Santolina - The Unbearable Lightness of Planning

The Albuquerque Journal editorial board says the Santolina Master Plan is "smart planning."   But then they also got the date of the hearing wrong.

Plans are often faulted for being too utopian or too detailed. Too dreamy and impractical or too constraining. Leading to nothing at all or limiting future options too much. Santolina is a little of the worst of both. There's no vision but a lot of wishful assumptions. It constrains options for agencies, but not development.

The plan envisions continuation of the existing pattern of suburban housing. This is presented with an air of inevitability - a casual throw-it-to-the-wind feel about the future that assumes of course they'll sell houses and of course there'll be enough revenue to serve them.  Economic projections are rosy. It's as if this is all a new and shiny untested story. What could possibly go wrong?

The master plan would limit tax assessments for all the land to grazing value, even after the land is rezoned. Impact fees wouldn't apply anywhere. Critical issues for agencies, like how public land in the area (open space, parks, schools and easements) will be acquired and who will pay for them, are punted - relegated to next steps. There is no phasing, such that an agency might hope to anticipate where growth within the huge area will happen first. There is no tie between employment requirements and slapping up new houses.

And there's that rezoning. Re-zoning says the developer will be entitled to triple the number of houses. Unlike master planning, zoning law sticks. It is well worn and court-tested. The developer must show how several ambiguous and freely-interpreted criteria are met. What is disconcerting is the application of those procedures for blanket rezoning of 13,700* acres. The guy that wanted a wine tasting room in the valley on a couple acres got the same level of scrutiny as will rezoning the former Atrisco land grant. The only difference is the guy didn't get the winery.

The Journal board said whether or not Santolina becomes a reality  "should be up to market-driven vagaries and population shifts." That's assured, but it isn't planning and it isn't very smart.  A major purpose of planning is to protect the tax base from "market-driven vagaries." The developer isn't in this alone. County approval means the county and county tax-payers are on the hook, along with all the other public agencies whose services are assumed and expected.

The editorial board's statement that it is,  "better to have a say now than never,"  frames the plan as if inaction now means something awful next. It doesn't. Just the opposite. Hasty action, especially rezoning 13,700* acres, assures less say in the future. It assures incremental, uncoordinated approvals from multiple agencies.

There is something worse than no plan. It is magical thinking based on hope and public money.

 

 

*Corrected 3/12/15. What's ten thousand acres give or take anyway, huh?