ABQ City Council considers zoning changes to address housing shortage, quality of life

Espresso machines whirred over morning chatter inside Slow Burn Coffee Roasters Thursday.

Outside, the surrounding neighborhood on Mountain and Forrester near Old Town stayed sleepy.

You might see more neighborhood coffee shops like Slow Burn as well as restaurants and bodegas popping up around town if the City Council votes to relax its zoning code, a move proponents say will make Albuquerque’s neighborhoods more vibrant, walkable and affordable.

Other residents fear the change will open up their neighborhoods to big-money developers, raise rents and push them out.

The controversy stems from proposed changes to the city’s zoning code, a process that the council undertakes every other year.

This year, the City Council is considering more than 140 amendments to its Integrated Development Ordinance (IDO) with the biggest changes coming to the zoning of residential neighborhoods. If approved, townhomes and duplexes could be built in every neighborhood in Albuquerque, as well as some small businesses like bodegas, coffee shops and restaurants.

These changes would improve quality of life and address Albuquerque’s housing shortage, which is worst for low-income renters, city planners say.

According to a recent study by Root Policy Research, Albuquerque is 13,000 to 28,000 units short of meeting the demand for housing for low-income residents. When supply doesn’t meet demand, rents go up for residents already feeling the squeeze.

This isn’t unique to Albuquerque, over the past two decades rent and house prices have risen faster than income nationwide, meaning low-income Americans are spending more than 30% of their paycheck to keep a roof over their heads, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Though the proposed zoning changes are being presented as a solution, for some, legalizing more kinds of development isn’t enough.

Roger Valdez, the director of the Center for Housing Economics, said the proposed changes to legalize multi-family homes citywide are "necessary but not sufficient.”

“You can make it legal, which is a good idea, but if nobody can pay for it — it's not gonna happen," Valdez said.

Valdez believes that to fully address the issue, the state needs to incentivize development — something that is already in discussion at the Roundhouse where several bills have been introduced ahead of next week’s legislative session.

One of those bills would eliminate gross receipts tax on affordable housing projects, which Valdez said would promote development.

However, for Barelas resident Anna Lee DeSaulniers, who spends half her paycheck on rent, giving discounts to already wealthy developers does nothing to help people like her.

“We really need to do housing for the purpose of housing, not lining the pockets of developers that come to New Mexico to loot our neighborhood land and water,” DeSaulniers said at a Wednesday Land Use, Planning and Zoning meeting. “We're not going to solve the housing crisis by putting it in the hands of the same people who are currently profiting off of it.”

DeSaulniers fears that any development that comes from the zoning change will be too expensive for the neighborhood’s original residents to afford, a process that is called gentrification.

She asked the council to instead invest in public housing projects with guaranteed rent maximums, rather than blindly trusting developers to be reasonable.

Nob Hill resident Gary Eyster also disagreed with the changes, but for a different reason.

“I personally don’t want the historic houses surrounding my one story 1930s house demolished (to build) apartment cubes,” Eyster said. “Character isn’t just stucco and tile, it includes the context around the community.”

Eyster worried that the zoning change will prioritize new development over preserving historic neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, proponents of the change said these fears are unfounded.

Neighborhoods of single family homes won’t turn into high rises overnight, supporters said, as a maximum of three townhomes are allowed on any given lot and height restrictions are still in place.

The greater danger, said resident Michele Gaidelis, is that neighborhoods will hollow out if no one can afford to live there.

“We’re pricing out the next generation,” Gaidelis said. “Telling kids they can’t live in the neighborhoods they grew up in.”

The Land Use, Planning and Zoning committee is expected to vote on the change at their next meeting on Jan. 28. Residents can sign up to provide public comment on the council’s website.

If approved, the IDO changes head to the full council where it will need to be approved once more.