The organization that sought to house homeless victims of sex trafficking in tents near the Big I has withdrawn its safe outdoor space application.
But a consultant for the project said he plans to submit another application — and maybe even more than one — in an effort to give Albuquerque’s homeless population new options.
“We’re not going to stop until we start making some dents in this homeless problem,” said Brad Day, a volunteer consultant for Dawn Legacy Pointe.
Day would not say for sure if the next application would be for the same site — a city-owned parcel on Menaul Boulevard, just north of the Big I — saying it’s a “possibility” though he is looking also at other locations. He declined to identify the other sites.
Safe outdoor spaces are managed, organized locations that provide people who are homeless a place to sleep overnight — either in tents or in automobiles — and basic amenities like toilets and showers.
The city Planning Department approved Dawn Legacy Pointe’s application for the Menaul site last year, sparking multiple appeals. Nearby businesses and residents fought the application, arguing the project would detrimentally impact the area and that Dawn Legacy Pointe submitted an inadequate plan.
After a hearing on the case, the city’s land use hearing officer, or LUHO, recently recommended the City Council reverse the Planning Department’s approval.
The hearing officer said three of seven appeals should be dismissed for lack of standing, writing the appellants were not close enough to the site and also could not make “a rational, clear cause and effect connection of generalized crime with the proposed SOS use not based on conjecture.” But he found issues with Dawn Legacy Pointe’s application and the Planning Department’s review process. In particular, he noted a lack of documentation demonstrating how the organization would provide the required 24/7, on-site support for residents.
Though the council was not scheduled to act on the hearing officer’s recommendations until next week, the trajectory did not bode well for the project.
The City Council initially approved safe outdoor spaces, but its sentiment has shifted. A majority of the City Council now opposes safe outdoor spaces, and the legislative body has repeatedly passed legislation to outlaw or otherwise stymie them. Only Mayor Tim Keller’s vetoes have ensured they remain possible; however, the mayor lacks authority to veto City Council decisions on land-use appeals like the Dawn Legacy Pointe case.
Day said the likelihood the council would side with the hearing officer was a factor in withdrawing the application last week, but that the main impetus was the hearing officer’s determination that there was not enough detail provided at the time the application was filed.
Day said future applications will have far more information.
“We will make sure there is no question that all the documents are there — more than enough,” Day said.
