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Santa Fe City Council unanimously rejected rezoning for the proposed El Rio apartment complex on Agua Fría Street between the road and the Santa Fe River early Thursday morning.
As preface to his vote, Councilor Chris Rivera was succinct, saying "I believe this project is a good project. It's just too large for the neighborhood we're trying to put it into."
Questions of preserving the rural character and historical feel of neighborhoods along what was once the Camino Real and how to provide space for infill and young professionals in Santa Fe came to a head during the debate that began around 8 pm on Wednesday at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center ballroom and stretched past 1 am Thursday. At its start, 400 chairs in the room were nearly full. When asked to stand up to be sworn in to testify, more than half of audience members got on their feet.
"What's at stake here is our heritage," said Crystal Sena, who traces great-grandparents to living in Agua Fría. "All of these people in the surrounding area are not against development in Santa Fe. They're against development on historic sites...We see where they're coming from because we have young ones too. But not that area."
Design firm Tierra Concepts has proposed a multifamily complex of 399 units on Agua Fría that requires zoning amendments from 21 to 24 units per acre on 80 percent of the property. They contend it's sustainable, affordable housing particularly needed by younger members of the community.
Opponents have argued the apartment complex will damage the rural and historical character of the neighborhood, crowd the streets and increase demands on infrastructure.
Tierra Concepts brought their proposal to the City Council hoping for a reversal on the Planning Commission's February rejection of the project, which has since been amended to decrease the number of units, relocate an entrance, move taller buildings back from the road and preserve most of the trees. In addition to the zoning variance for density, the plan requires a height variance of four feet. The apartments would cover 16.53 acres, including 10 acres that were previously the site of Ecoversity, three miles from the Plaza.
During Wednesday evening's meeting, city staff from the Land Use Department recommended approval of the plan. Councilor Joseph Maestas, representing the east-side District 2, pointed to the lack of consensus in the report about both density and traffic issues. "With dissent sprinkled throughout the staff report, how did we recommend approval of this development?"
"We do realize this is a case of evaluating conflicting policies and conflicting interests," responded Greg Smith, planning division director for Santa Fe.
During Tierra Concepts' roughly 55-minute presentation, their team made the case for the project as a way of life that decreases the carbon footprint of housing and transportation for its residents, in addition to pursuing LEED certification for sustainable building, and provides affordable options for young professionals. Proposed rates for apartments range from $750 to $1,250. The application also included a clustered 60-unit affordable housing property for tiered low-income earners who qualify under city rules for housing subsidy.
"We need affordable housing, and apartments really are the best market solution we can do for affordable housing," Eric Faust said during his presentation to City Council. "We can't match these type of prices with home sales."
In response to the questions on why so big, and why so many units, Keith Gorges, builder and designer with Tierra Concepts, told the City Council, "Size is what pays the bills, and density is what makes it affordable."
He added that the property in Agua Fría is the last, best location feasible for this kind of infill project, this close to downtown.
"El Rio is only part of the solution," Gorges said. "The issue has become so out of hand that it's not going to be solved by a few casitas here or there or a few 10-unit infill units here or there."
The line for those interested to make public comment snaked to the back of the room throughout the evening, and commenters often spoke right over the top of the beeper announcing the end of their allotted time. Representatives from neighborhood associations from all over the city attended the meeting to express concerns over the traffic and parking, the actual affordability of and need for this development, preserving the character of the community and developing with care along the Santa Fe River to preserve the possibility of a greenway there.
“Myself and my neighbors, most of us have lived in that neighborhood for generations. In favor of new homes, but not apartments,” said Elizabeth Tapia, representing the Alamo Road neighborhood.
She described her three kids, all college graduates, who wanted the American dream of owning a home, not renting an apartment.
Montaño Neighborhood Association's Mary-Charlotte Domandi questioned the premises that the development wouldn't add hundreds of cars to the streets and the additional need of parking them, and that there's a need for apartments of this size and price. Santa Fe, she said, is not awash in "affluent millennials" ready and able to ditch their cars and transport themselves by bus, like some bigger cities.
"The idea that if you build it, they will come—young people aren't leaving Santa Fe because of the housing. They're leaving because of the jobs," Domandi said. She ran the numbers, too, that two young professionals making $11 an hour would be spending $18,000 a year on a $1,500 a month apartment, leaving just $150 a week to cover any other living expenses.
"Affordable houses—that's what people in Santa Fe want. Affordable houses, not housing," said Hilario Romero, vice president of La Cieneguita del Camino Real Neighborhood Association and former state historian.
"That area has been farmed or ranched for 3,000 years," Romero added. "Let's give it another 3,000."
When the microphone opened to public comment beyond the neighborhood associations, the first speakers started to come forward in support of the project: The renter pushed farther and farther out of town over the years, the schoolteacher who'd like to commute less than 25 minutes to schools and concerned that more development on the Southside will further overcrowd those schools, the geologist who just lost a job candidate because of the high cost of living, the second generation New Mexican unsure if there would be a third for his son. The demographics for those speakers seemed to skew a bit younger.
"While I think the agriculture is very important to the identity of the area, functionally, agriculture can't happen there as it used to hundreds and hundreds of years ago because it relies on a perennial flow of the river," said Shannon Murphy. She saw appealing options in the proposed use of gray water, community gardens and edible landscaping.
“We need to think in creative and innovative ways, and they are,” Murphy said of Tierra Concepts’ plan.
Daniel Werwath, who has worked as an affordable housing planner for 12 years, said it’s unreasonable to expect a large showing of the low-income families who would be served by this housing development: “Do we expect low-income people to get babysitters to come down here to identify as low-income for some hypothetical benefit like this project?”
Southside councilors Ron Trujillo and Carmichael Dominguez were not in attendance. The motion to deny passed with six votes.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Agua Fría resident Lisa Yniguez declared, "It feels amazing, the victory here. I know it's going to be developed but hopefully it'll be something that works with the community."
Santa Fe Reporter