In 2006, real estate developer Jeff Branch convinced the city to annex land near Agua Fria Village to help him build a 222-unit subdivision. In return, Branch agreed to bring the city 23 acre-feet of water rights and make 40 percent of his housing units meet the city’s affordability guidelines. Five years and a devastating housing market crash later, the lot for Cielo Azul, the name of Branch’s city-approved project, remains empty.
Now, Branch has a plan to finally fill it—by changing Cielo Azul’s blueprint to a mobile home park, with smaller lots targeted toward people looking to rent, not own. But to Linda Flatt, who lives in the Las Acequias subdivision near the lot, Branch’s latest idea is a reversion to “the lowest-common denominator.”
Flatt, like many nearby residents, feels that another mobile home park could result in increased crime and lower property values.
“We don’t need another trailer park,” Flatt says, pointing out that the city already has 17 mobile home parks. “Let’s find something that is more substantial. It’s time to move on.”
She’s not the only one upset over the mobile park proposal.
“[Cielo Azul] was done with a specific purpose and intent: for single family housing,” City Councilor Miguel Chavez tells SFR, “not rentals, not mobile homes.”
Branch, whose name is behind the developments of Zafarano Road and San Isidro Plaza, has a track record of pushing through ambitious proposals in the city for the past two decades.
“When it comes to his projects and development, he will go head-to-head, toe-to-toe” with anyone to achieve his goals, Flatt, who’s active with the Las Acequias Neighborhood Association, tells SFR.
(Although Flatt has sparred with Branch in the past—she sued him a few years ago after falling and injuring herself at a fundraiser he was hosting; Branch says she fell “after too many glasses of wine”—she says her opposition isn’t personal.)
But according to Agua Fria Village Association President William Mee, allowing Branch to build mobile homes would simply be another in a long list of city concessions to Cielo Azul.
“At some point, the project is going to cost the city more than it gets back in property taxes,” Mee tells SFR. “At some point, it’s not going to be an advantage at all.”
In 2009, the city gave Branch, who struggled to find bankers to finance Cielo Azul, a three-year extension to complete the project. The next year, he successfully lobbied City Council to drop the required amount of affordable homes on Cielo Azul from 40 percent to 30 percent.
Despite those concessions, Branch says his company still couldn’t find a partner willing to build foundation homes. In December, Branch Design and Development started working with Albuquerque-based mobile home developer Karsten Homes on the new proposal.
Branch says Cielo Azul would still be a gated community with more amenities and higher-end living units than the city’s other mobile parks. He adds that people think badly of mobile homes for some valid reasons: Many trailers in Santa Fe are outdated and in bad condition, for instance.
“I know the model in their heads is old [mobile] homes, and I don’t blame them,” Branch says. But he also says some neighbors’ complaints are unjustified.
“A big part of it is racism,” Branch says. “The connotation is that Mexicans will live there. That’s unfortunate.”
Branch still has a long way to go to gain public favor for the new proposal, and Branch Design representatives were no-shows at a neighborhood meeting scheduled for Jan. 24.
Mayor David Coss, who received $2,500 in campaign contributions from Branch in 2010, says the city has never changed an affordable housing project into a mobile home park. Coss adds that the city doesn’t want to add mobile homes.
Currently, the city is reviewing whether the mobile home park would require new zoning for the project. If it doesn’t, Branch can apply for building permits and move forward with the project, but both Branch and the neighborhood associations say they want to work things out in discussions before any plans go forward.
Branch has at least one on-the-ground ally: Ramon Romero, an Agua Fria resident who clashed publicly with developers in the past over a parcel of land that his family had owned for 350 years.
“Branch is a fair man,” Romero, who sold his Agua Fria house to Branch as part of the San Isidro project, tells SFR. “You just have to be up-front and honest—and keep him honest.”
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Editor's note: Although SFR did ask Flatt about the lawsuit mentioned in this article, we did not ask her specifically about Branch's claim that she had too many glasses of wine. Flatt tells SFR she had only half a glass of wine and that "I fell because the patio didn’t have sufficient lighting, since it was at dusk and I didn’t see the step, not because I had a half a glass of wine." Read her full comment below this article.
What I'm saying here is that a Cost Benefit Analysis should be done by the City and see if this MHP brings in more revenue in Property Taxes and GRT taxes, or if it costs more to maintain the city parks, roads, sewer lines, water lines. Sure it will bring in some cash for the two years that it is being constructed. But then what? How about in ten years when pipes and roads crack and the repairs are estimated in the millions? Is it such a great deal then?
Has the City Council already given too many concessions to the developer in water rights (200 versus present 23), affordable housing (from 30%-20) open space and trails, roads, acequia easements, and the lot line decrease (from 20 to 10 feet). If that ten foot lot line has a wooden fence dividing it, it then violates the International Fire Code and any one trailer on fire will ignite the next one on fire. What if a firefighter is injured, or God forbid killed, in this fire? The wrongful death lawsuit will eat up revenues faster than they can be generated. The thing to do is require Jeff Branch to come back from his retirement in Barcelona, Spain and tell him he has to give back to this community and not take so much away from it.
It is nice to have developers build houses and create jobs, but then the City gets stuck maintaining the quality of life for a subdivision at taxpayer’s expense. In other words, you give your money to increase the profits of developers. Is this fair?
I am responding to the story “Trailer Clash” by Joey Peters [news, Feb. 8]. The main concept of this story was about a very important issue in the southwest sector, to offer more sustainable and affordable homes, not to just add another trailer park to our already crowded area (17 trailer parks, estimated 2,500 trailers). If the city changes the zoning for Jeff Branch, they are allowing the Cielo Azul project of 39.45 acres to become another trailer park.
The main information in the article was informative but, unfortunately, the Reporter decided to include Jeff Branch making an untrue allegation against me. I want to clear my name and get an apology from this “newspaper.” Jeff talked about how I had filed a law suit against him four years ago. He claimed that I had fallen “after too many glasses of wine” and injured myself. That is UNTRUE. Yes, I did file a lawsuit because I fell and seriously injured my face hitting a stone bench. More accurately, I fell because the patio didn’t have sufficient lighting, since it was at dusk and I didn’t see the step, not because I had a half a glass of wine. It appears that he will do anything to get his way but to make this kind of false allegation, what does that show?
Mr. Branch needs to understand that I am just a part of this southwest area group, trying to make a difference. If this property had been bought by another developer, our group would still be saying the same things and trying to prevent this kind of project. This is about not wanting to change the zoning from R-6 to MHP and trying to create a project with affordable, sustainable homes to better our community. We want everyone involved to re-evaluate; to sit down with the developer, the city and a committee of concerned citizens and talk it through. Let’s move forward. And, stick to the subject, shall we?
Linda Wilder Flatt
Santa Fe
"Affordable Housing" implies housing that is intended to be permanent and should, as actual housing uusually does over time, increase in value.
Mobile Homes are like cars. The minute they leave the lot theystart decreasing in value.
That is why there are so few people standing in line to buy trailers formerly used by FEMA as temporary housing.
Did I mention often enough that those trailers are temporary housing? Temporary means, according to my dictionary as something that is "not permanent". And if Mr. Branch needs to borrow a dictionary to look uo the word "temporary" I have a very nice unabridged dictionary and I am sure there are many more he can borrow at any of the local Libraries. And he can get help using it, if he needs to.
That would say loudly to any reasonable person that a trailer park is intended to house "units" only temporarily, as in temporary housing, not affordable housing. Affordable housing is meant to be permanent.
And that snide comment about Linda Flatt only bares Jeff Branch's obvious contempt for this community and the people who live in it. The community is Santa Fe and the People are Santa Feans. While the first ENN meeting was going on, He was apparently at his chalet somewhere on the European Continent. Not here in Santa Fe determining and contributing to the needs of this community.