OKLAHOMA CITY — A resolution to remove discriminatory language from 13 plats in Oklahoma City was adopted recently by the City Council.
The subdivision plats are located in portions of the Crown Heights, Lincoln Terrace, Bath Second East View, and Edgemere Park neighborhoods.
“This is the first of many similar resolutions the City Council is expected to consider over the next few years,” OKC Public Information Officer Kristy Yager said. Oklahoma City has “more than 6,000 plats, all of which require manual review,” she said.
The original plat documents will not be edited or altered during the project, Yager said. When residents download their plat, a digital scan with the redaction will be visible, along with the original document. All property owners who live in these plats were notified about the process, she said.
Plats are detailed documents and maps that show how land is subdivided into individual parcels, how streets and alleys are arranged, and the restrictions, covenants, and limitations that govern how and for what purposes the land may be developed.
OKC’s Plat Amendment Project is an effort to identify and flag discriminatory language — such as historic racial covenants — embedded in local land records. “While these clauses are no longer legally enforceable, updating the public record ensures it is accurate and reflects the city’s values,” Yager said “When discriminatory language remains in official plat records, it continues to harm the communities it initially targeted,” Human Rights Commission Compliance Officer Emma Winiski said.
“Amending these documents is both a statement that Oklahoma City’s records should reflect who we are today, and a step toward ensuring they are consistent with current state and federal law.”
Senate Bill 1617, allowing municipalities to amend plat documents to remove discriminatory language, was signed into law in 2024 by Governor Kevin Stitt.
Historically, plats often contained restrictions that prohibited Black, Asian, Jewish, and other marginalized groups from buying or occupying properties within the subdivision.
The U.S. Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948 ruled that courts could no longer enforce these restrictions, and in 1968 the Fair Housing Act fully outlawed them. Despite these changes to the laws, many plat documents still contain these historical restrictions today.
Seventy-five people attended the Oklahoma City Human Rights Commission’s handson Plat Amendment Project event March 28.
During the two-hour session, volunteers reviewed more than 2,000 plats across Oklahoma City’s 621 square miles. That accounted for approximately 20% of all plats within the city limits.
Of those, about 9% contained discriminatory language, officials reported.
The Plat Amendment Project is moving forward in partnership with the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Quality Communities and Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, with help from graduate student William Willson, who is earning a dual master’s degree in city and regional planning and public health.
Some residents have asked why the City of OKC is not using artificial intelligence for this work, but “the process is more complex than it appears,” Yager said.
Plat documents are stored in several counties, and the city would need to collect and convert them into readable text before AI could analyze them. The city also would need to build and train a custom AI model and still rely on staff to review anything the system flags.
“Setting up that process would require significant time, funding and technical resources,” Yager said. “For a project of this size, human reviewers remain the most efficient and reliable option.”