At tonight’s City Council meeting, citizens will be allowed to voice their opinion concerning the Porter Avenue Corridor Project, which encompasses a 60-block area around Porter Avenue extending from Castro Street northward to Haddock, between Findlay Avenue and Peters Avenue.

The area being considered does not currently balance residential and business interests, Mayor Cindy Rosenthal said.

She said properties have been allowed to decay, the area is not walkable, and it has many hazards for automobile traffic.

“The importance of the corridor to the community, its interface with a number of residential neighborhoods and the location of important institutions like the Norman Regional Hospital campus are all reasons to act to insure it is vibrant, attractive and more pedestrian friendly in the future,” Rosenthal said.

The plan proposes changing Porter to three lanes between Robinson and Alameda and utilizing roundabouts at Porter’s intersections with Alameda and Acres.

It would also enact a line separating residential and commercial areas on the east and west side of the corridor.

“It is very important to create and establish a line for the area so that homeowners and businesses alike can prosper,” said councilman Al Atkins.

Councilwoman Cindy Dillingham has been involved with the project since its beginning and said the plan creates a vision for Porter Avenue.

“In response to citizen and business requests, the City has engaged in strategic planning to develop a vision, goals and objectives for the study area that best protect the neighborhoods, allow neighborhood revitalization, provide opportunity for businesses to grow, develop and come to the Porter area to create a mixed use neighborhood for Norman with walkable streetscapes, safe streets, better traffic control and enhanced quality of life with connectivity to the Main Street and Campus areas,” Dillingham said.

He said acceptance of the plan will not constitute any policy decisions.

“What Tuesday’s action does is accept information that will assist as the city moves forward working with the public to craft policy to meet the goals that come from the vision,” Dillingham said.

He said the passage of the plan will not set policy, will not authorize staff to enforce anything in the study document, will not authorize any taking of land by the city through eminent domain, will not spend public money, will not raise taxes, will not set design guidelines for property owners, will not change traffic configuration on Porter Avenue and does not choose any funding mechanism.

The next steps, if the action passes, will be to create a land use overlay, set design guidelines and develop implementation strategies for the project.

Implementation of the plan will take several years, said Rosenthal.

Some elements of the plan have raised public and business concerns, Atkins said. These concerns include project financing, traffic flow and pedestrian safety.

“I believe the Council, citizens, corridor residents, and businesses should have definitive answers to these questions for the plan to go forth,” Atkins said. “At this point, until the concerns are addressed, it does not have my complete support.”

On Sept. 10, the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the project to City Council.

“This initiative comes to the council with tremendous citizen participation and input … No plan is perfect or gets unanimous support, but the Porter effort combines the best of creativity, vision, and public participation,” Rosenthal said.