The back half of Monday evening’s Edmond City Council meeting was punctuated by significant tonal shifts — from angry dejection to tearful jubilation — as members first approved rezoning for an east Edmond housing development that neighbors loudly opposed and then continued their efforts to purge local neighborhood plats of lingering racist language.
While the two topics were tucked near the end of the evening’s agenda, each claimed significant time. Multiple east Edmondites took to the podium to oppose rezoning a parcel of land at the northeast corner of Coffee Creek Road and Air Depot Boulevard from “general agricultural” to a “planned unit development,” with a proposal to introduce around 125 housing units on a roughly 29.5 acre tract. Much of the property consists of flood plains, according to the city’s documentation, leaving approximately 12 acres of land as developable space for the “Creekside Cove” housing project. The development would include single-family and two-family housing units and is catty-corner to the East Fork PUD, a high-density development planned to include townhomes, single-family homes, office space and retail space. That property was rezoned in September 2024.
Bill Thompson was one of several east Edmond residents who addressed council members in opposition to the PUD, describing the project as a “bait-and-switch.”
“The first thing it starts with is single-family homes, but when you dig through the PUD, it’s all these high-density townhomes,” Thompson said.
He, like several others that spoke Monday evening, noted east Edmond roads may struggle to bear the load of developments introducing hundreds of dwellings to a relatively sparse area.
“Right now, I don’t see the city having the ability to fix what it’s going to create by approving this with the road problems,” Thompson said.
Other community members spoke to common concerns property owners in east Edmond share when new developments move through city processes — degradation of a more rural way of life within Edmond’s city limits and preservation of the Cross Timbers.
A majority of the city council, however, viewed the project as part of a practical reality for the city’s future. If such developments are absent from east Edmond, councilors said, the city’s financial future would be bleak, and the funding to improve infrastructure east of Interstate 35 would not be available.
“These are the most difficult decisions that we often make, because we’re balancing so many different interests,” Ward 3 Councilwoman Christin Mugg said. “We need pockets of density in east Edmond to support the vital infrastructure that we need, and when we know they’re zoned a certain way, the city can plan and prioritize appropriately. It was clear when the East Edmond 2050 plan was presented to us, if we have all of east Edmond be half-acre, acre lots, we can’t support that financially and economically.”
Mugg noted other stakeholders include businesses and families that want younger employees and family members to live in Edmond, adding that the city’s average home price is currently “not attainable” for younger residents.
“Somebody said, ‘We don’t need this.’ We actually have a lot of data that shows we need a variety of home options for people,” Mugg said. “This is something that we need, both for economics and infrastructure support, as well as different places for people that work and live here to choose to live in.”
Ward 2 Councilman Barry Moore, whose ward largely spans the rural stretches of east Edmond and contains the project in question, was the lone “No” vote on the issue.
“I think we ought to pump the brakes here,” Moore said. “I’ve looked at it from a macro and a micro viewpoint, I don’t like it either way. (…) I know for a fact you can sit at the corner of Covell and Air Depot, twice a day, five days a week, for 22 minutes to get through that intersection. I think if this is a good idea tonight, it’ll be a really good idea five years from now. We don’t have the infrastructure out there. We just had [the East Fork PUD] approved for 400 homes right there by it, and some retail. It’s too much, too fast, and that part of town can’t handle it.”
Like Mugg, Mayor Darrell Davis spoke to what he sees as the economic necessity of development in east Edmond.
“[The City of Edmond] will not survive financially if we just keep putting all of our density west of I-35,” Davis said. “You on the east side will not get the benefits, because there won’t be anybody there to give you the benefits. It seems backwards, but the retail’s not going to come until there’s houses. It’s like when we got our first McDonald’s. We had to hit the number of 60,000 people in Edmond to get a McDonald’s. Now, it’s the same thing. With competition out there for getting retail to come, we have to hit a certain number.”
When the city council finally approved the rezoning request with all members except Moore in favor, those who spoke in opposition of the development loudly made their displeasure known as they shuffled out of the council chambers.
“Build it next to one of their houses and see how they like it,” one angry resident quipped aloud while exiting.
“For what it’s worth, I would be delighted to have these homes next to me,” Mugg said as the crowd departed.
City Council lightning round axes more racist plat language
An unofficial lightning round began when the council took up its next several agenda items, moving one-by-one through a list of nine Edmond neighborhood plats that required removal of racist language that previously prevented non-white or non-Native American residents from owning property in Edmond. Since each of the nine items procedurally required separate motions, councilmembers were quick to motion their approval and even quicker to second their colleagues.
The City of Edmond has already removed such language, which was ruled unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, from several neighborhoods under laws passed in 2023 by Rep. John Pfeiffer (R-Orlando) and in 2024 by Sen. Kristen Thompson (R-Edmond). The laws were passed after Edmond businessman Wayne Frost brought the issue to light.
The neighborhood plats updated at Monday’s meeting included Boulevard Heights, Capitol View 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Additions, and Clergen Place, lots 1 through 68.
Kendra Golden, a resident of the Capitol View neighborhood, stood to address the council and thanked members for their effort to eliminate the unsavory language from official documents, which shifted the tenor of the meeting.
“I know this isn’t a normal part of a real estate closing, but I was handed the tattered yellowed stack of papers that is our property’s historic record. As I combed through it, I was heartbroken to find the systemic racial discrimination that I knew was a regular part of our nation’s history was also a part of the history of my own community and home,” Golden said, growing audibly emotional in her remarks. “I realize that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 already makes this language unenforceable. Nonetheless, I am grateful for your motion to officially right this wrong and make it clear that all are welcome to make their home in our hometown.”
Cody Boyd, also a resident of Capitol View, shared the impact removing the plat language would have on his family in future generations. Boyd said he has the documents to his home framed on his wall.
“Knowing that the last page of the plat contains language that’s just such a stain on a great piece of heritage for our family, we’ve invested in that house, invested in that neighborhood and want it to be something that we can hand down to future generations,” Boyd said. “It never would have affected me. I’m a white man, but my wife is not white, so our son is not white. Knowing that language in an official legal document could have precluded him from ever owning that property, I hope folks realize and you know that we’re grateful, at least I’m grateful, for all the work that has gone into it.”
Departing council leaves ‘freeholder’ removal to successors, but records support
While the City of Edmond continues its effort to remove past inequities from neighborhood plats, the current outgoing city council — of which only two members will remain on the dais after new officials are sworn in May 5 — also laid the groundwork Monday for new city leaders to remove exclusionary language that remains in the Edmond City Charter.
In a recent letter of counsel, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office found Edmond’s “freeholder” requirement for candidates seeking public office — which says residents who do not own land cannot seek election in Edmond — unconstitutional. It is unclear how widely the provision has been applied over the decades, and Mugg previously stated she believed the qualification to be unconstitutional, not considering it when vetting candidates to succeed current mayoral candidate Tom Robins as the Ward 1 councilmember.
Still, the AG’s office recommended the charter be amended as a “housekeeping matter.” While the charter amendment process was not formally started Monday, the Edmond City Council unanimously passed a resolution signaling their support for such a change to incoming councilmembers Phil Fraim, Preston Watterson, and whichever candidate emerges victorious in the April 1 mayoral election between Robins and Mark Nash.
Traffic, development study for U.S. 77 corridor gets green light
The Edmond City Council also approved funding to contract engineering firm Freese and Nichols, Inc. for a traffic safety and development study of the U.S. Route 77 corridor, specifically covering the Broadway Extension up to 2nd Street and from 2nd Street to I-35. Funding for the study is largely provided by the federal “Safe Streets and Roads For All” grant, which will carry 80 percent of project’s estimated $620,000 cost.
Edmond long-range planner Hannah Nolen said the study will, broadly, consider ways to improve the corridor as the “backbone” of Edmond’s transportation system. Among the primary goals of the study is improving traffic safety and flow along the corridor, Nolen said, “making it safer for all users” by improving congestion alongside walking and bicycling options. The study will also consider a land use plan for parcels along the corridor.
Nolen said the study will take roughly 16 months to complete, with a presentation to city council estimated by summer 2026.
