. Only about 10 families showed up with comments, with a recording uploaded to the association’s closed Facebook group detailing the proposal. 

The changes, which were largely inspired by Florence Park neighborhood’s proposed overlay, specify things like a garage setback, maximum building length and roof pitch. Moore said it goes beyond aesthetics and also puts standards around things like paved driveways, which will help mitigate water runoff. 

“One of our little tags is ‘bringing the best of our past into our future,’ and I think that in a nutshell pulls it forward for us too,” de Foddis said. 

Neighborhood residents have until the end of March to submit questions and feedback to renaissance.neighbors@gmail.com. After that, the proposal heads to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) where public comment will be accepted. 

“It will be important for people in the neighborhood to show up at those meetings and either voice that they don’t like it, but especially to voice that they do,” Moore said. 

News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

Libby Hobbs is the cost of living reporter at the Tulsa Flyer. Libby is a proud graduate of the University of Georgia, where she studied journalism and music. She wrote for The Red & Black, an independent,...