Grassroots effort to stop Realize Las Cruces

A group of Las Cruces residents are petitioning door to door to stop the city’s new planning and zoning ordinance from going into effect.

Realize Las Cruces is the new planning and zoning code reform passed by a 6-1 city council vote in late February. The new code allows for greater flexibility and character-based development, instead of zones marked as either residential or commercial. Chris Faivre, community development director for the city, said the city had many goals in mind when reforming the old code and one was to encourage new development.

But a group of citizens opposed to Realize Las Cruces are trying to get enough signatures to force a halt to the new code’s implementation and send the zoning reform to the voters to decide in November. The grassroots group are canvassing door to door and have a drop-in location at 924 W. Picacho Ave.

Sarah Smith, first vice chair of Coalition of Conservatives in Action, told the Bulletin the volunteers aim to gather the required 3,240 signatures needed. She said some of the objections to Realize Las Cruces include a plan for more multi-family housing and some commercial development mixed into residential areas.

The petition gatherers have until March 20. If they succeed, the city clerk’s office will then validate the signatures. If the signatures are validated, the city council would then decide if it wants to return to the old code, established in 2001, or let the voters decide in November if Realize Las Cruces should move forward. Smith said she wants the new code reform to go to the voters.

“I’m not against development,” Smith said. “When they start encroaching for high density apartments and commercial development on residential streets, that’s where the problem lies.”

Smith said she is concerned the new zoning code will increase housing costs.

She said that under the old code, developers worked with the city to build neighborhood parks in a new housing development in a way that saved the developer some costs associated with it. But she believes Realize Las Cruces would lead to higher developer costs in building park amenities and that the developers will pass that on to the homeowners.

Faivre told the Bulletin that the 2001 code had no formal ordinances in place for how developers built parks within a housing development. He said Realize Las Cruces codifies how park amenities will be built in the future.

“It was more of a negotiation [in the past] between the developer and the Parks and Recreation Department. We’re trying to formalize the process,” Faivre said.

He said there is no requirement for “anything to be passed on.”

“How they choose to do it is up to the builder,” he said.

As far as the mixed-use concern, Faivre said developers can add only limited commercial development, such as small cafes and small Bed and Breakfasts. He said that developers will still have to meet certain requirements for things such as enclosures for dumpsters, meet setbacks and parking requirements for any commercial property.

Faivre said one of the problems that Realize Las Cruces could help solve is that there is limited land available that allows for higher density. But there is vacant land currently zoned for commercial use along El Paseo Road and along S. Solano Street. He said more flexible zoning could make redevelopment of those areas more feasible.

“There are many goals associated with this. Realize isn’t going to, overnight, make the city more walkable. We’re trying to encourage new development, enable developers to be more creative. It’s applicable across all areas of the city but it’s not as though we can retrofit walkability in all areas,” he said.

Mandy Leatherwood Gus, the city’s communications director, said the city developed Realize Las Cruces over the course of four years, with many stakeholder meetings, work sessions and considerable public input.

She said the plan was driven by the home builder community.

Faivre said another goal of Realize Las Cruces was to ease parking requirements in the urban core. He said developers could repurpose some parking lots.

“It’s going to be very beneficial for the city,” Faivre said.