Albuquerque waives fees, eases rules to bring more neighborhood markets to food deserts

The city of Albuquerque is making it easier for small, locally owned neighborhood markets to open for business to help relieve the city’s food deserts, Mayor Tim Keller announced Wednesday.

Under the new law, the city’s Environmental Health Department is waiving the permitting fee for one year for businesses that promise to provide healthy, affordable foods in underserved areas, said Mark DiMenna, the department’s deputy director.

“Our aim is to support food accessibility while ensuring the food is safe with these changes,” DiMenna said.

Keller also announced proposed changes to the city’s zoning and development laws that will allow small neighborhood markets to open closer to neighborhoods and within walking distance of homes.

“Every family deserves a convenient place to buy fresh food without having to drive miles,” Keller said in a statement. “This plan will open doors for our local food economy and expand grocery options for families, right in their own neighborhood.”

Nearly 80% of households in Bernalillo County live in a food desert, which is an area with limited access to healthy and affordable food, according to a city report.

Parts of Albuquerque’s South Valley and International District are considered food deserts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the former Walmart on San Mateo, which served as the main source of food for many International District residents, shuttered its doors in March 2023 and remains empty more than two-and-a-half years later.

Access to healthy food is “absolutely critical” for the residents of Albuquerque, said District 6 City Councilor Nichole Rogers.

“Allowing folks to help by offering foods in our neighborhoods so they don’t have to go miles to get fresh food is going to amount to higher life expectancy,” Rogers said. “Fresh food is medicine.”

More than 8,000 families in the International District do not have a car, according to Rogers, who represents the neighborhood. Without a grocery store in the area, residents must use public transit to do their shopping, which can be burdensome, especially for the elderly, Rogers said.

“They’re having to go further on the bus more times per week, because they can only carry a certain amount of things on the bus in their cart,” Rogers said. “The folks I’m most concerned about are our transit-dependent folks and our seniors.”

Rogers said she’s excited about the mayor’s executive order, which she says she and her constituents helped to develop through the district’s Food Systems Project focused on food insecurity.

“He’s basically modeling what he’s doing off of what we started in District 6, which I’m grateful (for). Taking it citywide is needed,” she said.

Rogers said the executive order is an “economic development opportunity” for those in her district who have been working with food.

Rogers said that while the expediting business permitting process is “a step in the right direction,” the city’s food permit requirements still present one of the biggest barriers to food access, since businesses must have a commercial kitchen to sell food or produce.

The International District doesn’t have a commercial kitchen available for nonprofits or markets to rent, as other neighborhoods in Albuquerque do.

“It’s definitely something that the mayor can do to help just ease the barriers for folks,” Rogers said.

The mayor’s executive order will waive permitting fees for one year, but the terms of the new permanent rule will go through a public comment period in the coming weeks, said city spokesperson Jeremy Dyer.