BIXBY, OKLA (KTUL) — Bixby residents pushing back on a recommendation from the city’s planning commission when it comes to developments.
The recommendation was to rezone this land next to Lantern Hill from agricultural use to residential use, but as multiple residents have told NewsChannel 8, they want to see more roads and schools before they continue building more homes.
Bixby residents have started a petition hoping to suspend residential developments in South Bixbby until infrastructure catches up.
“That stuff takes a long time to develop and engineer and then get building. And so that’s my concern. If we continue to develop at the rate that we’re going right now, then we’re going to completely inundate our schools,” said Gary Halstead, a Bixby resident.
Halstead is also the author of this petition that now has 396 signatures and he says all four of the elementary schools in Bixby are over capacity.
“Our schools already can’t handle all of the students that are already in it,” said Monica Rios another Bixby resident.
Rios says on top of more schools, they also need more roads going in and out of the city.
“We only have one bridge coming in and out of Bixby. And then the other way out is to take 151st down to the 75. If we have a major catastrophe, a natural disaster, people aren’t going to be able to get out,” said Rios.
“If you crammed 300 houses in here, that’s going to put more and more kids into the school district. That’s going to put more and more cars on this road right here,” said Halstead,
These concerns were all brought up after the city’s planning commission voted to approve rezoning the land next to Lantern Hill from agricultural to residential use.
“They told us that the final step, the final chance that we had to stop this development was to show up at the city council meeting tonight,” said Adam Roberts, another Bixby resident.
But that agenda item was postponed two weeks from tonight’s meeting.
NewsChannel 8 reached out to the city of Bixby for comment but city leaders were not able to do an interview today, but they say the reason for postponing, was because of revisions that needed to be made.
“We’ve heard that that was postponed two weeks because the developer requested it so they could go back and make changes to their plan and try to get this approved to the city,” said Roberts.
Residents we spoke with addressed other important infrastructure needs, like addressing water pressure issues in their town and fixing the roads they already have.
The agenda item that was postponed will be picked back up in the next Bixby City Council meeting on Feb. 10.