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A city hearing officer has determined the Albuquerque Planning Department erred in approving a safe outdoor space planned for Northeast Albuquerque by failing to require sufficient notification to nearby property owners.
He has sent the case back to the Planning Department, which will have to make a new determination about the safe outdoor space application once it confirms that the operator has alerted all the needed neighbors.
“After receiving proof of notification, Planning will approve or deny the application within 10 calendar days,” department spokesman Tim Walsh said in an email to the Journal.
A consultant for the safe outdoor space said Wednesday the new notifications have now been sent via certified mail.
Safe outdoor spaces are organized and managed sites where people who are homeless can sleep in tents or cars and access basic amenities like toilets and showers. They became legal in Albuquerque in July thanks to a City Council vote, though elected officials remain deeply divided over them and some are still trying to quash the concept.
The city Planning Department had in August approved Dawn Legacy Pointe’s application to run a safe outdoor space on city land on Menaul NE near Interstate 25, making it the first such project to get a green light.
A bevy of appeals ensued, sending the case to the city’s land use hearing officer.
Hearing officer Steven Chavez conducted a Sept. 28 hearing on all seven appeals and last week issued a written instruction to send the case back to the Planning Department, citing a “due process violation regarding lack of notice.”
Chavez wrote that the Planning Department had only initially required Dawn Legacy Pointe to notify two property owners, running afoul of Integrated Development Ordinance standards. He wrote that the applicant had to notify all property owners within 100 feet of the site, but to measure that distance without including public right-of-way, like roads.
Brad Day, a volunteer consultant for Dawn Legacy Pointe, said that added 18 more property owners to the notification list. The organization sent the letters Tuesday, he said, and remains ready to “very quickly” launch the safe outdoor space once it gets the go-ahead.
“We’re all set – we’ve got our insurance, we’ve got the fencing contractor lined up, we’ve got the tents and all the other materials that we need,” Day said. “We’re ready to go.”
But once city planners make a new decision on Dawn Legacy Pointe’s application, it is open again for appeals.
One neighborhood leader said she will not stop challenging this project.
Santa Barbara Martineztown Neighborhood Association President Loretta Naranjo Lopez said the association – one of the seven original appellants – maintains that any city approval would be “detrimental and discriminatory” to the area.
“We don’t want them there, period,” she said. “We’re going to fight it all the way. We’re going to do everything possible to make sure they don’t stay there.”
