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OPINION: I love my neighborhood — that’s why I want more people to live here
People walk by M’tucci’s Bar Roma on Central Avenue in Nob Hill in July 2024.
I love Albuquerque’s neighborhoods. I love jogging under the big cottonwoods in the bosque near my apartment, visiting local restaurants and having neighbors I actually know and that I can bump into at the brewery or coffee shop around the corner. But here’s the thing — these places can’t thrive if we don’t let more people live in them.
The best parts of our city — the places we all love — aren’t filled with just single-family homes on big lots. Nob Hill, Barelas, Old Town, the University area, Huning Highland and many of the city’s historic neighborhoods have a mix of housing types: apartments, townhomes, casitas, small houses and small duplexes next to single-family homes. This is what makes them dynamic, affordable and walkable. And yet, for decades, our zoning laws have prevented this kind of diversity in housing, and in turn, made these neighborhoods a rare commodity. O-24-69 helps fix that.
There’s been a lot of fear around this policy, but let’s be clear: Legalizing more housing options doesn’t mean bulldozing neighborhoods. It simply means allowing more kinds of homes in more places. That means young people who want to stay in Albuquerque can afford to do so. It means seniors looking to downsize don’t have to leave their community. It means families struggling with high housing costs might finally catch a break.
Right now, most new homes can only be large single-family houses on big lots, rather than townhomes, starter homes or smaller residences that help young families and individuals get on the ladder to homeownership. A variety of housing helps keep our neighborhoods lively, thriving and accessible to more people while a “monoculture” of housing makes it inaccessible over time.
