The Downtown Neighborhoods of Tuscaloosa are bordered by the University of Alabama, a growing and expanding State University which plans to enlarge its student population by 40%, to 28,000, over the next decade; a soon to be completely revitalized downtown area; and a riverfront area for which there are also extensive growth plans. The City of Tuscaloosa, already an All-American City, will be a very different community by 2010.

The downtown communities want to be a constructive participant in this growth. We have organized our membership into committees and task forces to allow all members to serve in on a committee or two in their interest areas, and thus help our communities to grow with the City and the University as a whole in a harmonious manner. The task forces and committees will make monthly reports to the OCA board. These committees and their active members, along with the Board Members of the OCA, are the principal resources and conduits through which the OCA will conduct most of its activities.

The committees are:

Communications Committee

This committee will communicate via email and post with the OCA membership regarding the OCA's activities. The committee will also develop additional methods of disseminating information (for example, via newsletter, website, in the local media) to the membership and interested members of the public.

University and Landlord Relations Committee

The University and Landlord Relations Commmittee will be composed of existing OCA members who are current members of The University's Neighborhood Partnership Committee as well as any other OCA members interested in working with the university in terms of long-range planning, growth, and other issues. The university is our largest neighbor, and the administration has shown great interest in working closely with the OCA.

This committee is also charged with meeting with landlord representatives and SGA representåtives to discuss the problems related to student housing in the campus area and Historic Districts. The committee will work toward developing solutions for problems such as noise, trash and maintenance of properties as well as methods of requiring landlords to monitor their own properties to insure that there are no violations of the law. Of particular interest to this committee and the OCA membership at large is the enforcement of the the city code defining how many students can live in one house, which is three unrelated persons in some areas and two unrelated persons in the Historic Districts.

Governmental Affairs Committee

This committee covers activities of the City Council, Zoning Board of Adjustment, Planning Commission, Historic Preservation Commission, Tuscaloosa City Board of Education and the Park and Recreation Authority.

Long Range Planning Task Force

This task force is charged with the task of creating a vision for the future of the OCA and working with other task forces/committees in formulating a long-term agenda and A One-Step-at-a-Time plan to improve the OCA neighborhoods in the areas of traffic, health, safety, maintenance, density, and related issues. The task force will focus on the long-range planning and zoning project with the City Planning Department and will develop a pro-active approach rather than a reactive approach to zoning and the future planning of the City, which will affect the OCA districts.

One of the Long Range Planning Task Force's immediate efforts will be to attempt to re-zone a number of areas in the Heritage Districts and in areas between the Heritage Districts and the university. These areas are currently zoned multi-family; we would like to see these areas rezoned to reflect the single family nature of the areas as they currently exist. Hopefully, this would stop the construction of large apartment complexes immediately adjacent to downtown residential neighborhoods and maintain at least a two or three block buffer zone between them and residential neighborhoods.

Representatives of this task force will also attend the monthly city planning commission meetings and monitor the agendas to alert OCA officers and members of any contemplated actions which would materially affect the OCA neighborhoods.

Social Committee

The Social Committee coordinates social act ivies including annual spring and fall picnics and luminary walk-about. The committee gets dates and particulars to the Communication Committee in timely manner for invitations and notices to be posted.