2 weeks Ago
The rollout of Phase 1 of the multiyear rewrite of Santa Fe’s Land Development Code, also known as Chapter 14, is not good. In fact, it’s a disaster and indicative of an opaque administration. The public first saw a draft on Monday.
By Tuesday, staff and consultants were holding public meetings to introduce changes, which have been touted as simply cleanup and clarifications. Presumably, since they are in-person meetings only, they are also setting the stage for Phase 2 of the process. Calling it a “chapter” sounds like something to read before you fall asleep at night, but it’s 654 pages.
Give Clarion Associates, the Colorado-based consultants hired to tackle the behemoth, due credit — they went over every line in the beast, which is why they have 730 footnotes. Easily half the footnotes are unanswered questions posed to staff. The balance are suggestions and ideas Clarion has for changes to address in Phase 2.
Good luck. The process also empowered 12 individuals to serve on a citizens advisory group and 16 more to serve on a technical advisory group. Clarion did not choose the representatives; the administration did.
They met once a month for an hour. I know and respect most members, but they are little more than window-dressing for a process that is about to get very complicated and very political. As I read the footnotes, and I read them all, most questions posed to staff and the Clarion ideas are going to generate long and heated discussions (by whom?) with controversial decisions (by whom?).
Some are just downright confusing and don’t clarify anything. Some are just wrong. There are too many to enumerate in this column, but a few stand out.
One suggestion is limiting C-2 zoning districts to strictly commercial uses, excluding residential. But C-2 rezoning has lately been the go-to application for high-density residential aligning with the city’s expressed goals of walkable infill development. They also tie themselves in knots around “mobile homes,” “manufactured homes” and “modular homes.
” While we call things rolling down highways with license plates on the back “mobile homes,” that is not a legally allowed term. It was put to bed by the federal government in 1974, and everything built with axles since then must be called a manufactured home, yet Clarion still uses the term mobile homes throughout. A new term introduced is a “casita.
” Somehow that is different than a residential accessory dwelling unit or a tiny home, which is defined as a detached unit between 300 to 500 square feet on a foundation tied to sewer and water. Kind of like a manufactured home but smaller, I guess. The consultants also suggest the city could throw out its current checklist of good stuff developers can choose to earn necessary points for projects to go forward in different zoning areas and instead adopt “form-based codes” Form-based codes are relatively new concepts being adopted in progressive cities, and Santa Fe’s long-range planning committee pondered them 10 years ago before Mayor Alan Webber abandoned the committee, but Clarion provides no definition of what a form-based code is or how it works.
The summary table of permitted uses is also confusing. Maybe it is yet to be filled in, but in its current form it’s misleading. It implies, for instance, one can’t have a pet-grooming business or hair salon in residential neighborhoods, but home occupation ordinances clearly say one can.
Footnote 314, from someone named Paul commenting on possible changes to historic review districts, summarizes the entire Phase 1 rollout when he says, “This section needs to be thoughtfully reconsidered.” You think?.
