Governing Body Study Session Wed, Nov 19, 2025 · Governing Body https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/890 == Executive Summary == The Santa Fe City Council held a lengthy meeting covering two main areas of business. First, the council unanimously approved a procedural waiver to allow the Animal Welfare Ordinance (Bill 2025-22) to be published before committee approval, preserving departing Councilor Lindell's sponsorship and enabling a December 10, 2025 final hearing. The bill addresses animal abandonment, unattended animals, and a proposed new prohibition on animals on medians, with ongoing debate about fine amounts. The majority of the meeting focused on adopting Phase One of a comprehensive update to Santa Fe's Land Development Code (LDC), the city's first major zoning overhaul since 1987. The update was developed over two years of public engagement and addresses housing affordability, code modernization, and development standards. Key provisions include density bonuses for affordable housing, removal of parking requirements in the downtown business district, new housing types (duplexes, triplexes, townhomes), increased building height limits, and updated standards for parking, bicycles, signs, and fences. After extensive debate on specific amendments—particularly regarding historic district standards, archaeological review thresholds, and density bonus eligibility rules—the council approved Phase One with multiple amendments. Councilors and the public broadly agreed that the code update is an important first step, while acknowledging that significant work remains for Phases Two and Three, which will address more complex topics including detailed design guidelines, street standards, and further historic preservation rules. == Key Decisions == - Approved 9-0: Procedural waiver to allow Animal Welfare Ordinance (Bill 2025-22) to be published before Quality of Life Committee approval, preserving Councilor Lindell's sponsorship ahead of her departure from council - Three caption versions of Bill 2025-22 to be published to account for possible committee amendments, including a potential reduction of the median animal fine from $200 to $50 - Phase One Land Development Code update approved with amendments, representing the first major zoning overhaul since 1987 - Amendment A approved (Councilors Chavez and Faulkner voted no): Reverts historic district standards to current code for further review in Phase Two - Amendment B approved unanimously: Aligns density requirements with existing law by removing the permission requirement to exceed 10 units (correcting reference to 21 units) - Amendment D approved (Councilors Chavez and Cassidy voted no): Changes archaeological review thresholds — historic district reduced from 60 ft to 50 ft; river/trails district reduced from 550 ft to 100 ft; suburban district reduced from 550 ft to 200 ft - Amendment C approved unanimously: 14 clarifying technical corrections including bicycle parking thresholds, setback language, signage for businesses with indirect street access, and updated definitions - Density bonus clarification adopted: Developers must provide all required affordable units on-site (without fee-in-lieu payment) to qualify for the 15% density bonus - Parking requirements removed in the downtown Business Capital District to encourage walkability and development - Residential maximum building height increased from 24 to 26 feet (outside historic districts); non-residential maximum increased to 38 feet to accommodate solar installations - Non-conforming use inactivity period reduced from 365 days to 180 days - Content-based sign regulations eliminated to comply with court rulings - Unused overlay districts eliminated from the code == Motions & Votes == - Waiver of procedural rules to allow Bill 2025-22 (Animal Welfare Ordinance) publication before committee approval — Passed 9-0 - Amendment A to Phase One LDC: Revert historic district standards to current code for Phase Two review — Passed (Councilors Chavez and Faulkner voted no) - Amendment B to Phase One LDC: Align density requirements with existing law (21 units), removing permission requirement to exceed 10 units — Passed unanimously by roll call vote - Amendment D to Phase One LDC: Change archaeological review linear footage thresholds in historic, river/trails, and suburban districts — Passed (Councilors Chavez and Cassidy voted no) - Amendment C to Phase One LDC: 14 clarifying technical corrections — Passed unanimously - Main motion to adopt Phase One Land Development Code update as amended — Passed (all present councilors voted yes; Councilor Garcia noted it is 'the first of many steps') == Public Comment == Public comment on the Land Development Code was extensive, with the large majority of speakers supporting Phase One approval. Supporters included land use planners, architects, housing advocates, the Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity, and young professionals, who emphasized the severity of Santa Fe's housing affordability crisis (median home price $572,000; 75% of workforce unable to afford to live in the city; 40% of workers commuting from outside Santa Fe). They praised the density bonuses, parking reductions, missing middle housing options, and code modernization, and urged the council not to delay adoption. Several speakers specifically noted the urgency of the homeless shelter waitlist and workforce displacement. Critics raised concerns about parking reduction impacts, whether increased supply would actually lower prices given Santa Fe's desirability, the composition of the Historic Districts Review Board (alleged to be dominated by anti-development interests), and the complexity of archaeological review requirements. Utility company representatives (PNM and New Mexico Gas) opposed lowering archaeological review thresholds in suburban districts, citing delays of two or more months and costs of $10,000–$20,000 per project, and requested reconsideration of those thresholds. One resident submitted 26 pages of written comments raising water allocation and development requirement concerns. Approximately 30–40 speakers attended the density bonus discussion session, with the majority emphasizing a preference for actual on-site affordable units over fee payments. == Topics == - Land Development Code Update - Clarifying Amendment Review - Affordable Housing Density Incentives - Animal Abandonment Ordinance - Procedural Rules Waiver - Bill Caption Requirements - Midtown Link Overlay District - Bicycle Parking Standards - Building Height Increases - Archaeological Review Requirements - Holiday Season Invocation - Meeting Opening Procedures == Full Transcript == Mayor, we are live. Very good. Thank you. With that, I will call to order at 7:02 p.m. a special meeting of the governing body. I will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilor Chavez. Salute to the New Mexico flag led by Councilor Faulkner. And I will ask Councilor Michael Garcia to lead us in the invocation and remembrance. Please rise. So as we enter the holiday season, I just want to take a moment to reflect on the thanks and gratitude that I have for my community, for my colleagues here on the dais, the staff, and just I think all the blessings we've all had in general. I'm just thankful for everything that has come across our beautiful city's way. We definitely have a lot of work ahead, but I'm confident that when we join together, we can ultimately work to make things better for everybody. And also I want to make sure we acknowledge that during the holiday season it is sometimes the most tough for folks. I just recognize that we are entering a season where there is lots of joy and spirit, but sometimes there's a lot of darkness on folks, and please do everything we can to lift others up. Thank you, Council. Are there remembrances? In that case, I would just echo Councilor Garcia's call to community that there are those in our city who are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to deal with health issues, struggling to deal with loss of family and friends. We all are one community. We take care of each other and we look after each other. And at this season, this holiday season, it's a special time to show that spirit of Santa Fe giving and caring. So let's carry that in our hearts and take a moment of silence to reflect on how much we care for each other and how much we need each other. Thank you, everybody. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? Councilor Cassett here. Councilor Castro. Councilor Chavez. Councilor Faulkner here. Councilor Lee Garcia here. Councilor Michael Garcia present. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Romero Worth here. Mayor Weber present. You have a quorum. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can I get a motion to—are there changes to the agenda, Madam Clerk? I'm sorry. There are no changes to approve. Second. There's a motion to approve the agenda. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, Madam Clerk, can you take us to item 7A, please? Item 7A in relation to Bill Number 2025-22, a bill amending SFCC 1987 Section 5-2 to define abandonment and unattended animal; Section 5-5.4 to prohibit keeping an animal on any median; and Section 5-8.4 to specify that abandoning an animal will incur a fine. Creating a new Section 5-8.14 unattended animal prohibiting unattended animals and imposing a fee; and amending Table 15-12.1 to increase the fine for abandoning an animal from $200 to $500, impose a $200 fine for the first unintended offense and a $500 fine for subsequent offenses, and impose a $200 fine for keeping animals on medians. Approval of a waiver of governing body procedural rule IV D-D requiring recommendation to approve by one committee before bill publication pursuant to rule seven, allowing a waiver of the procedural rules with a vote of two-thirds of the whole to allow the publication of the bill before committee approval and a public hearing and potential final approval on December 10th, 2025, if the bill is approved by at least one committee before that date. Thank you. I would entertain a motion and then discussion. Move to approve. There's a motion to approve this waiving of rules and a second. Is there discussion? Is there—hang on one sec. Is there an explanation anybody would like to offer just to make sure the public is clear on why we're doing this and what it amounts to? Councilor Castro. Right. So there was some movement of this bill in committee and there was some work that needed to be done. So I did come on as a co-sponsor. Unfortunately, we don't have time to finish this before the end of the year, and if this is voted on before Councilor Lindell leaves the council, she will no longer be the main sponsor on this. Though we are asking that we waive the rules so that Councilor Lindell's name appears on this bill. Thank you for the explanation. Very good. God bless you, Councilor. You had raised your hand, Councilor Garcia. I want you to take the floor. I guess two things. One, I just want to confirm that this is going back to—I think Quality of Life. Is that where we had it? Because we had it at Quality of Life. We asked to pull it back for some amendments. Is that still the—it's going back before Quality of Life. Okay. And then it's my understanding even though in this case Councilor Lindell will no longer be in her seat beyond December, that doesn't mean her name would get taken off the legislation. She just would not be able to vote on it. It continues on as long as the legislation is moving forward. Councilors, I don't really know if you have a rule on that about whose name goes. My understanding was that there was an interest in passing it this year and that that was the reason for the request, and to make that possible you had to notice it 15 days before the hearing, and our rules require first a positive vote in a committee before you can notice. So my understanding was the request was to allow this to go to final passage in December. In order to do that you need to be able to publish it before it goes to Quality of Life. Understandable. But I think Councilor Castro said that she wanted her name to be on the bill. And I just wanted to confirm because as long as this bill is still being up for consideration, it can get pushed out to 2027 if it gets postponed. But Councilor Lindell's name does not get taken off as a sponsor. Councilor, you just don't have a rule about that. I don't even know what we've done before. And that was my point of clarification, but the City Attorney has clarified we do not have a rule. So at this point, if it were to continue as the amendments proceed through the process, would there be any change necessarily in who the sponsors are? As far as you know, City Attorney, Councilors, it currently talks about being introduced by on the bills. I do not know what we've done after the final passage if someone has not been here what your practice has been. Okay. Thank you. Councilor, did you want to speak to this at all? Or I'm sorry, did you have your—why don't we go to you, Councilor Marworth? Thank you, Mayor. So I believe that the amendment that I was sponsoring and I believe Councilor Cassett was on as well to lower the fee of having an animal on a median was lowered, I believe in Quality of Life, from $200 to $50. So is that how will this caption be—how will that change be reflected in the caption as it's noticed? Mayor, Councilors, we would publish all three potential captions in this case because there's two proposed amendments that would change the caption. My understanding is that because so there was a motion—so I don't think there was a main motion on the floor is my understanding. I didn't watch the video, but what I understand from the clerk's office and from the legislative folks there was a main motion to amend. Then there was a motion to hold. Those are different motions. If you're amending, you adopt—you recommend that with an amendment. So that wasn't the controlling motion that was made. The controlling motion was moving it to the next committee because there wasn't a recommendation to adopt as amended. Okay, now I'm more confused than ever. The main thing is there's been no recommendation on the bill yet. Right? I get that part. I get that part. But did they adopt the amendment? They adopted the amendment, didn't they? There's five potential motions to make in standing commission and those are not the same motion. They're two different motions that are options. One is holding, one is recommending with an amendment. Okay. Well, I think the more important point is I believe that the Quality of Life committee lowered the fine from $200 to $50. You're going to caption it as if that change is there in case that holds as it moves through the process. And Councilors, that and the original and the other version of the caption that's also on the table. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Councilor Faulkner would like to spend some time with you, Attorney McSher, because this caption issue has consistently been a thing where we can't amend certain things because it changes the caption. And this has nothing to do with this piece of legislation, but I would like to better understand how in some cases we can have three possible captions available and in other cases we can only have one, and if we try to amend it then it changes the caption and the legislation can't go forward. So offline I would love to have a conversation with you about what exactly can we do and not do around amending that would affect the caption. And Mayor—Councilors, the reason you could do this is because you're waiving your rules. So when the rules apply, we have one version. The request is to waive so that you can have a hearing in December. And the only way to guarantee that would be is if you publish all the captions we're aware of at this point. Any other questions or comments? Madam Clerk, could you call the roll, please? Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Marworth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And for that will then go through that process, but will be able to be noticed ahead of time. Could you take us to the next item, Madam Clerk, and give us a full and complete reading of the caption? Consideration of Bill Number 2024-17, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025 to be determined. Sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber and Councilor Jamie Cassett. A bill repealing and replacing SFCC 1987, Chapter 14, Land Development Code, clarifying and consolidating various references to code violations into one violations section, specifying that the applicant or the property owner have the burden of proof for establishing legal nonconformities, reducing the early neighborhood notification requirement for city capital improvement projects to those exceeding $250,000. Renaming special use permit to conditional use permit. Removing Historical District Review Board's HDRB authority to recommend personal property acquisitions. Requiring archaeologists to hold a New Mexico State Burial Excavation permit for certain work. Removing waivers of qualifications for archaeologists by Archaeological Review Committee. Increasing permitted building heights for residential districts and non-residential development. Establishing densities and height by right for certain residential zones exceeding 10 units per acre. Creating a parks and open space zoning district. Permitting additional flexibility for certain structures and situations regarding setbacks. Eliminating residential suite, hotel/motel, and ecological resource protection overlay zoning districts. Reducing the length at which an archaeological clearance permit is required for sewer and utility main construction. Removing alcohol sale regulations in the Airport Road overlay. Identifying a strategy to review and approve land uses not specifically listed in the summary table of allowed uses. # Public Hearing on Land Development Code Phase One Update This is a public hearing as we usually do. We'll follow a format where we start with a staff presentation so everybody has the same information to work from. We'll go to the public for hearing comments. After the last person has spoken, we will then come back to the governing body for a motion and discussion. There are some amendments pending. We'll take those up and then see where we are in terms of a final vote. So with that, staff, I know you wanted to set the table for us. Please take it away. Yes. Thank you. Good evening. Mayor, counselors, members of the public, Director Heather Lamboy and Matt Goble of Global Partners and I are excited to bring phase one of the land development code before you for adoption this evening. Whether you call it chapter 14, LDC, or simply the code, the purpose of this set of rules is to implement our general plan to guide the harmonious development of Santa Fe and create conditions favorable to the health, safety, and general welfare of our residents by coordinating the provision of homes, businesses, industry, parks, roads, utilities, and other community infrastructure. Updating this critical piece of legislation has been a monumental effort with contributions from across city government and within our diverse community as well. I want to acknowledge the past and present leadership within the planning and land use department and our partners across city government, public utilities, public works, the fire department, and the city attorney's office, among others, and members of our advisory working groups who all volunteered their time and provided their expertise in support of this legislation. Thank you all. The last time that the city comprehensively updated its land development code was in 1987. Over nearly 40 years, we have seen numerous amendments, additions, and some revisions around the edges and sometimes at the center. This piecemeal adoption and these efforts have created a layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory set of rules and regulations that has become notoriously difficult to understand, to interpret, and to enforce. To address this challenge, back in 2023 the planning and land use department, under the direction of the governing body, initiated a contract with Clarion Associates for the comprehensive three-phase update of the land development code. Our goals for phase one were to improve the organization, clarity, and general user-friendliness of the code and hopefully solve that layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of the LDC. Taking a step back and looking at where we are as we come to the close of phase one, we look ahead to phase two, which is promoting key standards. In phase two, we will undertake more substantial edits and updates to our procedures, take a closer look at certain regulations, our zoning districts, street design and architectural standards, among other things. As we work through phase one and phase two, in the background, the land use department is also updating our general plan, also known as Santa Fe Forward. As we complete the general plan and go to adoption of that new general plan for the city, we will move into phase three of the code update, general plan implementation, where we will align the regulations in chapter 14 and further support Santa Fe Forward's implementation goals. Phase one began over two years ago in the spring of 2023 publicly with a virtual open house and an in-person open house at the community convention center. Following these events, our team solicited input through public and online surveys. We launched our project website. We conducted stakeholder interviews, both internal and external, and collected additional contributions from city staff and leadership. All the information that we gathered from these public engagement efforts was documented in the LDC assessment report, which was released in the summer of 2023. When we released the report, we held another round of public meetings and engagement, placed that on our website, and invited public comment as well. We assembled diverse working groups. We had a technical working group and a community advisory working group that met on several occasions. We also had a historic advisory group and worked with our planning commission to get through the details of the update. We hosted additional study sessions with the planning commission. We had community drop-in events here at city hall and at the southside library. And we again posted the draft back last fall online for community input. Our adoption timeline began back on October 8th with the governing body introduction, a very brief presentation by myself, and then the next day we heard our first public comment here at the governing body. Director Lamboy and I took the code update to the historic district review board and the ARC on October 14th. Then again to the planning commission, back to committees of the governing body—public works, quality of life, and finance. And we are here tonight as we have proceeded through this adoption. We've picked up a few amendments as Mayor Weber mentioned. We have technical amendments that are fixing some spelling mistakes and some bookmark errors that were unfortunate but did make it into the introduction draft. We have a set of clarifying amendments that originated from a kind of staff test drive of the code since we adopted it on October 8th. We found some additional language we wanted to clarify just to make sure that our intent was clear. And of course we have an HDRB—the structures review board—recommended a set of amendments as well, which I believe have been picked up and Director Lamboy will touch on these items later in the presentation. In addition to the repeal and replace bill that you have in the packet and that the public has had access to, I've included a summary memo and a disposition report to support your review and analysis. The disposition report is a three-column crosswalk with a brief description of the changes that we've made. In the far left column, you see the existing code section. The middle column is where we've moved or relocated items, and then the far right column is a brief description of the change that we've made. In addition to these items, I've included the LDC assessment report, which I mentioned, and that summarizes our engagement strategies with the public and the goals and priorities of phase one. You will also find the enhanced affordability incentives report, which was produced by Creating Affordability Now, and discusses how Santa Fe and other communities have used streamlined development reviews, density bonuses, dimensional flexibility, and fee waivers to incentivize affordable housing. Given the breadth of issues that are covered in chapter 14 and the extent of the effort of phase one, it's difficult to summarize and target some of our accomplishments that have broad impacts for the community because there are quite so many areas that chapter 14 touches. What we have heard from our ongoing community engagement with Santa Fe Forward is that Santa Feans are concerned about affordability. Our citizens want greater options and variety of housing. They want safe, inclusive, walkable communities, beautiful parks and public spaces that foster connection and a healthy lifestyle. They also want food trucks, outdoor dining, breweries, doggy daycares, and places to enjoy our abundant music and arts culture. If I had to identify additional accomplishments of phase one outside of organization, clarity, and user-friendliness, I would say affordability, a mix of housing options, new parks and open space zoning district, enhanced parking flexibility and removal of parking requirements in our downtown business district, which all support walkability and affordability, and the inclusion of a host of new uses into our table of allowed uses. There is something here for everyone, and I will turn it over to Matt Goble and to Heather to give you the details of the update. Thank you, Mayor. Council members, good to see you again. I'm going to cover some of the high points of the overall rewrite of the code in phase one. Starting with the zone districts, the foundation of the ordinance. A lot of the changes that we have made in this phase one project have been organizational. You can see on the left-hand side of the slide a couple of screenshots of your current code, which is very text-heavy, and we've moved it into a more modern format like you see on the right with illustrations of each zone district and tables that are easier to read of key standards, maximum building height, and things like that. So a lot of these are organizational. There have been targeted substantive updates as well. We have looked at, for example, higher density districts—residential districts allowing by right the density that is indicated in the district name. These are for R12, R21, and R29. They do not anymore require approval of a development plan. That's intended primarily to provide relief for small projects within the downtown area, small infill projects. But that's an example of a targeted amendment. Santa Fe has a lot of overlay zoning districts, and they all kind of dance on top of each other. We're going to have the opportunity in phases two and three to do more substantive cleanup of those. But in phase one, we also accomplished quite a bit. We added, for example, just some base maps of the locations and the boundaries of all the overlays. Some of them didn't have them there. We didn't carry forward some of the overlay districts that you have that have never been used or are not being used now, including the ecological resource overlay and the residential suite hotel motel escarpment overlay, which is a complex district in terms of how it's drafted. We reorganized and edited that to simplify the language. We added new illustrations to that district based in part on some illustrations that the staff had done about 20 years ago and we recreated those. We have more opportunities to simplify that moving forward, but they will be more substantive. Airport Road overlay—you had some restrictions on the sale of alcohol there which were inadvertently restricting the development of uses like grocery stores and restaurants that were desirable in that area. We've taken away that restriction very much in response to stakeholders. Historic District overlay—we've gone back and forth on this one. The simplification and the reorganization is an ongoing thought process. You're going to have amendments tonight that reflect some of the most recent input from the Historic Commission on how to simplify that district's use regulations. Major changes here include the addition of this new use table that you can see on the slide. The uses that are in yellow on the left-hand side are new uses. Some of the new ones that we've added have really been in response to the housing options and housing affordability topic that Maggie mentioned—adding more missing middle housing types. There's also been some new uses added for things like doggy daycare in response to community interest, like Maggie mentioned. But for the most part, we have kept the use table the same as you've had. This is an opportunity to go back after Santa Fe Forward is completed and to really look at the zoning districts and the use table to make sure they reflect the new community input developed there. It's an easier table to navigate, and I think just the overall user friendliness of this section is a big improvement. In terms of the development and design standards, all the sections have been scrubbed as much as possible to make them simpler, easier to read, easier to navigate. We've reorganized the whole chapter. You had development and design regulations scattered throughout the document. We have set the stage for more substantive updates moving forward in phase two, again, just keeping with that theme of organization and user friendliness. Here we have again made some targeted updates. Landscaping—we updated the perimeter parking lot standards. There's a lower threshold for applicability, so more parking lots need to be landscaped. New information on permitted fence materials, prohibition on barbed wire, things like that. It's targeted stuff that we heard from the community—these were low-hanging fruit and well-supported ideas. Parking—the off-street parking standards in the Santa Fe code were located in different places in the document. Organizationally, we put it all together and moved stuff from the appendix. The parking ratios generally were not reduced except for in the BCD, the downtown, where we removed the parking requirements. We did add a lot more flexibility. The different ways that an applicant can come in and say they've got a way to reduce their minimum parking requirements are all listed on the slide. We also added new requirements for ADA parking and electric vehicle parking. The graphic on the right of this slide is a table of those EV standards. You can see there that those are based on the use table. So every use in the table has an EV requirement. Bicycle parking is a significant new update. We increased the amount of bicycle parking that is required for all new developments. It's no longer linked to the number of automobile spaces, but it's just a flat requirement based on the scale of the development. There has been some ongoing give and take about which ratio is right there, and you'll hear about that in the amendments that are described. Signs—the removal of the content-based regulation has been a major effort working with the city attorney's office. All the impact fee material has been reorganized to make it more accessible. That was a very dense, complex part of the code. There are clear places where we need to do more work on the code: street design standards, architectural design review outside of historic. But those are all clearly in the phase two category of substance and will require some major revisions. Administration and procedures—we have done a significant rethinking of how all the procedures work in the code. We have rewritten the common review procedures that apply across the board to most application types. We've got a summary table there that you see in the middle that shows all the different application types and who does what, who makes recommendations, who makes decisions. We've got those new graphics that you see on the far right that show you at a glance who does what, what's the governing body's responsibility, what's the Planning Commission's responsibility, etc. So again, we've set the stage, made targeted amendments, but we've set the stage for a more comprehensive review in phase two. With that, that's a high-level overview. Now, we wanted to dive into some of the substantive issues that the community is most concerned about. Thank you, Matt. We are in a crisis today when it comes to housing. We have heard in many forums that there is a need for housing and it was needed yesterday. Right now, 67% of our community is single-family housing units. Rents increased in apartments by 74% since 2016. Therefore, we have more renters than we do landowners. Landowners or homeowners—that's a way to gain equity and wealth and to help people provide for their families as they move from one place to another. The average income in Santa Fe is less than $70,000. Yet our cost of housing—the median house cost is $572,000—which is not sustainable. Our current regulations are not adequate, and that is a problem that has been identified over and over again for years and years. We're not keeping up with the needs, and we're not providing diverse housing options by having an archaic code relative to the different housing types that were referred to earlier. More people—40%—are forced to live outside of Santa Fe. They have to drive until they can buy or afford a place to live. We need to bring those people back. When they look at the numbers as they are, it doesn't seem like we need a number of housing units, but that's because 40% of people are not in our community that we need to serve and should be here. They work here. The living wage is improving. Many thanks to the work of this governing body. As of recently, we're going to be seeing improvements to the living wage, but that can't solve for it all alone. With these proposals, we are going to introduce some levers within our control to be able to improve affordability. I'd like to thank our technical working group, our citizens working group, and different community stakeholders in helping us analyze the housing issue further. Currently, the way the Santa Fe Homes program works is the number of affordable units required is a percentage. It's based on 20% for for-sale products and 15% for dwelling units that are rental products. There is a 15% density bonus and fee waivers for affordable units. One thing I would like to note—what we're proposing in the code is that when there is a fee and lieu option selected for multifamily, there is not going to be that automatic density bonus as we're proposing it. So that will incentivize multifamily developers to actually build affordable housing on their site in order to get that density bump. Right now, as it is, with 20 base dwelling units, it includes 16 market-rate homes, four affordable homes, and then three market-rate bonus homes. So the incentives—that's with the 15% incentive. With the density bonus, it scales relative to the amount of affordable housing that's provided in three categories: 30 to 39%, 40 to 49%, and 50% and up. This will be a game changer. The increase is from 1.5 dwelling units per acre per home unit up to two dwelling units. So in this scenario where you have 30% affordability, the density bonus will be 1.5 times. If you have 14 market-rate homes, six affordably priced homes, and nine market-rate bonus homes, there's a total of 29 units. So now that fulfills two needs. The first need is for more affordable housing. The second need is more market-rate housing so as to keep affordability possible in our community. And ultimately, it provides for flexibility in infill development and other types of development that makes it affordable for developers to develop and pencil things out. This is another game changer—the small infill projects. We see a lot of these in the downtown district. One example with the R21 and the graphic that you saw was a Habitat for Humanity project over on Alto Street. The problem was they were building five units, but the way the current code is written, it required a development plan, which certainly did not help the affordability for that Habitat for Humanity project. It's something that we need to fix. On a simpler scale here, if you have one affordable unit on one acre, you get a density bonus of three units. So that means on one acre you can have four homes. Whereas right now you can have one home plus one accessory dwelling unit. With accessory dwelling units for those four units, you can possibly house up to eight families or eight households, which I think is really important in moving the needle for people being able to develop housing for their relatives like in our old family compound style or be able to gain additional financial assistance through selling some properties in the case that they can divide their lots. The other incentives would be administrative review, which is a precedent that is done in Link and Midtown, with flexibility and parking requirements and dimensional standards, and of course the fee waivers that we have today. This is a lot of text, I know, but the disposition report really highlights a lot of changes, and I think it's important that the public know this is an overview. But I think there are some important things here that will be accomplished with this code update. For the Planning Commission, the long range planning subcommittee has been removed. Our planning commission does have a policy subcommittee and they work on a variety of items. Councilor Faulkner actually worked on some early neighborhood notification regulations and we've had others who are topic-based that maybe aren't necessarily long range but relate to the code update. So it's being more honest to the work that's being done. We have simplified the early neighborhood notification requirement for city projects greater than $250,000. This is a new thing: a six-month expiration for an early neighborhood notification meeting. So if there's a development project that's proposed right now, we have no limit as to when that development project is submitted. A year later, if we get the development project, a lot of people in the community could have changed. Houses are sold, different community members come in, and it's really important to be able to have constant communication with the community. So we had an expiration set for early neighborhood notification meetings at six months. So if a project comes in on the 181st day, another early neighborhood notification meeting would be required. There are some submittal standards: a one-year limitation on resubmittal of an application after it has been denied, and also a one-year requirement between requests to annex on the same property that has been denied. There is a new requirement for a pre-application meeting and early neighborhood notification for all annexations. We don't have many right now, but in the future we have to look forward. We will likely have some. With the historic districts, we accomplished a lot with making things clearer. The historic districts ordinance is challenging and there are a lot of gray areas. Each district standards section has been reformatted with the same headings and subheadings. There is a clear process for specifying primary facades on contributing structures and all facades on significant structures as primary. The definitions of facade and elevation have been updated to provide greater detail and clear direction to the board, and a clarification on enclosure of porches. The historic districts review board at their meeting requested a revision to the proposed historic districts ordinance. They didn't feel comfortable enough with the proposed district standards for the downtown, east side, west side, Guadalupe, and Don Gaspar districts, as well as for all the historic review and historic transition districts. So there is a proposal to revert those districts back to the current district standards and that will be taken up in further detail in phase two. With reference to green building, it's really an important priority in our community. There is a green building code update that will be coming to this governing body in the next couple of months. Consistent with that, in order to allow for more solar installations on rooftops and allow for more passive solar gain through taller ceiling heights, we have proposed for residential developments outside of the historic districts: the maximum height has been increased from 24 to 26 feet. For non-residential development, the maximum height has increased depending on district from either 35 or 36 feet to 38 feet. Another issue that will be coming forward for the governing body as an amendment will be the utility main archaeological permits. The archaeological review committee felt strongly that we've not been capturing a lot of the archaeological record as it currently stands with utility mains being 550 feet in the rivers and trails district as well as a suburban district. Since the 1980s when the code was adopted, we have gained an immense amount of knowledge about the archaeology and the people who lived here before us—pre-contact and contemporary communities—and it's really important to honor that. We partner with Tesuque Pueblo just to make sure that we check in with them about archaeological resources as well. So that was the rationale for the reduction: to ensure that we don't miss anything. But at this time, we can engage a little more with the community. It was determined that would be the best approach, and so you'll be seeing an amendment on that particular item. Group residential care facility is permitted as a conditional approval in all districts. There are issues about urban farming. Religious, educational, and charitable institutions are permitted in all residential districts. Heliport is permitted only as an accessory reuse. So we don't have helicopters landing in a district or area somewhere random other than the hospital. An important thing with in-home daycare: with the recent state legislation, we'll be expecting more of them because we're going to be providing care for more children. One of the issues that has risen is that in industrial districts, rents tend to be lower. So there was one provider who wanted to be able to open a business there—not necessarily for income daycare, but a larger daycare—but it allows for that flexibility. It's permitted, and there are a lot of other regulations that relate to cannabis and other things that you find in industrial districts that can control for any potential impacts. Income daycare are allowed in all residential categories. Human services establishments removes a special use or conditional use permit in all areas where they are permitted by right. Arts and crafts galleries and schools are combined into one use. The square footage and hours of operation limits have been removed to use specific standards. We didn't have film production as part of our use table and that's a really important component of our community. So we have added film production as a use. So not only in the link can it be addressed in the Midtown, but also outside of the link. There have been changes to the cannabis code to be consistent with law and additional uses that were added that have been reviewed already. Telecommunications technology changes on a regular basis. The facilities also change on a regular basis. So we have updated our telecommunications section to reflect things like regulations associated with small cell development—the smaller cell facilities that there are a lot more of because they cover a smaller area but they can cover more data, which is what we tend to send out into the world a lot. Home occupation compliance with standards to maintain a residential character is an important issue we've experienced with code enforcement. So we have set some boundaries. Accessory dwelling units can now be built as proposed on a second story. Previously the maximum height was 15 feet. So if you had a detached garage and you wanted to build a unit on top of your garage, you would not be able to do so. So this gives a little more flexibility so that people can build an additional unit on their property. There are new use standards for residential compounds and commercial uses. There are new sections relating to pedestrian access, sound amplification, and the like. Agricultural uses have regulations for workers, structures, and signs for agricultural home occupations. We discussed the maximum density and terrain stormwater management. There are some updates that were required there, including adding a special flood hazard area designation by FEMA and being submitted for minor developments, just to be clear that we don't have any homes flooded in the future and to set the clear path for safe development. Plant material standards have changed. I think it's really important to highlight—and I'm not going to go through all the details—but on parking and loading, it's really important to realize that we're changing the paradigm when it comes to parking. We don't need to live by our cars. We need parking. There's no doubt about it. We need ADA parking as well, but we also are changing the way we function in the community by eliminating parking completely in the business capital district. That enables a lot of extra business development, possibly residential uses on second stories that are currently vacant, or additional residential uses developed new. My favorite topic is the Water Street parking lot. That could be something else, but that's for another time. Outdoor lighting: we also have made updates to be consistent with dark skies protection. There's more work to be done. There will be additional changes in phase two. We've eliminated content-based regulation on signs. This is in response to a court case that happened, and all jurisdictions across the country are having to make sure to look at their sign standards. The incentives relative to affordable housing: there will be more to come. We're not stopping there. With reference to non-conformity, there's a reduced period of inactivity for non-conforming uses. So if there is a non-conforming use and it leaves, right now 365 days can pass and you can add in another non-conforming use. That is going to be reduced to 180 days—half a year—because ultimately that makes the conformance to the zoning district and the intent of the urban area in that particular case happen faster. We also have a section regarding violations, and there's no explicit language in the code as to what constitutes a violation. We give out violation notices all the time. So it doesn't work very well when you don't have a code to back you up. New definitions have been added. To me, it's really important that we need to think about the stewardship of our community and our land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. While that's partially true, when we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Moving on to board and commission review: reporting out on the past several weeks, we visited the historic districts and archaeological review board and the archaeological review committee. I talked about the amendment and the request to revert to the existing district standards. The planning commission recommended approval with no comment. The public works and utility committee recommended approval with no comment, or there were comments but no changes. Finance committee recommended approval, and the quality of life committee: the item was not pulled from the consent agenda. So we had that night off. With reference to amendments: the historic district's review board amendments is going to be an amendment that's proposed by Councilor Romero Worth. Also, reverting to the utility main standards and cut until we can engage the community more. We'll be able to do that as part of phase two. So there's a proposal to revert the distances to what is currently set forth in the code. Director Assistant Director Moore reviewed the technical issues and then some of the clarifying issues. We're anticipating use of the code, so we decided to test run a couple of projects because we'll be using the code in the near future. So we discovered a couple of things there that needed some finessing. To recap: we have accomplished a lot, and I think it's really important to realize and remember that. It's been in partnership with the community because we have received a lot of input over the past two and a half years. It includes really making provision for more affordable housing, giving genuine opportunity for that by providing for different housing options—that missing middle housing, which is so important. Some of you may have learned about it: a duplex, a triplex, maybe some townhomes. Though that type of infill development wasn't accounted for in the current code. Parking and how we're changing our approach to how we live. The establishment of parks in open space district to really be cautious and careful. Those standards themselves will be implemented as part of phase two, but really to protect those resources that belong to the community and those new uses. We did not have doggy daycares back in 1987. So now we do and a number of other things. We're looking forward to phase two. Really appreciate the community and all the people who have worked so hard on this project. And that concludes the staff presentation. **Mayor:** Thank you very much. That's very thorough and well done and much appreciated. We'll go now to the public hearing and Madame Clerk, you'll be our timekeeper and make sure that those who are speaking know where they stand on the clock. If you came tonight to testify, please line up as you wish and we'll accord everybody an equal opportunity to speak for two minutes on the proposal in front of us. We will also go to the Zoom room when we've exhausted the line of speakers here in the council chambers. So don't be shy. Come on up, step up to the microphone and give us your name and we will then begin the clock and please respect everybody's opportunity to be heard. **Stephanie Benonato:** I really feel that this has been development-driven and that there are significant changes when we've been told over and over that this was just going to be a cleanup and a reorganization. I am glad that the historic board has spoken out and I hope that you adopt their amendments. Not to make the changes because they were unworkable and the board was not included in that discussion. I really think that these working groups were not open to the public. Not that they could make comment, but they couldn't even follow what was happening there. I sent you a written comment that I hope you actually have read and not just looked at it and saw that it was there. I'm very concerned that the staff can override an HDRB decision concerning sustainability. The parking requirements—I think there's a lot of unintended consequences going to happen. You're lowering it for residential when we only have 2% of the population biking and according to the BPACE you need 30%. Having no on-site parking in downtown—parking is already a huge issue in downtown and this is just going to make it a lot worse. The affordable housing changes—yes, we need affordable housing, but what you're doing is giving density bonus to market rate housing. You're not encouraging more affordable or even workplace housing. And if you look at what were marketplace rentals, they're not affordable to a lot of people in our community. I ask that you actually incorporate changes to your appeals ordinance, your land use appeals ordinance, which I've mentioned a couple of times about having a limited public hearing instead of just the attorney coming to you and making a recommendation to dismiss a case and changing your 35-day rule. I also want you to continue to have the nonconformity. And just one more thing—doggy daycares may not have been available then, but I live near a doggy daycare. It took five years for them to solve the problems of the odors from the garbage, the barking at night and early morning, and the people coming who weren't living in our neighborhood and thought that you could park anywhere and just run across the street causing a lot of problems. Oh, and one more thing—agricultural farming. I just wonder about water use. Thank you. **Shelby Majes:** Hello, Mayor and City of Santa Fe Council members. My name is Shelby Majes and I am here tonight representing New Mexico Gas Company. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to chapter 14 of the land development code. We are appreciative of the goals of the rewrite. However, we have concerns that the revisions to the size thresholds for utility main lines requiring archaeological clearance per section 14-42D4 will be counterproductive to the rewrite's goals of decreasing bureaucratic delays and costs. We would also like to voice our support of amendment D as proposed by council members Romero, Worth, and Lindell. The current process to obtain an archaeological clearance permit for utility mainline extensions is for the public utility to have an archaeological monitoring plan for the project written and approved by the Santa Fe Archaeological Review Committee, then monitor and report on the construction. As a result, construction start is delayed until a monitoring plan is written and approved by the ARC and delays the project by two to three months on average due to the time it takes to write the monitoring plan and because the ARC only meets once a month to issue these clearances. Additionally, if a contractor must be hired to write the plan for a small ARC monitoring project—one that is about 100 feet—it costs about $10,000 to $20,000. This cost is passed on either directly or indirectly to the customers. In the memorandum dated October 8th, 2025 included in the agenda packet, one of the stated goals of the change is to minimize the delays to project construction due to unanticipated discoveries of cultural resources caused by a lack of assessing the projects for archaeological resources. However, that is not the case. I have worked at both the Public Service Company of New Mexico and New Mexico Gas Company and both utility providers assess every project for archaeological resources within the city of Santa Fe, no matter the permitting requirements. As a result, our on-staff archaeologists and our on-call archaeological contractors typically resolve delays to construction from unanticipated discoveries within a month versus the at least two months to obtain the permit itself. Additionally, by increasing the demand for archaeological monitoring by reducing the length thresholds is only going to exacerbate the previously stated project delays and costs. New Mexico archaeology as a field is already in high demand and in need of more qualified individuals. **Dolores Shapiro:** Good evening all. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I've spoken here before. I have the same thing to say: let's get this done. I'm fully supportive of and appreciative of all the work that's gone on to make Santa Fe more affordable for the average person, the nurse, fire worker, and all those people who have to live outside the county right now. Thank you. **Kathy Garcia:** Good evening. My name is Kathy Garcia. Thank you, Mayor Weber and governing body. I'm with Chainbreaker Collective, which as many of you know is a member-based organization here in Santa Fe concerned with transit, housing, and racial equity. We are in support of this package of phase one changes. We've been here to address this governing body before. We appreciate the thoughtful edits and conversations that have emerged in this first phase, knowing that it sets the stage for more substantive changes in phase two and phase three as we heard from city staff. We also want to thank and applaud city staff for all of the engagement with community members, of which Chainbreaker has been participating in these last several years. We look forward to continuing to engage and share ideas and changes to the land use code which enhance walkability and bikeability, which our members have been recommending for two decades now. We support the density bonuses and the infill proposals as this addresses the affordability crisis. Revisiting the land use code takes time as we've seen over years indeed. But taking the time to do this right means that the work that Chainbreaker and its partners are undertaking in the Hopewell Man neighborhood as we also develop the Midtown campus means that those plans will not be for naught and that those plans and recommendations will also have fertile soil to grow in and perhaps even be a continuing model for development without displacement across the city. Thank you so much. **Bill Roth:** Hi, my name is Bill Roth. I'm a small designer builder in Santa Fe and residential infill projects are kind of my happy place. So I'm really excited about some of the changes that you have all made to encourage this. One of them, I believe, is that you're allowing for zoning rounding up on density on a lot instead of rounding down to allow more units. That coupled with reduced parking certainly will encourage more infill on local sites here close into town, which sounds like something you want to encourage. I'm looking at something right now that basically hinges on this that's on Agua Fria. I'm hoping this happens and I'm hoping that I can build three small 1,100 square foot two-bedroom, two-bath houses with an attached ADU right in walking distance to town. Thank you for all the hard work you've done. This is fantastic news. **Carlos Lucero:** Hey, good evening, Mayor Weber, members of the council. Carlos Lucero with the Public Service Company of New Mexico. We're here to let you know that we do have some concerns and issues with article 14.4.2, the archaeological review districts related to the utility mains. Miss Majes from the gas company stated a lot of our concerns as well. We do agree with the proposed threshold for the historic downtown piece of 50 feet because of the high archaeological sensitivity in the area. However, we do strongly recommend keeping the current threshold of 550 feet for rivers and trails in suburban districts because lowering the ARC review threshold will increase project costs for utilities and customers with equity impacts for low-income residents and these requirements typically add two months to project schedules creating routine delays for essential infrastructure work. I'd like to state too that as mentioned before from the gas company, the ARC already faces capacity challenges and often postpones decisions to the next monthly meeting. Most monitoring projects in the river and trails in suburban districts have yielded no significant archaeological findings. With the 30 seconds I have, we do appreciate and support amendment D that was brought forward by council members Romero, Worth, and Lindell. We support that and also in the future PNM will work better, Mr. Mayor, to address all these issues and concerns in a timely manner so that we can better address them. Thank you for your time and commitment to balancing preservation with practical infrastructure. Thank you. **Kathy Collins:** Hi, I'm Kathy Collins. I'm the executive director for Santa Fe Habitat. I first want to just express our gratitude for the tremendous effort that was invested in this process. And anytime this kind of work happens, updates that align the code with current best practices are invaluable to the work that we do. We definitely support the two-foot building height increase to enable compliance with the green building code since we do a lot of that type of work. Our homes are built to net zero and we do a lot of solar. We also believe that easing of parking restrictions could be very helpful to our work. And while we do not directly benefit from the proposed incentives in a way that a for-profit developer would, the incentives for additional affordability housing will support our ability to build more affordable housing and make the process for doing it easier. Specifically, we would use the increased density allowances to build more affordable housing. We only build affordable housing. The process of administrative review will help ensure that the donations and grants we receive are put towards building rather than carrying costs. Ultimately, that allows us to build more affordable housing. We also appreciate the no fee and in-lieu option ensuring that additional affordable housing units will be built. We also understand how all of these incentives work together and that they need to be considered as a total package. Thank you and I strongly support these updates and I hope that you all will approve them this evening. Thank you. --- Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor and Counselors. Very nice to see you. Johanna Gilligan, I'm here as Deputy CEO of HomeWise, but also just as a resident of Santa Fe and a Santa Fean. I also sat on the COG as a part of this process. I really just want to say that I think this is a moment to celebrate where we are. The fact that we are at adoption tonight is a huge success and I want to shout out the leadership of the Land Use Department that has gotten us here. Heather and Maggie and team have done a great job leading this process. While it's been delayed, we are here now and what is in this code update is great. The creating affordability incentives I think are a great experiment to get us a chance to test how we can incentivize more affordable housing production. Parking reductions are in my mind a really awesome opportunity to see that the sky won't fall when we tell people exactly how much parking they need to build. I think there's a lot in here to celebrate, not the least of which is also just a more readable, legible document for the process. I want to say I think this has been a good process. It's been a bit delayed, but we are here at the finish line. There's been a lot of really good community engagement in this process, both through the COG and also through all the public engagement. I think the Land Use staff worked really hard to make sure we were hearing from people. It is always hard. Your jobs are hard. It is hard to make decisions that drive change forward. It's something people fear, but I think it takes leadership and it demonstrates leadership to try new things. This update, while modest, I think will give us a step forward towards much more significant land use reform that we are now embarking upon with the General Plan update. I hope for a full vote of approval of this update tonight and I thank you all for your work and your service in government. --- Thank you for coming down. Good evening everybody. My name is Ruth Grodinski and I'm here to voice my strong support of the package of incentives proposed in this update that will increase affordable housing in Santa Fe. During the recent mayoral race, we heard everybody talking about increasing our affordable housing, and here is an opportunity to make important changes in the land code update that will lead to that positive outcome. Every day I hear my friends lament that their children who have grown up in Santa Fe can't afford to live here and are moving away. Every day I hear my teacher friends struggling to stay in education because our city can't entice more teachers to move here because of the high cost of rent or home ownership. What are we waiting for? If we are serious about addressing our housing crisis, I urge you to pass this Phase One update to the code and especially to ensure the affordability incentives move forward without amendments. Thank you so much for your attention. --- Good evening, Mayor and Counselors. My name is Sean Evans. I live at 1121 North Luna Circle. I'm an architect, principal at Mass Design Group and the current president of AIA Santa Fe. Joe Simmons and I have had the honor of being members of the Technical Advisory Working Group for the Land Development Code for the last two years and change. Many members of AIA Santa Fe have gathered regularly to follow the process of the LDC rewrite and advise Joe and me on critical issues that unnecessarily complicate development in Santa Fe. We've brought these issues to the TAG for discussion and have advised city staff in the Land Use Department. I don't know how many of you have actually tried to use the Land Development Code. As architects, we use the code every day to design the future of Santa Fe. The existing code is confusing and inconsistent even to the professionals trained in such things. The changes to the code in this Phase One of improvements go a long way to making the development process understandable by the general public and are long overdue. There's still much work to do. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We're excited to continue collaborating with the city staff and the citizens of Santa Fe to continue improving the code and the General Plan to improve affordability, equity, and sustainability, make this remarkable city even more beautiful, more resilient, and protect the communities who have lived here for generations. Thank you. --- Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor and Counselors. My name is Lisa Gavioli. I live at 610 Camino del Sol here in Santa Fe. I'm here before you tonight as a land use planner, as real estate development project director for HomeWise, and as a board member of the Friends of Architecture Santa Fe, and a member of the COG. I'd like to first of all applaud the efforts of planning and Land Use staff in getting these important code updates to the finish line. I particularly applaud the housing affordability incentives, parking reductions, and inclusion of a wider diversity of housing types into the use table. These are big wins for our community in creating better opportunities for expanding housing options in Santa Fe. All that said, the length of time in getting us to approving the low-hanging fruit phase of updating the code is of concern as we all pivot towards Phase Two. But hopefully all of this effort has laid the groundwork for a more efficient and expeditious next round. Thank you all for your hard work and I support the approval of the updates before you this evening and also echo Sean's statement of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Thank you. --- Good evening, Mayor and Counselors. My name is Bridget Dixon and I serve as President and CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. Our organization includes more than 600 member businesses that rely on us to advocate for a strong and stable local economy. I strongly encourage you to support the enhanced affordability incentives in Phase One of the Land Development Code update as a package without amendments. Santa Fe's housing crisis is one of the most urgent economic challenges faced in our community. More than one in three people who work in Santa Fe live outside Santa Fe County, meaning nearly 60% of our workforce cannot afford to live here. These workers spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours commuting each year, which impacts their families, our environment, and the employers who depend on them. Our member businesses consistently cite housing as a top barrier to hiring and retention. The lack of attainable housing affects the long-term stability of our local economy and our GRT base. The incentives in this Phase One package include density bonuses, design flexibility, fee waivers, and streamlined administrative review. Each removes a major barrier that has prevented affordable housing from being built. They only work when implemented together. Thank you. --- Good evening. My name is Joe Simmons. I'm an architect and also a member of the Technical Advisory Working Group. I practice in about a dozen municipalities and I'm in and out of zoning and land use codes on a daily basis. I'm really enthusiastic about the process that occurred with this rewrite. It is going to make my job and Land Use staff's job quite a lot easier on a daily basis. I recommend that this bill get passed tonight as quickly as possible so we can get on with the next big work with Phase Two. Thank you. --- Hi. Good evening. My name is Elizabeth West and I live in Santa Fe. I would echo a lot of what we've heard, about 75% of it, but not all of it. I'm worried a little bit about what's going to happen if we make a decision here tonight in Phase One and then in Phase Two something in the process of discussion comes to the floor where we disagree with what we've done before. I'm assuming if Phase Two is going to be more detailed that the decisions made there will hold. Unlike some other people, I'm very much looking forward to hearing about the amendments. I think that's going to help round this out. Regarding biking, I love the idea of biking and I think it's going in the right direction, but how are we going to get people who are on bikes or people like me who would like to be safely to wherever they're going to park their bike? The biking issue is connected to other organizations and other groups, I realize, but something to think about. Gentle density from one thing to another can be gentle if the design is good. I'm interested in caveats, but that'll come in Phase Two, I guess. The other thing is I'm a little concerned about watering down the archaeology stuff. I think that's something in an old city that we want to protect. So I'll be interested in hearing about that, too. As far as affordability goes, remember, of course, we want to have more buildings. I like infill when it's done aesthetically and I don't mean just for the historic districts, of course for them, but for other places too where there's some really good buildings south of town. But there's some other building that is not so good that just builds to the height no matter what it is without considering aesthetics or solar stuff or whatever. A local place is moving to go back to their main place in Rio Rancho, not because it's more convenient, but because it's cheaper. Their rent was raised before the increase. When we increase one thing or decrease one thing depending on tariffs and all that stuff here locally, that sometimes can make hardship. I would love it if somehow you all could miraculously say let's everybody be nice to each other and not charge the top bill, but that's not going to happen. So you're going to be creative about what we're doing. Something good: the solar, the EV time expiration of six months, Dark Skies. Thank you. Let's reset the clock. Yes, sir, you have the floor. Thank you, Mayor. Councilors, my name is Frank Katz. My four years as city attorney back a while made me very much appreciate the credible process on the land use code. I was aware of the difficulties in it. My 11 years on the historic design review board helped me understand just how important to this city preserving some aspect of this unique place. In 1957 we enacted the ordinance to try and protect the sense of place here, and I think it has done a very good job. I also am now on the Old Santa Fe Association board and I appreciate the difficulties, but I am concerned about the substantive changes that have been made to the historic code. They're in there and I don't think they were thought through well. They have a number of provisions that have no definition, so you don't really know what they're doing. The standards that have been used for the historic styles have been in place for very many years. There's a sort of understanding and a practice and an interpretation that I think we should be a little bit more careful before we throw it out. When the Historic Board discussed this, there was the thought that it could be changed when we do the substantive part. Well, that substantive part should have been put off till then. What's going to happen when you have some strange rules that nobody really knows what the interpretation is and then you change it again? I think delaying the changing of any of those things is certainly within the board's and the council's power to do that, and I assume that they will. But let's do it all at once, not piecemeal. That's why I would ask you please to support the amendment that's sponsored by the Historic Board. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Let's reset the clock and you have the floor. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Councilors. My name is Carlos Gamora. I work on housing strategies for communities around the state, similar to this one. Six years ago when I was working for the city, we drafted affordable housing incentives. We got a lot of broad support from planning commissioners, historic advocates, community members, and affordability advocates. Those were unfortunately shelved. Two years ago, we picked the idea back up for phase one so we could have affordable housing incentives that actually provide some kind of relief for entities that are trying to build above and beyond the minimal affordable housing. The incentives that we have right now try to make an incredibly burdensome process a little bit easier. They try to apply incentives that are given to other projects to affordable housing. Unfortunately, Santa Fe has gotten a reputation in the past as being a really difficult or horrible place to build housing, especially affordable housing. Compared to other cities and towns in New Mexico, the reputation is that Santa Fe has processes that are difficult, long, and obscure. In general, the current regulations encourage as little housing as possible with the least density possible, which costs as much as possible. In 2022, Santa Fe had 21,000 households that were paying unaffordable housing costs. There were 12,000 employees that wanted to join the community but couldn't. There was also an affordability gap that was several hundred thousand to afford housing in Santa Fe. The changes tonight fix many small but meaningful issues with the code. It's not nearly enough, but I do think it's a really strong step forward for Santa Fe to start. If you want careful and incremental progress, this process has been that. I suggest fixing the small things now in phase one and then trying to recognize that you could always come back and refine or refix things later in the process after testing. If you want to be an innovative and creative community, I encourage you to finally finish the phase one update. I encourage you to come together as a community and really explore the challenging issues around density, affordability, accessibility, and inclusion in phase two. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for being here. Yes, go ahead. Thank you, Mayor and Councilors. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Daniel Warwth. I served on the Community Advisory Working Group and also one of the big proponents to pick up the work that Carlos started back in 2019. I think, again to echo what other folks have said, is great process. There's a lot of input. Our group met regularly for quite a long time. Is this everything I'd ever hoped? No. Is it a really important step? Yes. I think as we think about the future of this city, there's a lot of growth that we don't like right now. We see big apartment complexes and luxury homes. We need to figure out how to chart a middle path. This is our path to start doing things like the five-unit compound with one affordable unit in it instead of one 30,000-square-foot lot. These are the steps that we take. I think at worst case scenario, this is going to make nonprofit development a lot easier, faster, and more affordable with a higher percentage affordable. In the best case, it's going to do things like pull people into building affordable housing for the first time because it makes it attractive. That's what we need to do from a code perspective as we think about these second and third phases of work. How do we make building housing for locals the most attractive, the easiest thing to put our folks in? This is a really great first step. I just want to commend everyone's input—all the folks that participated in the committees, the public hearings, the staff's hard work. I want to thank all of you for being engaged around this and sitting through the hearings and all the involvement. Congratulations to the outgoing electeds for your service. I appreciate it. Congratulations to the reelected and mayor elect. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor and Councilors. My name is Anne Watkins. As a member of the Community Development Commission, I'm painfully aware of how desperately we need affordable housing and workforce housing in the community. We're often, as you are, faced with painful decisions—lack of money, lack of resources, lack of clear direction. Tonight's an opportunity to really move the dial on this issue. It's been in the works for almost three years with extensive public input for at least two years. It includes a package of very important enhanced affordability incentives that are in use around the country. We need to accept those and adopt those to accelerate production of affordable units in Santa Fe. I encourage you to take into consideration the Historic Board's recommendations, but to move this forward tonight so that Santa Fe has the tools to address our growth and development challenges and to increase the development of affordable and other housing units that are so desperately needed in the city. Thank you all and thank you for the time you put into the city. Thank you very much. Let's reset the clock and you have the floor. Hello again. My name is Marcia Emerton. I'm going to say something I've said before about this same thing and it's just land the plane. We're here. It's beautiful work. Let's just get it done. Then I'm going to go off topic from everyone else and bring up a couple other things. First of all, today in the paper it said there's a 114-person waiting list at Agopy. This isn't good. We got to do something better and we have to do it right now. It's cold out there. So please work on that. And then I'm going to switch over to another thing which is Midtown. This is a hearing about this bill. You can't do that. I can't do that. No, this is not public comment. This is specific to this bill. Please do submit your comments in writing. I keep doing that and I don't get things. I mean, people answer, but not the answers I want. I'm so sorry. That's okay. Well, good luck. Land the plane and you'll see me again. Thank you so much. I appreciate your understanding. Let's reset the clock and go ahead. You have the floor. All right. Good evening, Mayor and City Councilors. My name is Nate Kra. I'm here as a cyclist, runner, urban planner, and one of the few commenters under 30. We don't applaud or boo. Just let's go with the testimony. Go ahead. All right. First, the affordable housing provisions are essential and must be passed without amendments. Housing research nationally and internationally is clear that more supply keeps housing prices lower. The proposed amendments increase housing supply while also promoting sustainable infill development. Second, we need better bicycle infrastructure and the proposed changes are a great first step towards that. We can't be a sustainable city without multimodal transportation. Let's take the first step to move Santa Fe forward, not backward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's reset the clock. Wait one sec. Okay, very good. Yes, you have the floor. Hi there. My name is Dante Gonzalez. I'm a founding board member of Generation Elevate New Mexico. Santa Fe faces a serious housing challenge with median home prices around 600k. As you heard tonight, rising costs are forcing residents out of the city and a large portion of local workers commute from outside the city to work here. I am one of those local workers who must commute from Albuquerque every single day to work in Santa Fe because I cannot afford to live here. I've also had to stay in hotels and Airbnbs because driving two hours every single day is a serious hamper on your mental health and physical health. I fear that if the city continues down its trajectory of not having affordable housing, you'll continue to force young professionals out of the city and away from the city, which will lead to long-term detriment for you. A key piece of this update, the CAN initiative, encourages projects to make a percentage of the housing affordable by offering density bonuses for market rate housing. Mathematically, if you're increasing the supply of market rate housing, you will also lower the cost. So again, as you've heard tonight by I think every single speaker here, these measures have broad support and are ready to go and would assist with making moving to the city a possibility for many. I urge you to approve phase one and the CAN initiative. Santa Fe's workforce and residents deserve timely action on housing affordability and sustainable growth. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anyone else want to come forward and testify? Now is the time. Madame Clerk, I assume we might have some folks in the Zoom room. There are several folks in the Zoom room. I'll do them in order. Anthony Guida, you are allowed to speak. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. My name is Anthony Guida. I'm an architect, president of Friends of Architecture Santa Fe, and a member of the Citizens Advisory Working Group. I commend the city staff for getting us to this point. This draft represents a significant improvement in clarity and usability of the code. Most importantly, it includes the affordable housing incentives that seek to make our development process far less onerous, significantly more inclusionary, and better aligned with our community's current values and our urgent needs around housing. After three long years, it's time to do this thing. I was also a member of the historic district's review board for six years. I'd like to make some recommendations about the historic amendments and process as we move into phase two. The historic code is part of and has historically informed our larger land use code, and an ad hoc historic subcommittee should never have been separated from the TOG and COG citizen subcommittees that were advising the rest of the chapter 14 code. This is something that can be fixed in phase two. As imperfect as the historic code updates are, it's not okay that three years of forward progress on the code rewrite for the historic portion is now being stymied by the HDRB entirely by those who are members of the Santa Fe Association. In addition to the code, HDRB membership needs serious reform. Members of an anti-development and anti-change organization should not occupy five of seven seats on HDRB. They're not entitled to continued control over five overlay districts, land use division, a review board, and this entire portion of our code—not on the public dime and certainly not when the city's own probation report in 2021 indicated that the net result has been that our H districts have seen a 25% reduction in housing units, a loss of 60% of its Hispanic residents, and dramatic reductions in demographic and economic diversity contrary to trends throughout the city. It's also not okay that for part of the year, the mayor has failed to seat an architect on the HDRB in violation of the current and proposed versions of chapter 14. One architect would represent the majority of Athens' actual preservation knowhow, technical and design expertise. Thank you for listening to me. Let's get the rewrite passed. Strongly consider dropping the historic board amendments. Let's focus on positive change in the next phase. Thank you very much. --- Thank you very much. Appreciate you calling in. Others in the Zoom room, next is Bruce Throne. You are allowed to speak. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you. My name is Bruce Throne. I submitted detailed written comments—26 pages of them—on October 20th. I won't get into them here except in a very superficial way. The devil's in the details, we all know that. My focus was more on the encouraging things on affordability. I was focused on the changes to the subdivision and rezoning regulations, and I just hope you'll consider them. I think there's some problems in there. I'm not sure how this process works in terms of the phased approval approach as I discussed in my comments, but to the extent that's the way the governing body wants to proceed, I would just try to make sure that whatever language you use in adopting it, you make it clear that when you get to phases two and three, you can make changes. In other words, it's not locked in stone. The only other couple of things I'd make within my two minutes: I would just mention one of the things that I proposed based on my experience before the planning commission—that the code clarifies that when the developer or the planning commission imposes development requirements, they all have to be stated and shown on the proposed final plat before the planning commission approves it. So it'll be a matter of public record and people will know that that's going to be enforced. Finally, as I mentioned in my comments, I didn't see much on water, and I think a lot of us saw the excellent article in the New Mexican a couple of days ago about the connection between our San Juan Chama diversion project and the Colorado River Compact, and how an allocation reduction for New Mexico could affect us. I'm hoping at some point in one of these phases, the governing body will take a look at that and see if there can be at least some authority for the city to either condition or turn down a particularly large subdivision if approving it based on water calculations could jeopardize water availability to the community and the cost of it. Because as far as I can understand, even with the return flow pipeline that was discussed in that article, whatever those credits are could be reduced dramatically if New Mexico gets a dramatic reduction in its allocation. Thanks for listening to my comments and for all your efforts. --- Thank you. Thanks for zooming in. Next hand, Madam Clerk. Jordan Young, you're allowed to speak. Hi there, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. My name is Jordan Young. It has taken years to update this land use code. I remember when there was a Google Doc free-for-all style public input period. I want to thank the public service employees from New Mexico Gas and PNM for showing up to point out their concerns with archaeological review and how it adds costs and delays to crucial utilities. Every rule has the potential to add costs and delays to a project, let alone the cost and staff burden of enforcement. Thank you to Anthony Guida for your reasonable suggestion that the historic concerns be tabled for phase two and that the HDRB comply with the rules around its membership. Though I've lived in Santa Fe for 12 years, I've only owned my home in South Capitol for just over a year. I was appalled to learn that it took many months and thousands of dollars and four—that's right, four—inspections to install a fence where a fence had previously existed. Months to get a permit to do an interior renovation with thousands of dollars of expertise required to satisfy an ever-moving goalpost. These delays cost money and cause stress for individuals. Land use is full of unknown costs and processes. For larger developers, they experience this on a larger scale. I've attended numerous planning meetings where projects jump through hoops and spend thousands of dollars satisfying ridiculous requirements just to get past the planning phase. Complaining neighbors and neighborhood NIMBYs disguised as preservation institutes, armed with lawyers and plenty of retired folk who show up to every planning meeting to complain and block new development, are given a big platform. NIMBYs have always managed to delay change or end projects. The Old Santa Fe Association is given seats on the Historic Design Review Board, which is of course an endless pit of woes. Don't let them block this land use code update too. While cities across America suffer from affordability and lack of housing supply, we seem to make zero connection between our harsh regulatory environment and our obvious growing issues with homelessness, crime, and affordability. Though I am eager to see movement on this project, I am disheartened with the level of regulations discussed tonight. We should be doing everything possible to plan, permit, and build housing and climate-ready infrastructure as quickly as possible. If we say that we care about affordability, let's do the things that are proven to actually improve housing supply. Remove the barriers to building more housing. I urge you to make sure that every single regulation that you are adopting is actually serving this goal. Thank you. --- Thank you very much. Who's next, Madam Clerk? Brandon Bella, you're allowed to speak. Good evening. Am I coming through? Yes, loud and clear. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Weber and city councilors. I'd like to express my support for the approval of phase one of the land development code as written, including the housing incentives. I appreciate the diligence that this council and other committees have shown in developing and reviewing this phase of the update. It was over a year ago that I attended the LDC phase one open house, which was a great opportunity for the public to engage with the plan, ask questions, and make comments. There's still much work to be done in phase two, and with many of the reviewing bodies recommending adoption without change, I think it's time to pass this phase of the update and get on with the massive amount of work still to be done. Every week, month, and at this point, years that the decision is delayed, folks continue to wait for home-owning opportunities. New businesses are choked by parking minimums, and this chamber is tied up when it could be making progress on other issues. I encourage this body to approve phase one tonight and open the way for increased housing and progress on phase two. Thank you. --- Thank you very much. Back to you, Madam Clerk. Jenny Parks, you're allowed to speak. Good evening. This is Jenny Parks. I am here tonight on behalf of Enorm Health Foundation as well as a citizen of Santa Fe, and I just want to not take much time because everyone said a lot of good things. I really strongly support passing these amendments, and I want to express thanks for a very thorough, thoughtful process. I've been to many of the hearings and I know many of the people who have been involved and spent many hours looking at these changes, especially towards affordable housing and livable neighborhoods. Thank you all for your leadership on this, and I urge you to support it. Thank you. --- Thank you very much. Jennifer Jenkins, you're allowed to speak. Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. I'm Jennifer Jenkins. I'm here this evening as a land use planner that works with chapter 14 every single day of my life. I believe that phase one of this effort is a really important first step in improving the code and improving the usability. We have much more work to do, but I want to echo many of the other supportive comments this evening and urge adoption of this. We can't wait. The affordability crisis is real, and this is an important step in addressing that. I thank you and really appreciate your support. --- Thank you. Gayla, you are allowed to speak. Good evening. I'm Gayla Bechal. I'm an architect in Santa Fe. I also serve on the archaeology review board. As some others have said, I work with this code every day, especially the historic districts review portion of the code. I have some nitpicky things to talk about, but I'm not going to, and I just really encourage you to approve this with the amendments. I don't agree with all of them. I don't appreciate that the historic was removed during the HDRB meeting. I'm understanding about the stakeholders for the archaeology links, but I also would say that the patron of Santa Fe often gets bulldozed. I hear lots of stories and would love to be able to continue to add to the archaeology knowledge of Santa Fe. But bottom line is truly I would love for you to approve this tonight. We need the affordable housing, or at least those incentives, and I so appreciate the staff really working so diligently and so hard to get us at least to this point. Let's just keep going. We are—I know the architects are ready to start phase two and then hop on the Santa Fe Forward. So thank you so much. --- Thank you very much. Next up? There are no more hands raised, but if anyone would like to speak in the Zoom room who has not spoken, please raise your hand. I am seeing no one else raise their hand. Very good. That then completes the public testimony part of the hearing. What I'd do now is I would entertain a motion, and then we can go to work on amendments. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion to approve the bill and we have a second and we have a variety of amendments. I think we should perhaps, unless somebody's got a better suggestion, simply go in alphabetical order as they've been presented to us. So that would lead us to take up amendment A. Yes, sir. Amendment A is the amendment that the H board recommended around the district standards and just take them back to where they are so that in phase two more work can be done on these. I think there are some issues with what's here and I think more conversation would be beneficial in getting to a place where everybody felt more comfortable with them. So this basically changes the bill to take it back to what the standards are currently. Are you moving that amendment? I did, didn't I? I moved that amendment. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there discussion of amendment A? Madam Clerk, could you call Councilor Cassidy? Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Is there staff available? I don't see anybody at the podium. I used to be talking to somebody. Maybe Heather, maybe you would be the one. I do want to understand the process around the historic standards. As mentioned, there was a subcommittee from the TOG and COG, which are fun names. And then it was brought to H board for approval. Was H board part of the development of these? I'd love to. I've heard a few different stories about how we got to this moment in time. So if you could help me, that would be wonderful. Yes. Thank you for the question, Mayor. Weber Chair, I'm sorry, Councilor Cassidy. With reference to the subcommittee, we felt it was important to have that topic dealt with specifically rather than just as part of the larger code. And so there were two representatives from the historic districts review board on the committee. We also had representatives from the AIA, the Old Santa Fe Association, and Miss Beninato was also invited to be part of that committee. Other people were welcome and sort of came and went over time from the land use working group, for instance. So with reference to the district standards, those standards actually were developed in 2004 and at that time there was an administration change and the amendment was never created. So the intent of the district standards is really to recognize that historic preservation is not a styles ordinance anymore. It is actually a preservation ordinance. So back in 1957, Oliver LaFarge and Irene Bort Van Horvath said, "Everything should be old or recent Santa Fe style. It doesn't stand to reason as much anymore." And what happens to Northern New Mexico style? What happens in those situations where we have all these styles that are endemic to our region but aren't acknowledged in something from 1957? And so that was the reason for the proposed changes. I know that not all the committee agreed with that approach and they've been very clear about it that that was the rationale. Got it. Thank you. Yeah, I will say I struggle with this one because I do think we have a lot of challenges with our historic code. We have practical challenges with our historic code. I've heard horror stories of people having leaky roofs that they couldn't fix for a year and then got mold because of having to get through H board. So I have some very large concerns around our historic code and how it is enacted and how it has really impacted. My challenge right now is I will simply say that with the bulk of this piece of legislation in front of us and historic being, I would say, the area of land use that I am least familiar with, that really understanding the impact of these changes for me is really challenging and whether or not they are actually reaching some of the big concerns I have. So what I would ask when we move this forward—and I know that we've discussed this—when we get to phase two, that we're going to start to take these things in chunks because every single topic that we will discuss tonight that we have discussed could be its own legislation that could be a three-hour conversation in its own right. This stuff is really complicated. So I guess those are my comments right now. I think at this point I will support this amendment, but I would really like to see this come forward quickly because the way that our age code actually interfaces with individuals who are in the districts can really cause some problems. And I think we've talked about what we would like to see with affordability. So I would just request that we get this moving forward. I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the staff's learning sessions and I learned a lot. So I would love that opportunity too, especially as we are talking about historic with some of these different perspectives coming in because the fact of the matter is it is very much an opinion at this point. I know we've had this conversation around new versus old, and I can see people discuss whether something is new or old and disagree with it, and they both have great points in my brain. So I think some education around this as well as this moves forward would be helpful for me to feel really comfortable to be able to make changes that I think are getting to that place. So I just wanted to make those comments there and thank you so much. Thank you, Councilor. Other comments on the amendment? We have a motion and a second for this amendment. Let's call the roll. Madam Clerk. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Maroworth. Yes. Councilor Cassidy. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. No. Councilor Faulkner. No. Motion is approved. Thank you. Let's go to amendment B, which I believe is characterized in the packet as a technical amendment. Councilor Cassidy. Yes, it is. If we go to amendment B, this was both Director Lamboy and Assistant Director Moore referred to some of these areas where there were mistakes in some headings, some spelling. Yeah, spelling headings. And I believe that is it. So I'm happy to read through this if that is of desire. It is in the packet, but it is things like "any" was spelled with two A's and we'd like to only spell it with one. So with that, I would like to move amendment B. Amendment B has been moved. Is there a second? There is a second. Is there discussion for or against amendment B? Councilor Michael Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Maybe it was amendment C. No, one of them's changing terms. Is that amendment C? C. Amendment B is primarily dealing with spelling mistakes and things that are replacing words that are— I found it. So it says on page 211, exhibit A, section 14-3.3, table 3-23, in the row titled "density residential max" under C1 and C4, replace 10 with 21. So it's proposing to replace 10 ft with 21 ft. Am I correct on that? And what's the—I understand the rest are very technical corrections of grammar. This is changing feet. This is changing distance. So what is the existing law and why is there a proposed change? Go ahead if you have an answer, please. Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Councilor Garcia. So that particular change is kind of a cleanup from the change that we made to allow density by right in our 12, our 21 or 29. And so in the code C1, which is a commercial district, references the density of R21 and but then when you go there, it says 10. And it's not actually feet. These numbers are density numbers. And so we wanted to acknowledge that we were kind of removing that limitation on density from 10 back up to 21. So what is it currently? Well, it is 21 but it's just a little kind of clarification change that we made. Okay. So the law is currently the density of 21. This proposal in front of us has 10, but the amendment is proposing it to align with law, which is 21. I understand correctly. Correct. Yeah, because we're removing that provision that requires you to ask for permission to go above 10. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it's a— Absolutely. It is a really fine needle there we're trying to thread. So I appreciate the question. Thank you. No other questions, Mr.— Other questions on this amendment? Amendment B? There's a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll? Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Maroworth. Yes. Councilor Cassidy. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Motion is approved. Very good. That takes us to the next amendment. We, Councilors. Amendment C is almost finished. Marcy's working on the cleanup on it. There were several questions. So no wonder I didn't see. So we could go to D if— I think we should move then to amendment D, which is in our packet and has been sponsored by Councilors Romero and Lindell. Would one of you like to briefly describe it and then make the motion? Yes. So I think you heard from both utility companies, gas and electric, that these are examples of changes again that probably need to be reconsidered in phase two. And there are, as I understand it, three districts: historic, river and trails, and suburban. The utility companies are fine with the change in the historic district of narrowing—and maybe I need Director Lamboy back again—narrowing the space they have to work in before they have to go out to do these archaeological requirements. And in the historic district, as you heard from PNM, they are fine with moving from 60 to 50 ft because they actually are finding things that we want to be preserving. But in the river trails and suburban districts, moving from 550 ft down to 100 and 550 ft down to 200 are probably need more conversation and I think it would be good to involve the utility companies in that conversation. So maybe these are—it sounds like they are objecting to these moves from 550 to 100 and 550 to 200. Maybe there's some other place that everyone can agree on, but I don't think there's been enough conversation about where that is. And I don't know, Director Lamboy, if I explained that particularly well and maybe you want to add to that. Mayor Weber, Councilor Romero, thank you for reviewing the issues. So it's number of linear feet for any utility main that there's an extension. So in the historic downtown, as you well know, we're cultural resource rich. So the reduction is from 60 linear feet to 50 linear feet. We are also cultural resource rich in the rivers and trails. There's a PBLO that's nearby Siler Road and that's in the rivers and trails district. And so there's all sorts of cultural resources we've discovered over time. And so that was the rationale for reducing that in rivers and trails. And then suburban, there's been a lot of different types of—for instance, most recently, dealing with tier into phase three, there are wagon tracks that actually were related to the Camino Real and then later caravans for goods and services. So that's the rationale. But if and we can certainly engage more with the community and we will do that immediately as part of phase two. And I think I would add it's my understanding that we did not engage with the utility companies and I think we should because they are one of the stakeholders here. There may be real reasons for these distances, or the distances there may be another sweet spot that can be agreed upon, but I don't think we did a very good job of engaging all the stakeholders in making these adjustments because they are coming to us. They came to us today. I think most of us got an email about this. I understand the gas company sent a letter. I've never seen that letter. I don't know who it was sent to, but the fact that they're emailing in this eleventh hour, my understanding also is that they were only notified about this last week. So it just seems like more conversation would be important before we make these changes, at least in the river and trails in the suburban district. **Motion.** I seem to be forgetting that part. I would move amendment D. **Is there a second?** There is a second. Is there discussion of this amendment? **I see a hand up from Councilor Cassidy.** Thank you, Mayor. Director Lambo, I've heard some conflicting information. One, that there has not been anything found outside of historic, but it sounds like there has been. So besides the two that you just mentioned off Siler and Tierra Contenta, how often are we running into this problem where we are finding historical materials that would be important for archaeological preservation? **Mayor, Councilor Cassidy, the suburban district is where we find the least amount, but Tierra Contenta is in that suburban district. Certainly there are a lot of things that aren't discovered because of the techniques they use to do utility mains, which is to bore, and it just destroys everything in its path. There's no way you can understand that. So that's the reason we need to understand the context. There's mapping that the state does to know where those archaeological sites are that have been discovered. But there are times, for instance, over with the Carmelite seminary, there was an archaeological study done for the Modern Elder Academy, and there was some historic trash, for instance a beer bottle. I don't know if the nuns were drinking, but anyway, that from the 1940s.** That actually is interesting. I mean, beer bottle, but you know, fascinating when it gets that old. And then, you know, Shelby had mentioned you'd mentioned something about that. There is already a process that both New Mexico Gas and PNM have. I'm just curious because it is important that we balance these things out, but I mean, is there a way to streamline so that a permit isn't taking so long, but we're also making sure that we are protecting these areas? I mean, if there's already an archaeological review going on with the utility companies, is there a way that we actually put these things together so that we don't have to deal with a long permitting process, but we're getting the information that we need that makes us feel comfortable that we're not in an area that needs protection? **That's a great question, Mayor, Councilor Cassidy. We did actually talk about that today with Chair E, who is the chair of the archaeological review committee, and there are things that we can do operationally that will make an impact. For instance, PNM and New Mexico Gas, they have archaeologists on staff like our water division does as well. So we have thought about not making them do a monitoring report or not doing the monitoring plan but just turn in a report. Those are things that still need to be worked out. But certainly we can make improvements operationally that just sort of arose today.** And those would not—if there are improvements that are made operationally, they're not something that has to be set down in code. They are just part of your policies and procedures within the department. **Yes, that is correct. There are triggers for an archaeological report, but the monitoring plan and the actual final report, it's not completely spelled out in code. So we think that we can work within that realm to produce a net effect that's positive for the utility companies.** So not just neutral to where we are now, but potentially even positive for where we are now. **There would be one less report. It's always a good thing.** Okay. Thank you, Director. **Thank you, Councilor.** Councilor Marworth. **Director Lambo, so when you say triggers, I mean, one of the triggers is distance, right?** Mayor, Councilor Romero, that is correct. **Okay. So again, I would just say I think we need some more conversation around this and we should stick with what we have now and let's have the conversation in phase two.** Thank you. Other comments on this? We have a motion and a second. Could you please call the roll, Madam Clerk? **Councilor Lindell.** **Councilor Marworth. Yes.** **Councilor Cassidy. Pass for a minute.** **Councilor Castro. Yes.** **Councilor Chavez. No.** **Councilor Faulkner. Yes.** **Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes.** **Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes.** **Councilor Cassidy. No.** Motion is approved. Okay. That's A, B, and D. Do we have a sighting of amendment C? **We're checking now. We might still be formatting it. I don't have it yet.** Is there other conversation folks want to have about the bill generally? **Hang on one sec. We don't have amendment C. Do we have an estimated time of arrival?** It's basically finished. Okay. So any minute now. All right. So I would entertain other comments before we—if this is a good time. Councilor Garcia, go ahead, sir. **Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Quick question for staff. I know the Santa Fe Homes program is roughly around page 454. Can you help point out for the public where it clearly states that if a developer wants to use the density bonus, that they cannot pay into the fee, that they do not—they pay the fee, they do not qualify for the density bonus?** Mayor, Councilor Garcia, that is correct. So we really want to incentivize the construction of affordable housing on site. While we've received a lot of benefit from the adoption of the fee and lieu program, the default is that they get the density bonus and they pay. So if the fee and lieu is not going to sponsor additional density bonuses. If they construct affordable housing, then the bonus is applied. It's just in the case that there's no affordable housing on that site. **Okay. Can you help me point out to the public where in the new rewrite where it states that, because somebody's reached out to me saying they don't see that stipulation in here?** Um, I will have to look that up and get back to you, Mayor, Councilor Garcia. **Okay. Thank you.** Get that specific site. **Thank you.** Great. Thank you. **Thank you. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes, sir.** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, definitely appreciate all the work on this. And I guess my overall question at a median house price of $572K for the city of Santa Fe is: are we really just saying more supply is going to cause price to come down? Where do we get our affordability? Because I know that even though we have more units in the market, Santa Fe is such a desirable place to live and buy a house. And so I'm not—again, this is kind of conversation or questions over our overall intention here. How many more affordable units are we really looking at? Attainable units or affordable units, are we going to get out of this? I don't know who has the answer to that. And I guess this is just more in the form of a comment than it is a question to any particular staff member because, back to the question of how do you put a limit on what somebody can sell a unit for? And attainable is the term I like to use because affordability is very difficult for many people who are in a lower threshold of income. And so for the units that will be affordable or attainable to people, what does that look like in this new code rewrite? **That is an informable question.** Yeah. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, for the units that are affordable or attainable, there's supposed to be no difference in construction or anything like that. For instance, we have affordable single family homes that look indistinguishable from other homes. They might be a little smaller. They might have different floor plans or whatever to accommodate for a resident, but they blend. For instance, in Tierra Contenta, it's hard to identify what's affordable and what's not, and the intent is to keep their program going. **Right. And again, that will follow the area median income, obviously, and what those units—they can't sell above that. So again, just wrapping my head a little bit more. And as we go, we always learn something through all these exercises, even though we've kind of been through it over and over again. Other than that, no other further comments, Mayor.** Thank you, Councilor. Were you able to find the chapter and verse that Councilor Michael Garcia was asking about? **Yes, Mayor, I was. Thank you. Yes, Mayor. Councilor Michael Garcia, so it is—pulled this up. It's page 457 of the document and it's under section 1472 E, which is standard development incentives, and it is under one, which is density bonus, and the Roman numeral I, and it says that a developer providing on-site Santa Fe Homes program dwelling units is entitled to a density bonus of 15% over the density allowed by the zoning district. So this is a kind of subtle change but something that's impactful. So compliance with this could mean that a rental development is going to provide maybe 5% of units as affordable and pay a 10% density bonus, or you know, or fee in lieu. I'm rather sorry, let me correct that. They could, you know, because they would have to pay a density or a fee in lieu, but if they provided some units on site, you know, for rentals, then they would get to have that bonus. Or they could just provide all of the required rentals. So it could be a mix, but they do have to—they can't just pay their way out of the requirement.** Okay. **Councilor.** Thank you for that. So now it's changing a little because now it went from they can't pay the fee to qualify to now where they can pay somewhat of a fee but qualify halfway. And I think it's unclear the way it's written. It should clearly stipulate. I'm of the mindset to qualify for any density, they can't pay any fee. Not half and half. There's no density bonus if they're paying a fee. And so that's if the way it reads, and it doesn't even read—my understanding of this is that there is kind of an option for half pay the fee, half get density. It just says when offered for sale, 20% of a developer site allowed based dwelling unit shall be SFHP Santa Fe Homes program units meeting all requirements of 26-1. So two things here we should further clarify at minimum because this whole jumping around from this section to the next section is what this whole first phase was supposed to eliminate in regards to the cleanup. From my understanding, the first phase, when it was sold to us two years ago, what it was going to be was technical cleanup and beautifying. Now it's not only that, but it's got over 40 significant changes. So I think it's my opinion if a fee can be paid and density can still be gotten, this density bonus, we need to clearly stipulate that here because it's not the way this reads, nor does it say anything to that nature. And with that being said, again, I'm of the mindset that to even qualify for density, they can't pay any fee because again the whole intention and what we heard from vast majority of the folks—I want to say what do we got here, 30, maybe 40 folks here, at least half of them, if not more than half, spoke about the affordability and how it's going to bring about affordable homes. When we pay the fee, we don't get the affordable homes. We get some monetary resource, but we don't get the homes. And I think that's the concern I've heard from the public loud and clear is they want to begin to get the stock. And so I guess with that being said, I'm trying to figure out how we clarify this. The Mayor, Council Garcia, I'll just add we do see these types of projects come forward—a rental project development that is required to provide 15% affordability. And sometimes we can work with those and they might provide 5% of their units as affordable and then pay a fee in lieu for the balance. So that was the intent here—to encourage some units to be provided on site. And the Santa Fe Homes program does allow for that alternative means of compliance with the standards and requirements in Chapter 26. Right. Chapter 26 too. So now that I'm going back and looking at this section that was cited, this is just actually citing the Santa Fe Homes program requirements. This is previous because Section One, as cited earlier, was the 20% for the for-sale homes. Section Two talks about the 15%. Then it gets down later where we modified it because of the lack of development that actually included the fee. So again, I'm having a hard time figuring out where it explicitly says in this change that a fee must be paid for a hybrid or non-hybrid process to qualify for the density bonus and how the fee plays into that. Because then you get into Section E, which is actually the density bonus. And I'm not seeing anything in here. I've read it three or four times. Section E, one through subsections one, two, three, four—nothing around the fee. It gets down into fee waivers. So I think that we've got an issue here. We've got a problem. We've got to fix it because I will not vote in favor of this the way it's currently written in regards to how the density bonus can or cannot be impacted by a fee being paid or not being paid. For my colleagues on the dais and anybody in the public that's looking at this, this is on page 457 of this LDC foundations document, and we're going into Section E, Standard Development Incentives, Item One, Density Bonus. "Developer for providing on-site Santa Fe Homes dwelling units is entitled to a density bonus of 15% over the density allowed by the zoning district." That kind of gets to what was being said, but then there was the conversation of hybrid—well, some fee can be paid, but you still qualify for the density bonus. And so that to me leaves a lot of interpretation and wiggle room. And what does that density bonus actually work out to? Is there a formula? Right? And for example, if 10 homes were supposed to be affordable and they paid the fee for five, they only get density bonus of five. I mean, there needs to be a formula that really demonstrates how this is going to work out. And I don't see it in this section here. Councilor, you've got a couple of your colleagues whose hands are up as well. Oh, okay. Happy to yield the floor. Let's just take it in order here. Councilor Faulner and then Councilor Marworth and then Councilor Cassid. So I think I've made it abundantly clear as a planning commissioner and as a city councilor that I am not a fan of fee in lieu. What I will say though is there is a formula that you can create where fee in lieu is effective. And I'm just wondering if what you're attempting to do is kind of find some kind of hybrid until we can find the right formula for fee in lieu. Because if that's the case, I'm comfortable with the language that we're using. But the reality is fee in lieu is very complicated and I don't think we have the right formula right now. But I do think this as a round one compromise until we can get to where we can establish a better version of fee in lieu for the City of Santa Fe. Is that the goal? That's what I'm trying to get at. Is this kind of like you're putting a holding place by coming up with this compromise until we can remedy what is vastly wrong with fee in lieu right now? Thanks, Mayor, and Councilor Faulner. We're not proposing to change anything with the fee with this code update. We're not touching that. And what we have heard is that folks want more affordable housing. And so we proposed this kind of slight change, but maybe somewhat significant, to really change this incentive to only benefit those developments that are actually delivering on-site affordable units versus something that's available to everybody who pays the fee in lieu. The ways that developers comply is through their contract with the Affordable Housing Office, and then those are approved by the governing body and the city manager, as I understand it. So we are just trying to thread the needle again here and being responsive to what we're hearing in the public through this measure to say only those providing on-site dwelling units get to benefit from the 15% density bonus. If you're paying a fee in lieu 100%, no affordable housing, no density bonus. And is there any intent in any of the other phases of the code rewrite that we're going to address fee in lieu? Mayor Weber, Councilor Faulner, yes. As I mentioned in the presentation, there's still more work to be done and we need to test this as well. The Affordable Housing Office has a provision in the code. So the density bonuses effective June 7th, 2014, thereafter in Section D, that is all existing code language. And so the governing body may approve an alternate means of compliance. And that's where you get that hybrid of affordable units provided on site plus a fee in lieu. That is part of the negotiation through the Affordable Housing Office. It's not managed through the Land Development Code. So the density bonus—what we are saying is that the density bonus only applies in the case that affordable units are provided on site. Yeah, I would just say my final note is Mayor Elect Garcia, I already have on my list of to-dos for 2026 addressing fee in lieu. And so I see this as a good compromise to kind of get more density and more affordability, but I am very dedicated to addressing fee in lieu moving forward. Thank you. But Councilor Faulner, just to that point. Excuse me. Excuse me. I had the floor. I know, but we got to let some other people speak. We've got two other hands up, council. We'll come back. Mayor. I'm going to defer to Councilor Cassid. I'll go after her, please. Thanks, Mayor. Can I go? Yes, please go ahead. All right. Just being formal. All right. A couple things. One, I think one of the most important things is that the Santa Fe Homes program is in Chapter 26 of the code and this is only a Chapter 14 code update. So I know that gets really confusing because the density bonus aspect comes in with Chapter 14, but when it comes to our fee in lieu, the entire Santa Fe Homes program design—which there is a lot of work to do—Councilor Faulner and I did have the opportunity to have a meeting today about this. So we're already working on that. But that is a separate chapter. I will say that my understanding was that no fee in lieu would be—if you pay a fee in lieu, there would not be an opportunity for a density bonus regardless if it was hybrid or not. So that was my understanding. The area where I think this does get a little bit tricky is sometimes you have this scenario where they have to provide 25.3 affordable homes. That .3 gets a little bit challenging and I can see where we might want a hybrid there. I think that this could probably be an easy fix because I would also be in favor of saying that if you are providing—except for that little .3 or something—I want that money. Because why not? If they can't build .3 of a unit, we may as well get some money in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. My concern is this might take a smidge of wordsmithing. I don't think that this is too hard of a shift to make. I don't know if you all have any thoughts on how we might be able to really specify this, but I don't think this is too challenging of a change. And again, this had been my understanding that if you pay a fee in any way, shape, or form—unless it's a fraction of a house—you don't get a density bonus. So I imagine with a little bit of thought process, we could probably fix this in about 15 minutes. Mayor, Councilor Cassid, in the code Chapter 14, it is clear in stating that we know no density bonus if the units are not provided on site. However, there are alternate means of compliance that's managed through the Affordable Housing Office, not through Chapter 14. And with those alternative means of compliance—well, we're saying that there's no density bonus. You get a density bonus if you comply with the Santa Fe Homes program. But we're also saying, well, now I'm getting confused. If we have on-site dwelling units, so if there's an alternative means of compliance, is there another step in approval of that for a density bonus? Does that have to go through planning commission? Does it have to go through us? Mayor, Councilor Cassid, with development application or subdivision plat review, the Santa Fe Homes program is included as part of the packet that goes to the planning commission. So all of those things will have been worked out by the time the planning commission acts on the case. So only those cases would come to the governing body if there was an appeal. Okay. So is this again something that we might have to make that clarification in Chapter 26 then? Mayor, Councilor Cassid, I believe that is correct. And I would like to consult with Director Chavez as well as Director Montoya just to be sure everything is accurately written. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, that said, I think that these are really important. We need to move forward with them. If this is something that has to be addressed in Chapter 26, then I would suggest that those of us who are interested in this should get on this tomorrow, maybe Friday. I have a busy day tomorrow. Mayor, Councilor Cassid, so Maggie Comer, or Assistant Director Comer, came up with an idea. A developer providing all required affordable SFHP units on site is entitled to a density bonus of 15% over the density allowed in the zoning district. That sounds good. But I think we need to point out the fractional piece. We round up. We round up anyway. Okay. I'll yield. Thank you. Councilor Marworth. And then we'll come back around. I know there are other hands up as well. Councilor Garcia. Yeah, I think if we're going to make a change, we need to see it in writing, right? So that I can see what you're doing. I would just note two things to those who are interested in making the fee in lieu change. We did make changes in what was it, 2018, 2019. Those changes—I believe this is the last year—we've been stepping up what developers had to pay in the fee in lieu. This was the last step up. And so the timing I think is good to be looking at some tweaks to the fee in lieu provisions and what they have or haven't been doing for us. I just would flag that. I would caution that I don't think we want to get rid of it. I know there is some sentiment for that, but I don't think that's our best option. I also wanted to flag that the money we get from Fee and Lieu goes into the affordable housing trust fund. It is leveraged there three to one and we have made an important pivot with that money. The Community Development Commission actually met prior to our budget meeting and finalized the awards under the RFP that will prioritize the actual building of units with that money. So Fee in Lieu is actually going to be important in that work and I just want to flag that for the community because I don't think it's widely known that that money goes into the affordable housing trust fund. It's leveraged three to one and we are now using it to build actual units. So I just wanted to make that point. Thank you, Mayor. We have a bunch of hands down this direction as well. **Councilor Castro:** I just wanted to make a note that I did send City Attorney and our legislative team a written version of this and I'm going to read it just to see if this is what we're hoping for. In that section, it would say: "A developer providing the required number of affordable units on site, Santa Fe Homes project dwelling units without having paid the fee in lieu is entitled to the density bonus of 15% over the density allowed in the zoning district," which makes it very clear that in this specific case if you have paid the fee in lieu you're not eligible. **Mayor:** Thank you. And that language—to go back to what Councilor Marworth said—we have to have actual written words. So you've provided them. Thank you. **Councilor Chavez:** I was a little confused because I feel like the hybrid was more of a discussion than it actually being clear in writing here. Because I would interpret this as you would only get the density bonus if you met the requirement because there's no mention of fee, there's no mention of a hybrid negotiation of any kind. So as it is, to me it wouldn't allow Fee and Lieu, but it sounds like that's what we're doing on the back end in negotiation because that's what we've done. So I think it's good that Councilor Castro made it clear in her amendment. I would support that amendment. Although I would say if we're going to be doing something, we need to make it very clear in writing as we make these changes because if we are questioning it, imagine we're just putting our developers and everyone else that has to work with this document in the same situation they were in before, which is not having the same understanding. We need them to have the same understanding as we have, as staff has, in order for them to navigate through this successfully. And that's the whole purpose of this. So here's an example of an area that would have been really unclear, I think. So I'm glad that we're addressing it or we caught it. Thank you. **Councilor Garcia:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, it was referenced how Fee and Lieu is leveraged and I agree with that. But when I look at it from the loss and I can only go off the numbers that have been provided to me from inception through 2023 because I have unfortunately not been able to get any stats from staff on 2024 or 2025 regarding Fee in Lieu—but from inception to 2023 the city collected roughly $2.8 million. So let's just say three million for example's sake. Now if we leverage that, that's nine million. But when we look at the loss, that comes to over 400 units not being developed—400 homes not being developed for individuals who live elsewhere that could be living in Santa Fe, or 400 homes for folks that are on the verge of moving elsewhere that can continue to live here in Santa Fe. And so this is why I've been trying to really modify and update Fee in Lieu not only for city-owned land but for privately owned land. This is a project I've been working on for over a year. I was told that I couldn't change Fee in Lieu because Chapter 14 was coming before us. That was over a year ago. And so I think I'm thankful we're at a point in time where there is much more of an appetite to really look at modifying this and ensuring that we are working responsibly to ensure that we are actually walking the walk when we say we want affordable homes. Because the challenge with what we're doing right now, especially with collecting the fee, is we're providing a lot of it for vouchers, et cetera. There are not units that are accepting these vouchers. And so I think we have to begin to change the talk. And this is why it's so frustrating that folks that are now arguing affordable housing argued against eliminating the Fee in Lieu for Midtown Campus. It's quite frustrating because we ultimately need to be leading the process. We need to be thinking outside of the box and stop thinking that we are going to build our way out of this affordable housing crisis. That's not going to happen. We just can't build enough to ensure that that offsets the affordability. And that gets to the point that Councilor Lee Garcia is making earlier: How many homes need to be built to ensure that prices go down? Folks, we live in the most popular city in the state to live in. Some would say even maybe the Southwest. You have a constant influx of folks wanting to live here. So we're never, ever, ever, ever going to meet housing demands. Never. What we need to be focusing on is meeting the affordable housing demands. And so I'm thankful we're working on clarifying this policy in front of us. But it gets to the bigger context of how are we as a city really beginning to shift a paradigm and set some realistic goals in place to say the city needs to develop a thousand affordable units each year over the next five years and at least we have 5,000 affordable units on the market. Now, it was referenced that the Affordable Homes Program is in Chapter 26. The provision we're talking about is Chapter 14 that references Chapter 26. We're talking about a new provision here. And so I want to make sure as we're adding these new incentives, we're doing so in a way that is crystal clear and it gives the direction in how we as a government want to work to support the residents of Santa Fe to ensure that there's affordable and workforce housing. So let me ask this question for staff: Because affordable units have a time limit, have we even scratched the surface during this Phase One of extending that time limit right? To say let's make these affordable units available for 45 years? Because right now it's like a 10-year process. Let's really begin to ensure that there are affordable homes long term. So could we make that part of this provision? That if somebody wants to get this density bonus because they're developing the affordable units, those affordable units that they're building have to be affordable for 45 years. Could we add that into this language? **City Attorney:** Mayor, Councilor Garcia, that is regulated by Chapter 26, the duration of how long it has to be affordable. So that would be an amendment to Chapter 26. The question as to whether it could be in Chapter 14 is something I'd have to consult with Miss McSherry. **Councilor Garcia:** But my question revolved around specifically the density incentive—the homes that are going to be built or potentially even additional because that's the way it was sold to us during the presentation. There will be more affordable homes. Could that stockpile of affordable units that's developed from these incentives have a 45-year minimum requirement in it from this? Because I agree Chapter 26 is over here, but we're developing a brand new process right now, which is the density. And so that is where I'm wondering how can we begin the process of having some type of time limitation on this specific provision of density. **City Attorney:** Mayor, Councilor Garcia, certainly we can add it to Chapter 14, although I would encourage that be in Chapter 26 as well. I know that there are problems when a person who has been there 29 years sells a home and loses half of the equity because they weren't there for 30 years. And so there are challenges in that, whatever the number is. But I would like Miss McSherry's interpretation of whether we should put something both in Chapter 26 and Chapter 14. **Staff:** Councilor, I think I'm hearing the questions differently, but I did want to verify something because I'm not sure we're all speaking on the same plane. The existing language that you all are talking about is in the existing code, right? We're already offering the density bonuses for folks who comply and place units on land. Okay. So that is in the existing code. There's an enhanced density bonuses further down a little ways in that same section. And that's the new content, right? **Councilor Garcia:** And this is my question: Can a time limit be added to this section which is on page 458, item F, Enhanced Affordability Incentives? **Staff:** Councilors, the parameters around what affordability is are in a different chapter. They are not noticed in this caption. We would need to look at those. That's really a huge breadth of changes that you all are discussing now. I'm sending you some commentary to determine whether or not you think those exist in the existing chapter. I do think you wanted to broaden the caption. We could do that, or we can talk about whether or not they're included in what's there now because what's there now is really describing the additional density bonuses that are further down in that section. And they're not really describing the part you all are talking about now, which is actually consistent with the current code. The caption is putting the public on notice about the additional densities which are further down in that section, right? **Councilor Garcia:** And in essence, this could come in Phase Two, but I want us to start really hopefully thinking about 10 years is too short. 10 years comes in a blink of an eye and we want to ensure that the stock of affordable homes we're building is available long term. **Mayor:** Got it. Yeah, we now have Amendment C in our inbox. I'd like to try to proceed in an orderly fashion. We also have the language that was drafted by Councilor Castro and forwarded to City Attorney. I believe that was forwarded to you, Madam City Attorney, to take a look at. **City Attorney:** Mayor, Councilor, that's the version I'm responding to right now and just highlighting what the caption currently says on the topic, raising the question for everyone involved as to whether or not it includes this idea or whether we would also need a proposed caption amendment to capture this idea. **Mayor:** Okay. I want to start, however, with Amendment C just because it's already been drafted. We already have it in front of us. You've already approved it. Councilor Castro, I believe that is an amendment that you're sponsoring. **Councilor Castro:** Except we haven't finished with the other conversation. **Mayor:** Well, I don't think we're going to finish it. I think we could deal with Amendment C and then come back. I think we're in the moment of this conversation and then we should go to Amendment C. I'm sorry, Mayor. We'll lose the thread of what's been spoken. That's fine with me. So we have been discussing the question and we apparently have a matter for the City Attorney. I haven't seen an email back from you yet, but maybe it's on its way. Regarding the amendment that Councilor Castro proposed, were you drafting an email to us or what were you doing? Mayor Weber, I did not even realize you were on the email. So you just received a response from me if you were on it. Yeah, let's go back down to discuss the proposal in front of us. Pretty much you all have had a chance to speak to this question about the fee in lieu and opportunities for people to use it or not use it. Who else wants to speak to it? Mayor, I actually wanted to bring something up. It is not contradictory to both not support a banning of fee in lieu on Midtown and also support how we do more density bonuses. This is a complex topic with complex policy solutions that we need to work on in a variety of different ways. One thing that gets really wrapped up in these conversations is the difference between affordable housing and workforce housing. We have mechanisms by which we can create affordable housing. We have mechanisms by which we can have developers create affordable housing. Our problem really comes with the missing middle. This gets to the point where we have a much harder time directing this. This has to do with state housing laws, anti-donation, and the Santa Homes program. This is where the conversation around supply and demand actually gets important. Affordable housing is extremely important. We're only talking up to 120% of the area median income. In Santa Fe, the popularity of our city has caused enough people to move in that individuals may be making well over 120% of the area median income, therefore not qualifying for any of the affordable homes, and they still are unable to live here. This is where the balance of building directly affordable and also how we deal with the supply and demand issue is really important. When we talk about density bonuses, I know it's been brought up that not all of the density bonuses are going to be affordable units. That's true, but they are going to be smaller market rate units. If you deal with the market, you're going to necessarily understand that you can't rent a 900 square foot unit for the same amount that you're going to rent a 1,500 square foot unit. It is about how we build a healthy housing market in the city of Santa Fe. We do not have a healthy housing market. That is one of our biggest issues. There's not going to be one simple solution or one simple income range to build to create that healthy housing market. As long as we do not have homes in the middle that are not qualified affordable per New Mexico state law, per HUD standards, then we don't have a place for people to move up as they start to make more money and therefore opening up those affordable units. Therefore, we will always be in this deficit. The reason I bring this up is because these are not simple fixes that we can do on the fly, and they are really important that we start to look at how we use inclusionary zoning and how we use our fee in lieu. I think to Councilor Romero Worth's point, we haven't been using it as effectively as we would like. That's a problem. Our fee in lieu may be much more valuable if we start to utilize it in a way that's actually creating affordable units. I just think this is such an important issue for the public to understand. When we are talking about the spectrum of housing, when we're talking about nurses and teachers, there's a lot of individuals who are not going to qualify for those affordable units, still can't afford to live here, still are commuting from Rio Rancho. Unless we start to deal with the market structures and the market forces at play to the best we can—I mean, there's a lot that we can't. We're a private entity. We're government. There's only so much we can do. We're never going to really reach a place where Santa Fe is an affordable place for everyone, regardless of whether we are dealing with the official definition of affordable housing. So thank you, Mayor. And I'm happy to move amendment C if we're done with this conversation. No, we're apparently not done with this topic. We have several other people who want to weigh in. I believe Councilor Mayworth wants to weigh in. I know Councilor Faulner wants to speak, and I see Councilor Lee Garcia's hand. I think everybody should have a chance to address it. Yeah, and I just think this is an important topic and we have to take the time here. I just also would remind us that we don't get to just set the rules and say either take our way or the highway. We have partners in this. We have builders. We have to pay attention to the market. We have to pay attention to the builder's costs and what it takes to actually build things and how these projects pencil out. To think that we dictate the rules and everybody's just going to march to our drum is folly. I just have to point that out. We saw that with fee in lieu. Before we made the changes to fee in lieu, we weren't getting any housing built. Then we did the fee in lieu and it's been stepped up over the years and we've seen more housing built. So I think we're at a good point to be revisiting it. I think we've done some workshops. I know there are some conversations going on and there are some things that can be done, but we don't get to dictate all the terms. I just want to be clear about that. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Faulner. So there are a couple of things that I struggle with on this fee in lieu conversation. One, development stopped because in 2008 we had a depression—we called it a recession. When we put fee in lieu in place, people weren't building not just because it was too expensive. People were not building because we were in a recession. This had a sunset clause on it that we ignored. For all of the talk about how great fee in lieu is, you don't see hardly any affordable apartments. Apartments are like the gateway into housing. What's frustrating to me is we love fee in lieu. It's great. Except for that, the community isn't benefiting. Such a small portion of the community is benefiting. Apartments are critical to getting into permanent housing, and we are seeing all these apartments go up and almost every developer is paying fee in lieu and not building affordable housing. The other thing that I find interesting about this whole conversation is if we believe that just building will solve the problem. I keep saying this: Los Alamos is now going to hire 15,000 new people in the next two years. They are not going to be living in Los Alamos. They will be living in Santa Fe, Nambe, Pojoaque. We have to stop looking at the housing crisis as if it's just Santa Fe or just Los Alamos or just Albuquerque. We have to be more mindful and we have to say we have to talk to other cities about how we're going to manage housing as a regional thing. We can no longer think about it in isolated places. There's no amount of housing we can build in Santa Fe that will keep up with the demand from Los Alamos and the demand from Santa Fe. Rio Rancho is going to face a housing crisis and probably already is because Santa Fe is moving to Rio Rancho. This is where fee in lieu becomes very problematic for me. We say it's a good idea. I think theoretically, if you have the perfect formula for your city, it's a great idea. We have a horrible formula for our city, and it is not doing what it's supposed to do. We are not getting more affordable units. We simply are not. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Pilot, for making most of my points. I've been following this as well, and for this to be in this code right here, it follows the same pattern where you do allow somebody to pay a fee and then you still get units, but you don't get affordable units. To my point earlier, where a house is $500,000, how do we achieve that sweet spot where people do develop the housing and it is $300,000? That's even still hard for some people. So I'm having a problem with wrapping my head around paying to get away from offering an affordable or attainable unit. We did it with apartments and we have a lot of apartments that are very expensive. I know many people who make decent money in this town and can't afford one of those units. It's the same thing with the house. Our intention as a city has always been that for-sale houses would not be part of this fee in lieu, and that's what this is doing right here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Other comments about this particular part of the code as proposed? Since we are on this, should we just make a decision on this amendment? It has been sent to Attorney McSherry in writing. If she sends it to the rest of the counselors, we could vote on it. I know there is some disagreement between whether or not the caption would change. But I think having the sponsor and co-sponsors of the amendment bring up their reasoning why they believe it doesn't change would be a discussion to have right now since we're on that topic. I'm open to the perceptions or the favor of the governing body on how you would like to proceed. There is an email from the City Attorney asking about changing the caption. There's a question raised about whether this is the best way to do it or whether to do it subsequently. I will take it up. I'll leave it to you. Councilor Castro, was your language? Mayor, Councilors, I'm happy to send it out. I think there are some spelling changes that probably are needed. I apologize because I was doing it very quickly. If we could fix those spelling errors, I think the disagreement is whether or not the caption changes based on clarifying the requirements for the density bonus. It is my understanding that the caption does clarify the density bonus. Correct me if I'm wrong, City Attorney McSherry. The caption would change to include requiring on-site building to obtain certain density incentives. That is what the proposed change of the caption is. Mayor, Councilors, yes. And we might want to say requiring on-site building of affordable units to obtain certain density incentives. That is a new requirement. It would change requirements on builders if you want to change that. It is not reflected in the caption currently. Point of order. You guys are having this nice conversation. I don't know what you're talking about because I don't have anything in front of me. So I don't even know what we're changing and I don't know how to look at it against the caption because I don't have anything in front of me. Completely understandable. # Council Meeting Transcript Councilor: I'm fine with forwarding it out. We've got an issue. This needs to be fixed. I can send it out as soon as it's fixed. Staff: The issue is misspelled, but we're going to fix that. Councilor: Well, it wasn't sent to everybody yet. Staff: I think originally the city attorney was working with the sponsor to go over the language and try to clarify it and make sure there was mutual understanding about what was going on rather than spreading it to everybody up here yet. Mayor: Councilor Casset, you have a question on the caption change. Councilor Casset: Thank you, Mayor. The density bonus changes—there's this change that is saying that on-site units have to be built in order to get a density bonus. Correct? This is an update. So shouldn't that already be—we are already making that change as part of this proposal. So I'm not sure why I would change the caption because at this point we already have this change happening. We're just now clarifying what we mean by said change. Mayor: Councilor, that is correct. In addition, in the caption we do have "increasing affordability incentives including administrative review and density bonuses." Density bonus is referenced in that section of the caption. Councilor Casset: Okay. You're absolutely correct as to your analysis. In my opinion, I don't think this is a caption change, Councilors. The current one provides the incentive of the bonus. This is limiting an existing bonus. It's taking away an existing bonus. Councilor: But weren't we already doing that? Because before, if they paid a fee in lieu regardless, and now we're saying you would have to pay a combo. We've made a change that says there has to be some mechanism of on-site dwelling units whereas prior there didn't have to be. They could pay a 100% fee in lieu and would get a density bonus, but that's already been changed in this current— Mayor: Councilor, staff. That's what I was trying to clarify with you. The current language is or is not how you're doing it now. Are you currently allowing a partial bonus and partial paying fee? City Attorney McSherry: Mayor, we are allowing for that alternate means of compliance, yes. And a partial density bonus. Mayor: And a partial density bonus as executed through the affordable housing division. City Attorney McSherry: Right. So my understanding is the provision you're discussing is how we are currently applying the code. And so it was not—that is not the part we are noticing in the caption. It is the additional density bonuses that we are noticing in the caption, which are further down in the code. We haven't even touched those today. No one's talked about them yet. Councilor: Point of clarification. I feel like we are still having some debate, so I don't know that we're ready to move this amendment right now. What are our options? Director Lamboy, can you address this in phase two and how quickly can that happen? Mayor: Councilor Castro, the option we have is a large list of things that we're going to start on right away. So if this is deemed as a priority, it's a text amendment that really does not take much, and we could collaborate with everybody and get that done as soon as possible. We had already planned with phase two on having several subsections, and so this, being responsible to affordable housing incentives and making them clear, certainly we could do that right away. Councilor: Thank you. Mayor: Councilor Lindell, you've been quiet up till now. You have the floor. Councilor Lindell: I've been talking to myself, Mayor. [laughter] Yes. We're not ready to fix this tonight. And I don't know how we exclude it out, but we can stay here till 2 or 3 in the morning and continue to hash on this. It's clear enough that it deserves attention. It's been brought to our attention by Councilor Garcia and other people have opinions on it—strong opinions. And for us to try to sit and write amendments at this point in time and get this to everyone's satisfaction, I think that's way too steep a slope. I think there's too much pressure on it, and I don't think that it comes to us so we have a chance to read it and study it and really see how it fits in. I don't think this is a good idea to try to do this on the fly. It's a lot of work and it deserves attention. So how do we— Mayor: Go ahead. Councilor Garcia raised his hand. I was just asking him to wait one second. If you're not finished, keep going. Councilor Lindell: Done. Mayor: Councilor Garcia, go ahead. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think to the point of the city attorney, this would go in again on page 458, section F under item one. There would be a new item three stating Councilor Castro's language. That would be the new item three, essentially stating that to qualify for this enhanced affordability incentive, you cannot pay the fee in lieu. Sorry. And I do understand that that was the intent by language. Um, that is the intent. So this is a collaborative amendment. I think we all up here have the desire for clarity that you are not able to pay the fee and still get incentives. That is what we're hoping for. Councilor Chavez: Councilor, we all know what the amendment is. We've been discussing it for over an hour. So it's not in writing. I get that. But we have been—as you all have witnessed—discussing this amendment for over an hour now. So we all know what we're talking about. And I think we're going to be getting an email with it in writing. But we have heard what we're doing multiple times by multiple people who have analyzed it. So I think we are all on the same page of what is trying to be accomplished. I just want to make that clear. Obviously, we've been discussing it from right now. Actually, I think we just went— Mayor: Councilor Casset. Councilor Casset: Sorry. I think we just went from section E to section F because we're talking about all density bonuses, and now we are talking about enhanced affordable incentives. Assistant Director Moore, you had your hand up. Assistant Director Moore: Yeah. Thank you, Mayor and Councilor Casset. Yeah, I do want to clarify because when I originally came to the podium, I was understanding that we were talking about the standard density or development incentives. But it sounds like we're talking about the enhanced development incentives that are in section F. And what that reads, and how I believe it does not offer a fee in lieu, is that developments that provide enhanced affordability beyond the requirements of section 1472D are eligible for the incentives. There's no fee in lieu there. The language explicitly states that they have to provide affordability, and that so that's the language that we have now. There is no fee in lieu for the enhanced affordability incentives program. So I certainly apologize for my confusion on those two sections. But what I was testifying to was the existing standard development incentives, which currently now are offered to all developers whether they provide units or not at a 15% rate. So this small change that we've made in section E says we want you to provide some on-site in order to get that 15% density bonus. So just in section E. Councilor Casset: Thanks for the clarification. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor Casset. Yeah, so maybe there's no need for— Councilor Castro: Yeah, I wonder. You're shaking your head. Councilor Castro: Yeah, just a clarifying point. So in section F under the new incentives, I think the concern is that there is some hybrid where you could pay a portion of a fee and then get a density incentive. Is that not the case under this current section F? Assistant Director Moore: Yes, Mayor and Councilor Castro. Yes, there's no hybrid. We want folks—you know, the goal of the enhanced affordability incentives is to incentivize people to go beyond the 20% and beyond the 15% that is currently required. So they must attain 30% or greater. And when we have those scaled incentives—you know, as they go up further, if they achieve 50% affordability or greater, sometimes we get 100% affordability projects, which is amazing. So that is how that enhanced program works. No fee in lieu of there. Councilor Castro: Perfect. You deliver the product and you get all of the suite of incentives, which one of those is a density incentive. Councilor Castro: So it sounds to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that what we had hoped—which was to not allow for some hybrid situation where people paid a fee—is not going to be the case. Though I still support us promoting affordable housing and potentially not giving incentives if folks pay the fee, that amendment might not be this time to move that amendment because it is a much larger breadth of potential outcomes. It is not only this new update of this density incentive but rather all density incentives. Is that correct? That might have been a little confusing. If I were to move this amendment in section E, this would be a larger change than what we had intended. Is that correct? City Attorney: Right. I mean, thank you, Mayor, and Councilor Castro. I think I understand your question, and my understanding was it was always in section E. But you know, right now we are moving the needle a little further from final density bonus to give us some affordability, and then you get your bonus—your 15% bonus—just for the standard. Just for the standard. Councilor Castro: So I just want to make it clear, I am not going to be moving this amendment currently. I do think that we need more work. I don't think it's particularly clear right now. But I do want to make it utterly clear that all of us are concerned that we are not giving double incentives by allowing folks to pay a fee and get other incentives. Mayor: That is clear. Thank you. So I think Councilor Castro, with your last statement, I think that's a good kind of capstone to this part of the conversation. I do agree with everybody that this is something that this governing body in the future will want to take up. There's a lot of work to be done to get it to work. I'm reminded that it took Alexandra Lad about a year of working with developers and all of the different constituent groups to come up with the amendment that was produced in 1819. It'll take time to work this through and come up with more than just an amendment in words, but a much more fully realized next round of the affordable housing program and the incentive program. That said, I would entertain at this time amendment C, which is ready for us, and Councilor Casset, your name is on that. Councilor Casset: Thank you so much, Mayor. I will go ahead and defer to staff who will be able to explain amendment C in far better technical terms than I ever could. Mayor: Thank you. Maybe I can pull it up. But yes, so the origins of—I think we're on the clarifying amendment, correct? Staff: I believe. Okay. Correct. Mayor: Thank you. Yes, Mayor and Councilor Casset. When we introduced the bill back in the beginning of October, we invited some of our senior planners in the planning and land use department to take the current code for a little test run by reviewing it against a current development plan application. And so through that process, we identified—I don't know, maybe a dozen or so. I'm not exactly sure how many ended up being clarified in this clarifying amendment—but just some changes to some wording, maybe some moving some things around to just try to make things a little bit more clear. We're always having to interpret. The last conversation is evidence of that. I think it was a great exercise where we took it for a test run, identified a few loose screws, and we want to tighten those things up with this amendment. It has been reviewed by the city attorney, and these are compatible with the notice and the caption. There's nothing in here that necessitated any substantial edit to what we're proposing. It is a long amendment, so I will not read it in detail. But I would like to move amendment C at this time. Second. There's a motion and a second to move amendment C, which has 14 different provisions, most of which involve language replacement, better definitions, and clarifying language based on the test drive that was used by staff. I'd entertain questions if anybody has a specific piece of this that they'd like more clarification on before we go any further. Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to be that guy. We need to go through this. Fourteen changes is pretty significant, especially when you're looking at changing the review process for facilities over 10,000 square feet in the Midtown Link overlay. If you're looking at the Midtown campus, that's going to be almost every new facility that's developed there. So if we can go through this and if this is due to the road testing, go through what the previous language was and why there are proposed changes as well. Mayor, Councilors, staff, I can help with a few. The first three just reorganized those provisions. They were all in part. If you look at three, we delete two and we put them in the places where they're more logical. Staff realized that they already had provisions that related to these ideas, and they wanted to synthesize paragraphs into the places they belonged. If you look at number three, it's actually deleting two things that we're placing into the new places in paragraphs one and two. There's no substantive change there. It's just putting them in places where staff thought it was better located. The intent is to have the same words and provisions that exist in current code and proposed code, but just in a better section. So that's one, two, and three if we want to start there. Okay. Number four speaks to deleting note two. Does anybody have a clarifying explanation of deleting note number two that reads, "Projects that comply with standard setbacks do not require development plan approval"? Mayor, in this particular case, it is conflicting with provisions because it may require a development plan based on the size of the project. That's not automatic—it does not require development. Okay. So that's inconsistent with the development plan standards. That is correct. So it overstates the exemption. That is correct. Item number five says on page 343 of exhibit A, section 15-5.2.D, summary of allotted uses. Rename the row titled "accessory building or structure" as "accessory uses and structure." Mayor, that is also another clarification. The previous code said "accessory uses and structures." Those are two different things. Building or structure can be the same thing. So it's putting the uses back in with structures as it was previously. Okay. Item number six in this amendment says on page 355 of exhibit A, section 14-5.3.C.1, rename the heading "accessory uses and structure" rather than "accessory building or structure." Same. Same phenomenon. All right, I will go to number seven on page 356 of exhibit A, section 14-5.3.C.1.1, subsection B. After "rear yard," insert "and with a five foot rear yard setback." That is a clarification, Mayor. Instead of just saying "rear yard," it also includes the setback information that was omitted on page. This is item number eight on page 499 of exhibit A, section 14-7.5.J.4, table 7-7, required bicycle parking. In the row titled "multi-unit residential development," footnote one after "development," insert "with five or more units." Mayor, in that particular case, we felt that for four or fewer units, bicycle parking would not be required. Typically those are larger units or have larger space on the site for bicycle parking. So in this particular case, we wanted to increase the threshold. And then with reference to required bicycle parking, the other thing that we found in doing the calculations—moving on to item number nine. Yes, that's the next one. Yes. So the calculation was based on the number of bedrooms, and we feel that's more appropriate to do with the number of units rather than bedrooms specifically. So that was the amendment in item nine. On item ten on page 503 of exhibit A, section 14-7.5.J.5.2, subsection E. Before "racks," insert "double-loaded bicycle," and after "feet," replace "six" with "seven." And insert "single-loaded bicycle racks must be separated by a minimum of 18 inches." And replace the three feet in the image with 18 inches. Yes, Mayor. There was a conflict between the image and the text. We're just making the image and the text agree. Very good. I think the image and the text should agree. Item number eleven on page 507 of exhibit A, section 14-7.6.D.1, replace "No offsite advertising is allowed except as set forth in section 14-7.6.G, temporary and portable signs" with the following: "No offsite advertising is allowed except in the following circumstances: A, as set forth in section 14-7.6.G, temporary and portable signs, and B, where contiguous lots exist that do not comprise a unified complex, and one or more of the lots does not have vehicular access to any street except via an access easement across a parcel that does have direct access to a street. The indirect access lot or lots may place a separate freestanding sign on the direct access lot in accordance with the restrictions of this chapter. No more than two freestanding signs are permitted on any lot regardless of the number of individual lots served by common access." Yes, Mayor. This provision was removed from the code in the draft, and we're putting it back in because if there's a business located off of the street behind another business, we want to allow them to have a sign so that they can be seen from the street. Thank you. That takes us then to item twelve on page 608 of exhibit A, section 14-9.A. Rename "accessory building or structure" as "accessory use or structure." I gather this is the same renaming we had above in the other two examples. Yes, Mayor. That's correct. Number thirteen on page 644 of exhibit A, section 14-9.3.E, general definitions, under the heading "eligible support structure," after "communications facility," including, replace the following language with new language. Everyone can look at it in the packet. Okay. Everybody can look at it on their own. And that takes us to item fourteen, which is the last amendment proposed on page 652 of exhibit A, section 14-9.3.I. After "ingress," replace the existing language with "the entrance of a building, structure, or land." Mayor, yes, that is a clarification. Sometimes historic buildings cannot comply with park code. So that provision is making the opportunity for compliance in an alternate manner. Beautiful. Okay, we've gone through all fourteen. Are there questions at this point? Just to further clarify, I know that three was addressing kind of one and two, but when I'm looking at three, it doesn't specifically say "Midtown Link" because it's in number two. It's proposing to add additional language that says "and qualifying projects within the Midtown Link overlay district consisting of a new building with a floor area of 30,000 square feet or less." There we go. Gotcha. Covered. All right, we're good. Are there other questions about this item? We have a motion and a second. There's no further discussion. Could you please call the roll on this amendment? Councilor Romero. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Fulner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. So now we have a main motion as amended. Is there further discussion of the main motion as amended? Would you call the roll on the main motion as amended? Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Fulner. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. And I'd like to explain my vote. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Marworth. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. I turn to you, Councilor Garcia, to explain your vote. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is just the first of many steps. I think tonight's discussion was evident that there's still a lot more work to be done. So thank you to staff and everybody else involved in this process. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Is there any other items left on our agenda? No, Mayor. There are not. In that case, we are adjourned.