City council passes bill making it harder for Neighborhood associations to protest developments

City councilors passed a bill that aims to ease the burden of getting residential and commercial developments approved and allows duplexes, townhouses and multifamily housing along key streets and heavily traveled areas of the city.

The collaborative bill, co-sponsored by City Councilors Dan Lewis and Joaquín Baca, changes the city’s Integrated Development Ordinance in hopes of adding more housing and streamlining development passed 7-2.

It also gets rid of administrative appeals for projects on city-owned property and makes it so neighborhood association appeals to a development must have a petition signed by the majority of residents within 660 feet of the proposed site.

The bill also makes it so the losing appellant is responsible for paying both sides’ legal fees to “reduce frivolous appeals.”

“The bill I think increases the influence of neighborhood associations it does not suppress any voices. It, in fact, gives a real process that legitimizes neighborhood associations,” Lewis said, in response to critics of the bill.

The bill comes at a time when Albuquerque desperately needs to add affordable housing. The city estimates at least 5,000 people are experiencing some form of homelessness and it needs to add at least 15,000 units to its housing inventory to satisfy demand.

“The balance here was, do we value community engagement, or are we valuing the opportunity to create, to create housing, which is a foundational need for people’s survival,” Andrea Calderon, Board President of the Albuquerque Affordable Housing Coalition and Senior Advisor for the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, told the Journal Tuesday.

The two city councilors who opposed the bill were Klarissa Peña — a neighborhood association member herself — who represents the city’s Southwest side and Louie Sanchez, who represents the Central Westside.

“I think everybody, probably, here on this Dias — only speaking for myself — thinks that we do need additional affordable housing, but sometimes there’s an opposite effect to when we do that,” Peña said.

Peña said she worries the streamlining process to build housing could hurt disadvantaged communities, if not done methodically.

In a strongly worded email Sunday, Westside Coalition of Neighborhood Association Member Mike Voorhees accused Lewis of introducing the legislation “quietly” and said the bill “blatantly attempts to limit the standing of Neighborhood Associations.”

Elizabeth Haley, President of the Westside Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Many of those who came to speak during Monday’s meeting also expressed the concerns addressed in the bill, while also speaking on a desire to retain the ability to fight new developments in or near their neighborhoods.

Those comments did not resonate well with Nichole Rogers, who represents District 6, the city’s southeast side which sees some of the highest rates of people experiencing homelessness.

“People who live in duplexes and multi-family homes, like myself, a single mother of color, do not bring extra crime with us. We don’t bring bad things to the neighborhoods, we’re not going to kill the character of your neighborhood,” Rogers said. “I, as an equity practitioner, cannot sit here and not name that those beliefs are heavily rooted in racism, let’s just be honest about what it is.”

One of the organizations that showed up to speak in support of the measure was the local chapter of Strong Towns a non-profit that aims to improve the financial health of cities.

“We’re pretty happy to engage with neighborhood folks who feel upset or even sad about these changes, really what we’re looking for is a city that engages everybody and we all want the same thing, which is a stronger Albuquerque,” Jordon McConnell, Communications Chair for Strong Towns Albuquerque, told the Journal Tuesday

McConnell added that the organization sent over 100 letters dispersed among the nine city councilors urging their support and received a response from each.

“One of the things we’ve identified in our research is when a city or when a region undertakes a lot of construction of housing, it’s both market rate and affordable options. It’s when a region or a city restricts housing development, is when you start that shift towards those higher prices,” William Indelicato, Civic Liaison for Strong Towns, told the Journal Tuesday.

FOR THE RECORD: This story has been updated to clarify which areas councilors represent and the role of HOAs.