Quality of Life Committee
Wed, Jun 17, 2026 · Quality of Life Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/990

== Executive Summary ==
The Quality of Life Committee meeting covered a wide range of topics, with a significant focus on supporting small businesses through the Small Business Navigator Program and addressing the city's affordable housing challenges. The Navigator Program, funded by ARPA, has successfully assisted over 120 small businesses, particularly women and minority-owned enterprises, by providing resources, coaching, and grants. The program is actively seeking ways to continue its services beyond the current ARPA funding.

A major discussion point was the city's Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) and the new process for including external projects, particularly those related to affordable housing and economic development. Several organizations presented proposals for projects like "The Rock" (a trauma-informed facility for the homeless), Casa de Toros (affordable housing), and the New Mexico Innovation Hub. The committee also debated a proposed increase to the "fee in lieu" for affordable housing, with concerns raised about the lack of a comprehensive market analysis and the need for a holistic housing strategy. The discussion on affordable housing policies was ultimately postponed to a future meeting to allow for more detailed analysis and a broader study session.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda as amended, pulling item C from the consent agenda.
- Approved the consent agenda as amended.
- Postponed the discussion on the affordable housing item (Bill Number 26-11 regarding the "fee in lieu" calculation) until the July 1st Quality of Life Committee meeting to allow for more comprehensive discussion and in light of an upcoming study session on housing.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda as amended, with item C pulled from the consent agenda — Passed.
- Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended — Passed.
- Motion to hold the discussion on the affordable housing item (Bill Number 26-11) until the July 1st Quality of Life Committee meeting — Passed.

== Public Comment ==
Public comments and discussions highlighted strong support for "The Rock" project, a proposed trauma-informed facility for the homeless, with speakers emphasizing its readiness and alignment with city goals. Several organizations and developers presented their projects, primarily affordable housing and infrastructure initiatives, requesting inclusion in the city's ICIP to secure funding. Concerns were raised by a councilor regarding the methodology for calculating the "fee in lieu" for affordable housing, questioning the lack of formal market analysis for the proposed increase. The Mayor, however, emphasized the urgency of action given the "broken" current process. Councilor Barrett praised various community events, including the Bicentennial Pool teen night and the Railyard World Cup event, and noted the positive impact of the Camel Rock Studios tour.

== Topics ==
- Small Business Navigator Program
- Affordable Housing Policy
- Community Events & Engagement
- Library Programs
- Economic Development Initiatives
- Family-Friendly Santa Fe
- Domestic Violence Training
- Food Justice & Access

== Full Transcript ==
Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, we are live.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. So, at 5:01, I would like to call the Quality of Life meeting to order. Just one second. And then Marcela, could I please have a roll call?

Councilor Fagali? Here.

Councilor Barrett? Here.

Councilor Chavis? Here.

Councilor Casset? Here.

Madam Chair, present. You have a quorum.

Thank you so very much. I think we had a couple changes to the agenda. We have one item that was pulled. It's item C. That was off the consent agenda, though. The regular agenda. We're good.

We're good.

A motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor? All opposed. All right, that motion passes. Now we're on to the consent agenda. And we did have one item pulled off by Councilor Casset, I believe, item C. I would entertain a motion on that one.

Would you approve as amended?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Looks like that also passes. Next up, we are going to take presentations. We have two presentations, which is very exciting. I'm going to hand it off to Economic Development and Joanna Nelson. Although I also have Carolyn Lee on here as staff. If you'd like to come up to the podium, Miss Lee. Thank you. I'm sharing my screen as well, but can't see it on the monitors. There we go. All right. Great.

Good evening, Madam Chair and councilors. Thank you so much. My name is Joanna Nelson, Director for the Office of Economic Development, and I'm joined today by my colleague Carolyn Lee, who is the Director and Manager of our Small Business Navigator Program. And we're excited to go through a quick presentation to give you some insight, an overview, and hopefully some understanding of this really exciting program that we kicked off to provide services and connection to resources for our small businesses. So, we're really thrilled. I believe this is our first presentation to councilors and so really eager to give you a snapshot and then address any questions.

So before I turn it over to Carolyn, I'd love to provide some context of this program. We basically built this utilizing ARPA funding. If you recall, the American Rescue Plan Act funding was administered to the City of Santa Fe to mitigate the negative economic impacts of COVID. And we utilized funding for a variety of different ways, but one of the biggest programs and initiatives that I think we're really proud of is building the Small Business Navigator Program. And really what this is and has become is a framework that helps our businesses address some of the bigger challenges that we know they face every day. And one of those is connecting to resources, being able to understand how to connect with those resources, and really feeling empowered and coached on the best steps that they can take to start or to grow their business.

In our world of economic development, we're lucky in Santa Fe because we have hundreds, literally, of community partners and business service providers that are doing the work to support our business owners. The problem is it can be overwhelming to know where to start or how to navigate those many resources. So what we've been able to do, working in partnership with New Mexico State University's Arrowhead Program, is to build this framework that is utilizing a spoke and hub model, and Carolyn will get a little bit into the details and especially happy to go into them if you have questions. Operating that the navigator is the hub. We have our core partners and then our networks and our smaller ecosystems keep expanding out. We operate on a principle that oftentimes to get information out to various communities really rely on key community champions or folks that have that vested trust in a variety of different communities, whether that's industry-based, neighborhood, demographics, etc. So this navigator program not only helps us congeal and work together as practitioners, but it also helps us get the information and resources out further and further into our community. And through this work, we're really proud to share some highlights and some stats in a variety of ways, resources, programming, one-on-one counseling. It's very exciting. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Carolyn.

Thank you. Thank you, Joanna, and thank you to the committee for having us so we can tell you about the work that we've been doing with this program. So, first of all, I'm going to talk about the key players for the Santa Fe Small Business Navigator. This is a program in the City of Santa Fe's Office of Economic Development, led by Joanna Nelson and her entire OED staff. We also work very closely hand-in-hand with other members of the Santa Fe ecosystem, including the Santa Fe Community College, the public libraries, and would like to highlight our work with Deborah Torres, who is contracted through UNM to help us with resources for our native entrepreneurs. And this program is run in partnership with the Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University. And I'd like to just give a special call out to Krista Morehead, our Deputy Director, who has been integral in making sure that this program runs well for us here in the city.

So, one of the important parts of this program is we work very, very closely with our key core resource partners. We have five that we have sub-awarded out to, and they work with us very closely in terms of making sure that the resources that we provide to our small business owners within the network are well covered. And so we work with West SCORE, New Mexico Angels, and their consulting arm, it's called UpSpring Associates, RDC, and the Santa Fe Business Incubator. And a very big part of what they do for us is they provide us with a lot of programming in the form of workshops and seminars for our business owners. And as you'll hear about the way that the program works, I have a very, because I meet with all the business owners individually, I have a very strong real-time sense of what is front of mind for our small business owners. And so we are able to provide highly curated workshops and seminars for them in a very timely manner, and these core partners are really a key part of that.

So as Joanna said, we've envisioned this program sort of as a hub and spoke model. In the center is OED, along with Arrowhead Center and our CRM provider, which is called Source Link. And so this is sort of the core of the program. It's the hub. It's what really keeps things moving. And our spokes, including the five key partners that I just mentioned in the previous slide, we also incorporate all our regional resource partners. And this includes, it runs the gamut of really anybody who provides services to businesses. And this includes nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, other government entities, neighborhood groups. And this is the way that we have started to build out the ecosystem for the navigator.

I would like to call out other really important navigator partners as well. We work with the libraries, as I said, libraries as launchpads. We are hosting, the city is hosting business 101 workshops there, and the navigator does its part in really promoting those workshops and making sure that our early stage business owners can come and learn about how to grow their businesses there. But as well, we want to encourage our business owners in Santa Fe to know that libraries are a resource for them that they can use to really grow their businesses and learn about what they need. Additionally, we work closely with Creative Hub Santa Fe, and the Go Local Go Different campaign by OED has been really integral in a lot of the businesses that we've been seeing, particularly since the start of the year in the navigator, and I'll touch upon that as we keep going.

So, this slide is, it's a lot of words, but this is really the crux of the program. At the top, we have our partner directory. These are the resource partners who have agreed to work with us. I have close relationships with everyone in the directory, and that is key for when I meet with individual business owners, I'm able to make warm introductions and the referrals to these people. I connect them with a human being, and those people are on our directory on our website. As I said, our core partners put on workshops, seminars for our business owners, and these again are highly curated because I really take a look at what our entrepreneurs are really looking for. Additionally, we do also promote other community resource partner events. Again, this goes into some of the things that the library is putting on and other things like that, and we make sure that we try to fill the seats there and make sure that they get the attention that they need and they get the awareness among the community. We also have a micro-grants program through the navigator, and I will touch upon that a little later on. Deborah Torres is very integral in providing Native American entrepreneurs with resources, and we do run this program bilingually for our Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs as well.

So before I go into this, who is a good fit for the navigator? I'll kind of take a step back and talk about how this program really works. However a business owner ends up in my inbox, whether it's through the website, through a referral, through anybody in this room, through Joanna's team, everyone gets a one-on-one consultation with me. I have met with every single navigator business one-on-one and heard about their stories, their goals, the obstacles they're facing, and we've worked together to try to find the right resources to help them get through them. So then the question becomes, who can come to me? And honestly, I'll take anybody. We are a small business navigator, and that really, I think, means it's less than 499 employees. So yeah, any business really counts. And I can help provide them with the right referrals for any variety of obstacles that they're facing, all the way from one end, which is ideation. You know, I have an idea. Is this a real business? All the way to the other end, which is I've done this for many years. I'm ready to exit. I'm ready to sell the business. What do I do? And anything you can think of in between, including marketing or product development, all those things, we have resources that we can connect these businesses with.

So as of the end of May, as of the end of May, we have 121 small business owners that have come through the Santa Fe Small Business Navigator. 43 of them have been added in Q1, which is a 55% quarter-over-quarter increase. So we are still in that ramping hockey stick phase. We are not slowing down at all. We've had 29 targeted workshops and seminars for our small business owners. They've been very well attended and well received. And we're constantly getting feedback on how we can make them better and more effective for our business owners. And I am constantly looking for more resource partners to add to our navigator network. Santa Fe has so many fantastic resources for businesses. I want to make sure I get all of them. So, in that quarter-over-quarter increase, it's really driven by the fact that I'm seeing about six new businesses per week, and about right now, four to five existing businesses that I've seen before have been coming up to me every week for a follow-up. So that's really my current volume. And most importantly, since the start of the program, 92% of business owners are still in constant contact with me.

They are still using Navigator services. They have not dropped off. In terms of business types, most importantly, almost half of our businesses in the Navigator are of the Main Street variety. So these are what we would kind of call mom-and-pop shops. These are businesses that directly serve the local community. And this, I touched upon this before, was really driven by OED's Go Local, Go Different campaign. We worked very closely with that campaign to make sure that anybody who signed up for Go Local was also connected to the Navigator to make sure that they had the resources they needed, not only to make themselves visible as a small business in the community, but also to make sure that they have all the resources they need to capitalize on that visibility.

Related to that, more than half of the businesses that the Navigator is seeing at the moment are businesses that have something marketable in terms of product or services. They're ready to go. And this coincides with the fact that almost half of our businesses are of the Main Street variety. These tend to be just open doors and get going. And again, this was driven primarily by the Go Local campaign. This is, as I said, small businesses, I think, count as 499 employees and less. Almost all of the businesses that I'm seeing have fewer than five employees. And if we really drill that down to solopreneurs, I think it's about a hundred. So I am definitely seeing the smallest business owners in Santa Fe, and those are the people who really do need access to resources because they're not at the point where they have a team that they've hired to help them run their business. And so we are really a support system for them, and that's very important.

In terms of the industries that we're seeing, professional services, it does really rank high in Santa Fe. We have a lot of highly experienced, skilled people who want to provide their services to the community in the form of a business. And again, these fall mostly into the solopreneur category. We are Santa Fe, so we see a lot of creative arts businesses as well as food and beverage. And I do highlight the wellness industry as something that I keep seeing ramping up. I do see a lot of people in the wellness industry. This includes therapists, counselors, yoga instructors, and anybody of that ilk. And these are people who certainly are looking for a lot of support from the city in a cohesive way.

In terms of demographics, I'm personally very proud to say that more than half of the business owners I'm seeing are women, and over a third are minorities. We strive to really capture all corners of the Santa Fe community. And this has been really important work. We work very closely with the Black Business Alliance. So Rich Brown and I communicate regularly about the businesses that he sends to me and I send to him. And the women business owners as well. We work very closely with Sandy Hersberg of the New Mexico Startup Alliance. She has an Invest Her initiative, and so her business owners, those that are Santa Fe-based, do come to us. And we're very, we keep looking for ways to make sure that we reach those communities that have historically been underserved.

So what are businesses looking for upon coming to me? Unsurprisingly, a lot of them are looking for money. They want to understand how they can fund their business, what are the right ways to do it. These numbers, in particular the grant number, which is 40%, has been really driven by the Spur and Safe grant applications that have been open through OED, and I will touch upon that a little later. A lot of businesses are hearing about this and are curious about how they can get involved. I do highlight the 56% under general networking. Importantly, this really speaks to business owners in the Santa Fe community who are looking for peers, who are looking for networks, who are looking for like-minded people to really talk about their businesses, share their experiences, and learn from each other.

In terms of referrals, the Navigator has made 370 outgoing referrals to date. These are to all those resource partners, of which there are 95. And so this is a great number. Most of the time when somebody comes, a business owner comes to me, I have at least five referrals lined up for them, and it is up to them to follow up on them, and many of them do. In terms of incoming to the Navigator, we have a lot of partners who are really integral in making sure that the businesses that they work with are also integrated into the Navigator community.

So some notable wins, since the Navigator has been running for not quite a year, we've had a lot of businesses who have just seen some really tangible results. No MB Trace has finally hired their first Chief Operating Officer. That's fantastic. It is a sign that their company has matured to the point where they need one, and they also have the funds to hire someone. We have several businesses, including Cynthia Jones Jewelry, that have received significant grants from NMED. Santa Fe Popcorn is about to open their brick-and-mortar storefront on the Plaza. Everybody, please go visit. Same with The Ox 1985, is a bakery that is now open in the Arafa area. And then also importantly, there are businesses who come to us with real problems. Like Honeysuckle Lifestyle, for some reason her business license application was stuck. It got bottlenecked for some reason. And we were able to connect her with the right people and get that unwound, and now she is off to the races.

And then with Laura at Lady and Flux, she just didn't, she didn't think she needed a business bank account, and she was going to just go off without an LLC and just run her business. And we were able to work with her to convince her that this is the right way to set up your business, to protect yourself, to protect your business. And that education has been really invaluable to her. And then for a business like Anacaso Dragonfly, which is on Second Street, she opened her doors and we set her up with a marketing consultant, and she set up a social media account that just went on like wildfire. So these are some of the wins that we were able to provide for our local business owners.

We have done 40 events through the Navigator for our businesses. You can see under the categories the different types of topics that are being touched upon. A lot of financial literacy and business planning, as well as marketing. These are really important topics for business owners. And then we have, this is a fraction of the calendar that we have coming up for the second half of 2026. So we're going to be busy.

And then I just like to call out one of the important things that we're doing through the Navigator. We found that one-on-one help is actually really important for our smallest business owners. But sometimes these business owners can't afford it because they're early stage. And so the Navigator has been able to sponsor some work for these business owners. So, for instance, we have been set up with Dulce Marty of Avidia Business Services, where we will sponsor business owners to work with her to help sort out their accounting if they've sort of gotten into a mess with it, or they haven't figured out GRT. Because that upfront investment now will really pay dividends later on so they don't get in bigger trouble. And this is something that these business owners could not afford otherwise. And so so far we have helped 22 Navigator clients and provided up to $15,000 in support to date. And that is something that's been really rewarding for the program.

And then along the same veins with marketing, there are a lot of business owners that come to us and say, "I really want to do social media. I just don't have the capacity again because I'm just one person. But this is going to be really key to my business." And so we've been able to set them up with a social media consultant to really help them teach them how to do this as a solopreneur, get that app that can just sort of schedule it and just get it going on a cycle. And so that has been really great. So today we've been able to have six Navigator clients really take advantage of this with up to $2,000 in support.

So these are our grant programs that OED has been working very closely with. So shout out to Casey Dowour because he has been really integral with this as well. The Spur grants are now open for applications. It is a $150,000 pot for grants for small businesses. They can apply for up to $20,000 in grants. And so far, I believe we have 73 open applications because I can see on the back end who's working on it. We have 73 applications open. 14 people have been able to finally submit their applications. We're only two weeks in, so this is going to be very exciting.

And then the Safe grants are still open. So this is a crime mitigation grant. It's $230,000 in awards. We are still rolling through it. I think it's 55% accounted for now. A lot of businesses are still applying. This is for reimbursement for any crime incidents that businesses have experienced, but also we will provide grants for a proactive type of grant, which includes, if you want to update your cameras or your locks. And additionally, pro-social as well, if you are a business that wants to sort of beautify the area around your business to deter vandalism.

As I said, we are committed to having this program run bilingually in Spanish. I do not speak Spanish, but I have a lot of colleagues who do. And so they are really integral in helping us work with our entrepreneurs who prefer to do their business in Spanish. So through the Arrowhead Center, we have a consultant who works with me to do the intakes. Bridget Dixon at the Chamber has been very integral in making sure that her members are aware of the Navigator. Also, shout out to Liz Camacho, who has been really integral in sending a lot of businesses from the Southside to us as well. And Dulce from Avidia is providing workshops in both English and Spanish on financial literacy.

So finally, we're going to talk a little bit really quickly about the ecosystem that the Navigator is building. So not only do we help small business owners, but a big part of this program is to really provide an infrastructure within Santa Fe that connects all our resource partners together so that there's this sense of cohesion and collaboration among them. And we've done a lot of work around that. We have these gatherings every quarter to really promote that. Last week we had our Navigator Network gathering, which I called Cold Brew and Churros, and it was a great success. We had over a hundred people show up on Museum Hill first thing in the morning, and there were a lot of great connections made.

And in 3Q, we're going to do the same thing, just with our resource partners, to really talk about what are they seeing? What are they hearing from their businesses? What are the challenges that they're facing as a resource provider to businesses? What can we do to work together? And in between these in-person gatherings, we also host mid-quarter calls just as a check-in with each other to really understand where we are. Is there anything in the ecosystem that we should really be aware of?

Trends happen very quickly, and we want to make sure that we are all on the same page. The word that gets thrown around, at least here, is there are a lot of silos within the business resource community, and we're doing what we can to break them down. Okay, well, this is the last slide. I said no more silos. So, thank you very much. Any questions, I guess? Yeah.

Thank you so much, Ms. Lee. Thank you, Director. So, I'm going to start on this side, Council for Councilor Barret.

Thanks. So, did you say you're mostly ARPA-funded currently, or that's how it started?

Madam Chair and Councilor, you're correct. It's 100% funded by ARPA currently.

And so, what and when, like how long do those funds last until?

So, our federal obligation ends December of this year, and we're currently in conversation with NMSU Arrowhead to understand how to prolong the contract and understand next steps.

Yeah, I was just going to say it sounds really amazing. So, just thinking of long-term funding, how to keep it going, right? And you're already thinking of that, I'm sure. But yeah,

Thank you for the question. We are, we did budget funds to continue the program and are also working with our partners to identify additional funding sources, too.

Awesome. And then, I know some of them are granted out free, but are a majority of these provided for free to clients who can't afford that? I mean, I know I saw you applying for some grants, but are the majority of these for free, or is it like a sliding scale, or how does it all work if a business needs your support?

Madam Chair, Councilor, thank you for the question. The services are free. So, including everything from meeting one-on-one with Caroline, meeting with our resource partners, grant funding, maybe we might have a few workshops that there's a minimal fee to attend, but the majority overwhelmingly is all no cost.

Wow. Amazing. Thanks. Thank you, Councilor Kasich. Sorry, I'm sorry. Thank you, Councilor Barrett. Councilor Fgali,

Thank you. So, I know that we've had a lot of discussions about people having a hard time getting business licenses and getting some other things. It sounds like Ms. Lee is helping with that. Is that the current plan, to leave that in this program, or is there maybe another way that we're going to deal with it?

Madam Chair, Councilor Faggali, this is a really important question that we're, I think, dealing with as it comes. And I think one of the benefits of having the Office of Economic Development as a core partner, we're learning really quickly that that becomes our advantage is to be able to connect folks to the right team members at the city. And we work really closely with land use and the business licensing department, but always could use additional supports, I know, to meet the needs and demands coming from the community. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Chis, Councilor Kouset. I think the only question that I had, it was more of a clarifying question because I know we're focusing on small businesses. Would 501c3s be able to apply for these grants?

Madam Chair, Councilors, it depends because we've got four different grant funding streams. Some of the nonprofits are able to apply, and then for example, our spur is specifically for businesses and business growth. So, and I'll add in, sometimes if they're not eligible for our funding, that's the beauty of having 90 different partners that we can connect for additional funding opportunities.

Perfect. Thank you so very much. Appreciate it, Director. You're doing amazing work. Thank you, Ms. Lee. It was a great presentation, and we hope to support your work in the future.

All right. Thank you. And we do have a second presentation on our agenda today, which we try not to do, but this one is very important. We're going to be talking about ICIP. Thank you, Sean. I will hand it off to you.

Thank you, Sean Moody. I'm with the Public Works Department. I'm a Capital Planning Manager, and today we'll be presenting a small focus on a bigger effort, a bigger effort every year as we update our capital programming. And typically every year, it's a five-year capital program that we update yearly. Typically, the whole program will have anywhere from 60 to 90 projects on it. And they emerge from our own departments and from the Councilors and at times from legislators, but generally they're emerging from our own operations. Our capital needs are developed over time and presented into this plan. The plan's, the focus of that overall plan will be to set out the city's capital goals over the next five years. Any individual project would typically await for a funding source before it's brought to the governing body to become a CIP project. In this past year, in 2026, a legislature passed a law on itself. Historically, we've received appropriations from left field for anything from affordable housing or indigenous services or some other capital program in the community, and we receive them and operate them as though we're a fiscal agent for typically a nonprofit. This year, the legislature has made a rule on itself that it wouldn't be doing those appropriations over 100,000 unless they appeared first in someone's capital improvement plan. This year, for the first time, we received five applications from entities that didn't emerge from the city. So, today I'd like to quickly present them to you. I won't go into any detail, but we do have many of the teams who have applied are here or on Zoom. So, if you have any detailed questions, I may turn to them. What I'd like to do is just give you the names and the basics about the five projects. And I'd also like to ask if Mayor Garcia would step up and speak a little bit about the context of the decision-making. Today, you won't be considering the ICIP list. Today, I just want to present the five proposals that came from outside the city. So, on the second page of your memo presentation is a map I drew of the five projects in space. They happened to all fall in District 4 through nobody's plan. And I'd like to read through them. From the very top right is a project on Midtown. It's called New Mexico Innovation Hub. And that will be, as I understand it, I'll let the developers speak for themselves as questions arise, but an innovation space with some affordable housing in it. And it would be within the tracks we own and will own in Midtown. As we move towards the west, just beyond Z, the development on Zapirano at Srios Road is a project called the Saninasio Flats Affordable Housing Project. Just beyond that on Airport Road is a project called Casa Detos Affordable Housing. Down on Serios Road and sort of in the area behind Via Linda is an interfaith project that they are calling the Resource and Opportunity Center or ROCK. And farther down Srios Road is a master plan development called Loseris, which lost its master developer. So, a group of the sub-developers there are proposing a project that might be funded through the legislature for extending the Loseros Drive and building a bridge over the A.

Thank you so much, Mr. Moody, and I'm already starting with questions, but I'm going to go ahead and let my colleague start. Councilor Cassid, did you have any questions?

Oh, Mayor, I apologize. There was something you wanted to add.

Yeah, just wanted to give a, and Madam Chair, members of the committee, just give a broader administrative context to this. As you all know, this is a brand new process that we're undergoing because of the new law. Because it's a new process, we wanted to make sure this was as equitable as possible. City Manager could have said all five are going on and without giving y'all any voice, opinion, etc. This is where we've brought forward these for consideration from the for the governing body to consider do they want them on the ICIP list or not. With that, there needs to be new systems developed because as Sean had mentioned, the systems were basically to manage our own projects. With bringing on any projects that are not city projects, we have to have new systems in place in regards how we're going to manage that, and that most likely will come in the form of some type of agreement, and that there hasn't been that conversation at all with any of these five entities. The agreement that the city would be a fiscal sponsor and what would that look like? Additional context is, you know, the administrative oversight. You know, it's no secret to any of the governing body members that we have not been at the best in managing these projects historically, and we're doing better thanks to Sean and team, but we have to build that muscle. And so, when we begin to take on projects outside of the city's scope, there will need to be new capacity. And so, that ultimately means bringing on new staff. So, that come, these are additional resources that will need be needed to be gotten. I just want to make sure the governing body is has that holistic perspective in regards to, okay, if we take on these asks, these are the full implications that how it would impact the city, because again, we're entrusted with making sure that these projects are successful. If one of the projects is not to be successful, what happens is, I don't want the city to be at blame, and I'm not saying there would not be success. We just have to look at it from more of the, we're the flow through, but we're ultimately being held responsible for any resources that come through us. So, I want us to be making the best decision possible. And so, as we're considering this, these are the tools I would like the Council to take into consideration. Sean, I don't, and then correct me if I'm wrong. We didn't do like, I come from this looking at it from a funder perspective. In my old old life, I was a funder, and we would always do, you know, financial feasibility. Is this person financially responsible to actually take this on, get the work done, etc. Because again, at the end of the day, the city is going to be held accountable if a project doesn't get done. And we're hearing it already from our legislators. At least I am. I don't know if y'all are, but I'm hearing that we're not spending the money that was allocated to us. And so, I just again want to make sure we make the best decision possible holistically. Just wanted to provide additional context to y'all with that. Sean, go ahead and feel free to stand for question.

Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate you, Mr. Moody. Anything to add?

Excuse me.

Anything to add?

No, I want to thank you though. That was as clear as could be.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Councilor Cass. Go right ahead with your questions.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just, I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm going over these a little bit. I'm curious about, you know, kind of this conversation around again, back to this conversation around the fact that we don't have an overall capital plan. It becomes really hard to make decisions about how to spend our resources when we don't understand the full picture. I mean, and this is, I feel like I keep knocking my head into this wall of, you know, not being able, I mean, we talked about this with the ICIP in general, and with legislative requests in general, that without a kind of grander view of what is happening in the city, it becomes really hard to to kind of figure out what the Mayor was referring to around like what are these resources?

Are they ones that we have to spend? Do we want to spend them? What else do we have down the pike that we're trying to figure out? Midtown, I think, is kind of an interesting exception because, and maybe not, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the infrastructure on Midtown, we're already, we're in, we're pretty committed when it comes down to that. So, I feel like the Innovation Hub feels a little bit of a different flavor to me. Am I correct in that assumption given how committed we already are, both financially and just with our general plans with Midtown?

No, I think what you said is absolutely accurate. This would be one of the sub-developers essentially, right? Taking care of some of the work that we have on the line that we're already like, hey, we better get this done or else Midtown's not going to fly. So, and so when we talk about capacity, maybe having, and even if we don't have this today, but kind of a better understanding of how each of these projects impacts that at the city, and when that impact would come into play, I think would be extremely helpful. A bit more brushed out as we take a look at this over the next, I guess, week at this point, before we have to make some final decisions. So, I don't know if you have an answer to that at this moment in time, or if that's something that we can get more.

Mayor: Madam Chair, Councilor Cassid, we have to turn in this list at the end of this month, but we can also make amendments all the way up until November.

I agree. If we don't add any additional projects, I'm not saying we need to or we don't need to, I'm just providing additional information. We have the ability to amend that list all the way up until November. So it gives us that time to truly understand, to your point, capacity, to the point I was trying to make earlier in regards to agreements, what agreements would look like, because part of an agreement might be the city would take a certain percentage for overhead, and a person that's looking for us to be a sponsor, so to speak, might say, nope, we're not willing to do that. And these are conversations that could be had. I don't want us to feel like we're under immediate pressure to have this in by the end of the month.

That's good to hear. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then in terms of fiscal sponsorship, so if I'm understanding correctly, prior to this, there are other organizations that have provided fiscal sponsorship in the past. We've had a fiscal sponsor before. But is that, is the state law essentially like, no, it's going through either the municipality or the county at this point? So,

Yeah. So, you raise a really good point. It's a sort of a fine technical point about whether and when a city would be a quote unquote fiscal agent for an entity. But my reading of this part of law is that there's the part of law in which the infrastructure capital improvement plan sits, is the idea of fiscal agency is really reserved for a different relationship than this would be. And you're exactly right. We did, we were compelled to use a fiscal agent happening North Central New Mexico, but in that context, we were the recipient of the grant and they were had a reviewing role in our receiving of the grant. We wouldn't be reproducing this to, for example, any of, any of these, these would never be grantees. They would be in some contract with us where we'd have, we the city would continue to have a performance obligation in exchange for receive the grant, even though the product of the grant would accrue to a nonprofit, for example.

Okay.

Does it make any sense?

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's starting to, it's fuzzy still, but we're getting there.

I think this will be a work in progress. I'll just, I'll just reiterate what Mayor Garcia is saying, is developing out the contracts for good, good, strong, deliverable and responsible agreements is something that we will need to develop.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I don't think I have any more questions right now, but I imagine I may in the next couple days as this

Yeah. To be clear, I didn't share this with you, but today this committee won't be considering the ICIP list itself, the resolution, right? But it will be, it was presented on Monday to Public Works and Utilities. It will present it to Finance Committee and it will go to Governing Body.

And while Public Works did suggest an amendment, in fact, any project that is, each project will be presented as a separate amendment at Governing Body.

Got it.

So, I just wanted you to have a sense of progress through this.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Talis,

I just want clarity. So, really the approval at the end of the month is just, is initiation if it would be approved to develop contracts, right, or agreements or process in which this partnership would occur with these entities. What happens if there isn't agreement though after the approval? That's a very good question and it brings me to another process question. The by next Wednesday, the Governing Body will consider the list and amendments to it that will establish which projects could be in the ICIP, that is that set of projects. But the next step, which will take place over the next couple of months, and it'll be through some lobbying among counselors and among the legislative delegation to understand how we, how the council would, how the Governing Body would like to prioritize the projects. So they'll be adopted as the list in the next two months. The Governing Body would be presented with prioritization and it's in that context that we would get to the nitty-gritty, I would suspect, of we'll begin to filter these projects and be able to say very clearly what those, what this, these potential partners would be, would be agreeable to do with us with respect to the grant. So that's how I'm imagining it. Now, Sam Burnett and Mayor Garcia will be intimately involved in that process in the next two months. Happily, I'll be retired. But that, that's the, that's the how I'm imagining it will happen. And again, speaking to the newness of this process, I, we have a clear idea of what we will want. Really, it's so that we can perform well with respect to this, the appropriation as well as the potential user. And I think the users would understand that too. That's a very necessary step. Now, next year's cycle will begin earlier and we'll be asking probably the same cast of characters, but others to do this beforehand. This, this has come upon us, so it's new.

Right. Thank you so much. Mayor, did you have anything to add to

Just a quick clarification in regards to, sorry, Chair Castro, members of the committee. Clarity on what Sean had mentioned around amendments. It's, there are amendments. They're being prepared. They can be as introduced as early as Monday as long as they're prepped because I know that there are not only the amendments for the five requests, but there will be some additional amendments for city, city requests as well.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Barrett, Councilor Forgi. Okay. And I also, thank you so much, Mr. Moody, for the presentation. And Mayor, that answered a lot of my questions in terms of prioritization and if they had to be at the top of our list and if we were going to add, because of course we want to support a lot of these programs. There are facilities at the city that offer some of these services that we're not supporting either. And so we need to be looking at the full picture. Thank you, Councilor Kaz, for bringing that home. The point of us not just throwing money at the wall, if you would, and being really direct with our dollars is very important. And so we appreciate you and helping us get that prioritization and we're going to miss you.

Oh, thank you. And I want to thank the folks who came in and are on Zoom. Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Well, so with that, we're going to move on to public comment. If you would like to address the body, if you could line up at the podium, and we generally do give you two minutes. We'll get that timer up on the board so you could see how much time we have. Trying to stall as we do that. And if you could just tell us your name and potentially what district you live in or what part of the city so we just have a sense. Thank you so much and your time will start now.

Chairman, councilors, thank you for your time tonight. My name is Kent Grubs. I'm the Board Chairman of Interfaith Community Services. I believe I lived in, I live in District 1. Our project, I believe, is in District 4. In 2024, Interfaith Community Services commissioned a needs assessment from a Denver-based firm, Shopworks Architecture. Shopworks is a nationally recognized firm that specializes in trauma-informed design and has developed a number of facilities in Northern Colorado that meet the needs of people who have been traumatized, such as people experiencing homelessness. Shopworks evaluated Santa Fe's specific needs during the winter of 2024, 2025, and made recommendations with respect to designing a trauma-informed facility to meet those needs. Excuse me. Our local architect, Hunter Redmond, at Architectural Alliance here in Santa Fe, took that conceptual, those conceptual ideas and turned them into buildable architectural blueprints based on a site purchased by Interfaith at One Emblem Road. Since late last summer, that firm and a number of subcontracting engineers, environmental, and other specialty consultants have prepared detailed plans for construction with the target of submitting a building permit application later this summer. I say all this to demonstrate that The Rock is not some conceptual plan. It has been conceived to address Santa Fe's specific needs. It's based on an actual location that's been purchased. It is documented in blueprints and detailed engineering studies that are necessary to satisfy the requirements of a building permit application. And the application is expected to be submitted in just a few months. The construction cost estimate and schedule has been provided by a reputable New Mexico contractor who is willing and able to do the work. And once the permit application has been approved, expected this fall, and funding is secured, the facility can be operational in about 14 months.

Thank you so very much. We appreciate you.

Good evening, Madam Chair, council members. My name is Jasmine Mills, and I am the Chief Marketing and Development Officer for La Familia. La Familia supports The Rock. We have a close partnership with them, and we have had a close partnership with ICS for over 15 years. La Familia has served the unhoused population for 24 years in this community. I have a statement that they've asked me to read. Every day, Santa Fe's police officers, firefighters, EMTs, outreach workers, and business owners are responding to the visible impacts of homelessness, behavioral health challenges, and substance use disorders. When people have nowhere to go during the day and no coordinated path towards services, the burden falls on law enforcement, emergency responders, businesses, and neighborhoods. The Rock creates a place where people can access services before situations escalate into emergencies. The request is straightforward. We, the city, has adopted an emergency homeless action plan. The provider community, including La Familia, has submitted unified recommendations. The Rock stands ready, shovel ready, to a shovel-ready infrastructure project that directly addresses documented gaps in the continuum of care, and it already has $1.3 million committed.

Opportunities like this don't come along very often. The community has done its part. The philanthropy community has done its part. Providers are doing their part, and we're asking the city to help us by recommending that you align our project, or The Rock, with the ICIP planning project. New Mexico Department of Finance Administration's ICIP guidelines direct local governments to identify specific projects and state that placeholder projects should not be included. So, thank you.

Thank you so very much. Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for having us. My name is Ginger Robertson. I'm the Chief Operating Officer at La Familia Medical Center. La Familia Medical Center supports The Rock. As Jasmine alluded to, we have been a partner with them for over 15 years. We provided clinic services at Interfaith Community Shelter's Pete's Place for 15 years. When we were vacated from the property at 2001 Cerrillos, 300 patients lost access to no-barrier healthcare at that facility. Since that time, we've had to change our model of healthcare for the homeless into doing street outreach and street medicine and treating these people on the streets of Santa Fe, those that will not otherwise come into our mainstream clinic. Interfaith Community operated the support with supportive services in Santa Fe for more than 15 years. Their service model included five providers that were delivering wraparound services on-site. La Familia was one of those partners, Lifelink, Santa Fe Recovery, and others. Moreover, ICS serves as a fiscal sponsor for Consuelo's Place, which is near and dear to everyone's heart at the Midtown campus. The Rock will build and is building directly on a proven operational foundation, national best practices, and as an established homelessness provider coalition. This is an expansion of a demonstrated capacity that is supported by virtually every service provider working within the field. And this is not new. We would really like to see the city include The Rock in their current ICIP plan. We want to continue to serve our homeless population and give them the opportunity to have wraparound services in one location and not to piecemeal it together like it's happening now. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, Councilwoman Pastran and Chair, and other councilwomen. It's nice to see so many women up here in leadership. No disrespect, Mayor. I'm Kathy Collins. I'm the Executive Director for Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity. We have asked to be part of the ICIP because it is a requirement for us to ask for any capital outlay. We were hoping that we could work with MFA to do this, but MFA is not submitting an ICIP. So, we are here because where we're building Casa de Toros, which fortunately yesterday got recorded, so we are ready to go with that project. We need your help so that we can continue to ask for capital outlay. I can guarantee you that we are not going to burden the city with any costs of being able to help us complete that other than the natural asking for affordable housing tax funds, the normal things that we would normally do. But we are responsible and we have the capacity to live into this and begin using these funds immediately, and this project will get done. I can guarantee that. This is a 100% affordable project that will have, that we will be able to build up to 68 units. And we are having a kickoff this Saturday that if you want to know more about what we're actually going to be doing, where this is going to happen, I invite you to come. It's from 10:00 to 12:30. Formal remarks by some of the legislators who have supported the initial Phase 1 of this will be there along with the Mayor. But it's an opportunity for you to really see the full spectrum of what we do. We are the developer, the contractor, the bank, the social service agency that works with the families. We do the entire process. And I hope that you will see fit to put us in the ICIP. I'm going to turn it over to Jerry Little, our Director of Construction, who will give a few details about the actual...

Thank you.

We're just going to reset your clock really quick, Jared.

Yeah.

Okay. Go right ahead.

Madam Chair, counselors, my name's Jerry Little. I'm Director of Construction Services in the project. Santa Fe Habitat has really expanded their capacity to take on a project like this and to make a difference within the community on affordable housing. That is our commitment. That's what we're staffed to do. So, that's been a big change under the leadership of Dr. Kathy Collins. This project is shovel-ready. As she mentioned, it has been recorded. It's ready to go. We have paid the bondings, the water impact fees. We are 100% ready to go regarding that. Our focus is to do a case study on the missing middle housing, which is a big thing within the city that we're looking to do. And then we're also looking to provide 100% affordable housing, as she mentioned, within this subdivision, which my understanding is this has never been done in the city of Santa Fe. So, it's a big thing. So, the capital outlay was for Phase 1 infrastructure. So, that's what we're looking for is Phase 2 infrastructure to be able to complete the subdivision years in advance. So, if we have to wait, that delays the project longer and doesn't meet the needs of today. So, that's what we're looking for. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I do see a few folks online. The first one is Amanda. I will unmute her. All right. Go ahead, Amanda.

Go ahead, Amanda.

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak about San Ignacio Flats, an affordable multifamily project located at the intersection of Cerrillos and Airport Road in Santa Fe. This project will support the local workforce by providing affordable quality housing utilizing a design that highlights and complements the trademark Santa Fe aesthetic. One of the key tenets of this project is our multigenerational design with a significant amount of three and four-bedroom units to support generations of New Mexicans. Universal design will ensure spaces are livable and enjoyable with access to shared amenities such as a play space, open space for enjoyment, and a pool area. Additionally, the site that we're looking at will capitalize on nearby amenities and transportation, including grocery, retail, and easy access to the 2 and 24 Santa Fe Trails bus lines. This urban infill location bolsters ongoing projects by continuing roadway and utility improvements that will serve San Ignacio Flats and address the grading and drainage concerns on the site with a sustainable design both inside the units and on the site itself. Finally, Ulysses Development, our firm, we're not local to Santa Fe, but we pride ourselves on bringing together a local team. So, we're working with Jenkins, Gavin, Decker, Bohan, and Houston, folks who have worked in and understand the Santa Fe market. And we've also received a great amount of community support from Senator Trujillo, the La Fonda Foundation, and Quorum, and many others who are aware of and giving feedback of our project. I'll cede the rest of my time, and we thank you for your consideration. Thank you so much.

To the next individual online.

Next individual is David.

Mr. Pettis, you are unmuted. You can unmute.

Thank you, Madam Chair and counselors, for considering the New Mexico Innovation Hub's ICIP request. As I believe all of you know, the Midtown project requires about $77 million of horizontal infrastructure. So, roads, sewers, essential infrastructure to facilitate any of the development that's planned on the site, including the Innovation Hub. So, we've been working very closely with staff at the city to present this ICIP request and also looking at funding by the state to build the roads just on the southern side of the campus, which have a total cost of about $12 million. So, these roads are critical to facilitate moving forward with the project. Our plan calls for 75,000 square feet of lab space, 50,000 square feet of office, and 60 residential units, rental units with 15% affordable. Our real focus is creating jobs. So, as you know, the Midtown campus doesn't support many jobs now. A few more have been created in the last few months, but our project will generate hundreds of jobs, salaries, sales tax, GRT, income tax, where now there are weeds, crumbling buildings, and piles of dirt. So, we're trying to, we're ready to move forward with our project, and we really need the roads built to facilitate this development that will bring needed jobs and income to residents in the city who can then go out and rent the housing that's around the city. So, thank you for your thoughtful consideration of the ICIP request and the Midtown project, and happy to answer any questions or give an on-site tour for any folks who have not yet been to this Midtown. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much. And I see one more person in the room that I think would like to give a public comment.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, counselors. So, my name is Brian Nininger, and I'm with a company called Orion West, representing some clients that are looking at the Los Cerrillos Bridge project. So, I just wanted to give you just a quick rundown of what's been done. There's a lot more to talk about, but I think for tonight, just an introduction to the project. So, the project itself is an extension of Los Cerrillos Drive from the circle at the entrance to the new Acadia multifamily project in New Mexico Board of Health Education Retirement Building, and then it crosses the Arroyo Seco. It's an 11-box culvert bridge and then connects right there where the Presbyterian Hospital is and Spectrum Senior Living. So, there's been a lot of talk about the south side and infrastructure requirements on the south side, and I can tell you this is a livability and connectivity question, and so I think in that regard, it's an important project. We have the project 100% designed. It's gone through the public works process and been reviewed and approved. We are days away from having our FEMA application also approved. So, the project really is for all practical purposes shovel-ready. So, I think that's an important point. The other important point is that there are 15 properties in the master plan that are tied to this bridge, and these 15 properties after a certain amount of development will initiate a bridge project. Five of these properties have managed to slip through because of the way the master plan is written and already built and developed and have not paid a fair share. What our program is, is these remaining developers have gotten together and said we want to pay our fair share, but we have a gap with these other five properties. So, the bottom line is we have $2.5 million now in escrow. We have another 800,000 committed. So, if I've done my math right, about 3.3 currently have an engineer's estimate of 6.1. That's the gap. That gap is what the other properties would have paid had they paid their fair up front. There's not a mechanism to go back and get those funds. So, we're looking to close that gap. And that's our, that's our ask. And if you have any questions, there's more, but I'm going to hold that to the council meeting. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Last call if anybody would like to come up to the podium. Seeing no one, we are going to close public comment and we are going to move on to the one item removed from the consent agenda.

Item C is consideration of Bill Number 26-11, adoption of Ordinance Number 2026, to be decided a bill relating to the Santa Fe Homes Program and requirements for rental units, amending Section 26-1.22 to make certain technical changes to clarify the calculation of fees paid in lieu of providing on-site affordable units, to amend the fee in lieu of calculation to use 30% of the area median income instead of 65% when determining base fee amount.

Thank you so much. I am one of the sponsors on this bill, so I'm happy to answer questions. We do have Mayor Garcia in the room as well as one of the sponsors. I don't know if Mayor Garcia, did you want to give us a short presentation or just start with questions?

Madam Chair, also Heather Lamboy is here if needed.

I am so sorry, Director Lamboy, and we do have our expert witness.

Madam Chair, just happy to yield for questions unless a presentation is requested.

Wonderful. So, Councilor Cassett, we'll open with you.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. No, I don't have, I'm good on presentation. This was very clear. So, thank you. My biggest question comes from where this number came from for determining that this would be the correct calculation for a fee in lieu. I think that's, I mean, where did this number come from? Was there an analysis? Was there public engagement? I didn't see any public engagement. Do we have kind of an economic viewpoint of what we expect this to do? And I would love to see that research.

Sure. Madam Chair, Councilor Cassett, I couldn't speak to how the original fee was derived back in 2016, I believe, when this program started. And then the program was updated in 2019, which set the fee to raise every year for a couple years, and now the fee has stayed stagnant. It's capped off. In regards to the proposal in front of us, the current fee in lieu of, it's based off of the number of rooms per unit, so to speak. That averages out to be about $9,000 per unit that a fee is paid for. So, for example, if a developer is paying a fee for 10 units, it's $90,000. What this proposal does is it raises that fee on average by about $7,000.

Sorry, Mayor. I think I may have missed, I apologize. I understand the, okay, okay, all right, good. I got that part. All right.

Right, right. And I'm getting to your answer. So, I just wanted to provide the context around the fee, right? Because ultimately, you look at the external factors such as the original fee was kind of beginning to be redeveloped in 2019, pre-pandemic, pre-housing cost increase explosion in price. So, there wasn't like a formal analysis done, but it doesn't take a scientist to tell you that that fee does not keep up with market rate. And so, what I wanted to do is ensure that the residents of Santa Fe were getting an equitable return in regards to the fee. And so, raising it, or lowering the, raising the fee, lowering the AMI percentage, as I mentioned, raises the fee by about $7,000. It's my opinion that it's not going to break a development and a development proposal. And if it does, then I think we're in a bigger position where we need to have a much deeper conversation. In regards to public engagement, I can't speak for you, but I've heard loud and clear from constituents across the city, they want fee in lieu gone in general. And so, the commitment I've made is that we work on fee in lieu holistically as a governing body. We're going to start that conversation on and housing holistically, two weeks, I believe, with a special governing body meeting. But we can't wait in regards to the severe decrease in the cost of fee that the residents aren't receiving in an equitable manner. So, there wasn't an analysis made. It was, in my opinion, the evidence was there that the fee is so low that developers are easily choosing the fee over developing the units. It happens time and time again. And so, we can get you the numbers, but if you look at since the inception of fee in lieu of, I would say on average 95% of the time, a developer will pay the fee. We are in a housing crisis where we need the units, and if developers are going to pay the fee instead of developing the units, we need to get a more equitable return.

And Council, I just wanted to add a little context. I neglected to add the CDC, the Community Development Commission, to this schedule initially. And so, we did have a pretty lengthy and exciting discussion today at 3:00 specifically on this piece of legislation with our Community Development Commission. A variety of backgrounds. A couple of those commissioners are also part of the land development and general plan update. And so, they're very well aware of sort of the different areas of interest. Developers, not-for-profit developers, folks that want to see more Section 8 housing vouchers used, for example, all be part of this discussion. We did sort of touch on all of the needs around those different parts of our housing market. And I have a few things that they have recommended. We didn't take a formal vote. It was just a discussion. So, this is a general sense of what the conversation was about. But we have seen commissioners suggest that we should tie it to the cost of inflation. Some commissioners did want to see fee in lieu gone altogether. Or there was one commissioner in particular who thought that this might be a little bit aggressive and we could sort of do it in piecemeal. We could potentially create some more incentives for developers. I will say that that commissioner was in a minority of the discussion, but I just wanted to bring that forward as well.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And Mayor, I would argue that it does take a scientist to do this policy. Because when we've looked at inclusionary zoning across the nation, there has been a lot of analysis. There are individuals that are experts. And I have been agreeing for years that because of the imbalance of our multifamily developers, our rental developers who choose to pay fee as opposed to build units, based on what we're saying the goals of the City of Santa Fe are, it's definitely out of balance. Although, interestingly enough, it's very possible that I could have been wrong in this regard because what we are seeing is a number of progressive, like-minded cities who are experiencing similar housing crises as we are, where we're seeing skyrocket housing pushing out the middle class, and do have inclusionary zoning. They're actually backtracking. So, Oregon has now come back because of some of the inclusionary zoning issues in Portland to say that it is not legal for municipalities to impose underfunded inclusionary zoning policies. So, essentially, they're saying if you're going to require affordable units, the city or the municipality or the county has to provide either density bonuses or fee waivers or some type of other subsidy that'll make the developer whole. Seattle is actually backing down on their inclusionary zoning. And again, they're meeting, they're because of similar issues. Now, I agree that what our current inclusionary zoning policy is doing is not getting us what we want. Although that said, I'm not sure at this moment that we actually know what we want. Do we want more multifamily? We have seemed to overbuilt over the last five years. We have a number of vacant properties, although that has resulted in a 4% decrease of average rates according to, I think it was a New Mexico housing report. So, we're in a position right now where the city has too much multifamily. This may not actually impact us in that regard. Although there is then this question, and again, back to the experts who can do this work, around what is the equilibrium. So, if we're here and we're expecting a certain amount of population growth, how many affordable units, how many middle-income units do we hope to see built over the next 5 to 10 years? And then backtracking the policy there. So, my concern here is not that there is a change to inclusionary zoning. I think that we can all agree that with our current Santa Fe Homes program, we haven't been seeing the results that we would like to see. I think we could argue whether or not we want money or do we want people to build units. And the more that I've been doing some of this work, I think that there's actually probably, I think that the city needs, and again, we'll get into this with the housing discussion, a more, you know, a different tactic when we're looking at middle-income housing versus affordable housing. Where can we really compel the market to give us what we would like to see? Right now though, what we are seeing, and what when I've been speaking to individuals who are in the development community, who are in the affordable housing community, who've been reaching out to me about this, is that there's a very large concern that this will, and a perception from the development community that this will potentially shut down multifamily development. Again, question mark for us as to whether or not we're okay with that because we do have a lot of multifamily development. I don't know what we're going to need over the next 5 to 10 years. I don't have that math in front of me. My biggest concern here is that when it comes to things like inclusionary zoning and affordable housing policy, I don't think that it's something that we do off of feels. I think that it is something that we do off of looking at what are our goals and then backward tracking and doing actual market analysis and economic analysis about how do we get there and what are the policies that we need to move in that direction. Again, this could be it. But without an analysis, I don't feel like I have, I don't have information either way to say whether or not I think this is a bad idea or a good idea. Which I think is a really challenging place. So, what I think I'd, I mean, what I would really love to see is this type of analysis being done, both in looking at what we would like to see in terms of development. How do we get more? We've talked a lot about infill. We've talked about missing middle housing types. How do we move ourselves in this direction without just throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping that it gets us where we'd like to go? Because that's what this feels like to me right now. And when I do hear from constituents, you know, they talk about, I don't like fee in lieu, but at the end of the day, what they care about is they don't like our housing market. Fee in lieu is not their issue. Their issue is our housing market, and how we fix that is the real concern that they're getting at. So, that's my concern right now is that I just simply do not have the information in front of me to determine whether or not I believe this would have the impact on our housing market that I would like to see. But again, that's a personal opinion and not a goal that we have been able to establish as a governing body to understand where we are going.

Thank you so much, Councilor, and Mayor. Yeah, I'm just going to give a little context, and then I'll hand it over to you. This was a big part of the conversation that we had with the Community Development Commission, and we're actually looking at updating the enabling legislation to be much more direct with what our goals are. We had a lengthy discussion around multifamily units and the cost of those units. There's a lot of vacancy on the higher end of some of those units.

So, we need to be very direct with the level of income and AMI that we're looking to target, and I think that the CDC in particular is really interested in making that clear. So, with that, I will pass it over to Mayor Garcia, who was part of that exciting conversation.

Well, thank you, Chair Castro, and members of the committee. I just want to provide some additional context and scene setting. I would vehemently disagree. This is not throwing spaghetti at the wall. We have a process that I think we can all agree is broken. And just to show you how broken it is and how things kind of ironically shift and shape based on different scenarios, folks might remember back in, I think it was 2023, we proposed the elimination of FEUB at Midtown. There were folks that are in this room that voted that down. The big idea of that proposal was that it would allow for the city to receive the much-needed affordable units while utilizing one of the strongest tools in the tool belt we have, which is leveraging city land, and we can lease or sell city land.

Now, let me refresh our memories to 2026. We just agreed to an early negotiation agreement from a developer who was essentially taking on that very same proposal of wanting to have the city donate land for development of affordable housing. That same developer was not in favor of the elimination of fee in lieu of. And so I think there comes a point in time where we can overanalyze and sit and scientifically study something, but there's a point where we have to take action on a process we know is broken, and this is, in my opinion, beginning that process of fixing the broken system we have in place. I know Director Lamboy has

Thank you, Mayor, and Director, if you could give us a little context on those numbers, please.

Thank you. So, with reference to the FEL conversation, I'd like to paint a broader picture just to provide some background. The general plan assessment report identified that rents have gone up 74% since 2016. That is a crisis, and we need to address that. This FEUB legislation, truly the only thing it does for now, is changes the calculation from 65% of the AMI to 30% of the AMI, I'm sorry, which right-sizes everything because we have not changed the actual fee itself since 2019. And as you know, we had a pandemic in between. There's a lot of problems with supply and construction costs now, and so we're really analyzing what can the city do to provide those benefits to our most needy in the community and how can we get that the proper revenue.

So the true intent of this is to rely on that initial analysis that we did and truly just make sure to right-size the amount of fee so that we can capture more affordable housing through our city programs. And then finally, the implementation plan for the general plan is going to be an affordable housing plan. We don't have that in the city, and it's really come up over and over again with our community engagement that we've conducted for the general plan update, and it is identified as a major priority that we need to accomplish. So, we're doing a lot right now, but we are looking at affordable housing issues in the general plan update as well as the land development code update. That's going to continue. As you may remember, in phase one, we updated our incentives. Furthermore, the water rights don't need to be brought for affordable units. There's no permit fees for affordable units. So, there's already a package of benefits to affordable housing developers.

Which I mean, and I agree, and I appreciate that. Sounds like our general plan does need to update its data because I'm currently looking at the Housing New Mexico Policy Research Report that says in New Mexico and in each MSA, rent growth accelerated with the pandemic and has since slowed. Between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025, average rents for multifamily units have decreased by 4% in Santa Fe, MSA. Now, that does state that they absolutely did go up quite a bit. We are now seeing them decrease. And so, again, understanding the market changes. And you know, I don't, I do not disagree. I've stated many times our current affordable housing program is not getting us what we want. But what I'm not hearing, what I'm not hearing is numbers around how much it costs to build, which we know has also changed dramatically with inflation, with interest rates, with tariffs. I mean, everything has exploded. And the problem that I am seeing right now is that the information to make this decision is not in front of me.

So if that information exists somewhere that's going to take a look at what the cost of development is for multifamily, if we can get a number of scenarios, if we can do an economic analysis, if we can do those projections, if we can get that information, that sounds great. I would love to see that. And with the cost of, we do have a number of incentives and assistance for helping people leverage the cost of development to provide those affordable units. You know, when I've looked at some of these kind of policy memos in general around inclusionary zoning, one of the reasons that this idea of like what do we want is so important is that, you know, you can change your policy based on what it is that you would like. Would the city like more money? Are we going to be more strategic with our affordable housing trust fund, which I would love to see? In which case, maybe more money is actually more beneficial. Maybe we actually don't want private developers, for-profit developers, that this is not their model to be building affordable units and jacking up the price of the market rate unit so that we have this large gap in affordability. Maybe we'd like to be giving it to Habitat for Humanity that's building, you know, 60 unit 100% affordable units.

I mean, and so again, this kind of idea of where is it that we want to go and understanding how these policy decisions, how these different strings pull on the various aspects that go into affordable housing. That is my challenge. I am not arguing by any means that what we have is working because it's not. I mean, I think that that is one of the most clear things. It's why everybody says they want to work on policy. It's why our first study session is all about housing policy. What I'm saying is that this proposal right here with the information that I have, I do not have the information to make an educated decision as to whether or not the intended impact is going to occur, nor what we want that intended impact to be given the fact that this mostly impacts multifamily.

The other piece of the conversation around Midtown that I do also just want to put into play is that when we did, I was one of the ones who was not in favor of getting rid of Fee in Lieu. I felt that because the city owned Midtown, having another tool in our tool belt that we get to, again, another string we get to pull. What we did do and go back with is say, "Hey, if you are going to come forward and you're going to give us a proposal that includes a fee in lieu, we expect the pro forma for you to tell us why that is not a feasible development for you to include 15%, and then you will be expected to contribute to the other community benefits that we do somehow need to fund that do not get funded in other ways besides public investment." So whether that would be the park that makes no money or a nonprofit that wants to be there or childcare. And so that that was about, you know, how we balance the incredible costs that were referenced earlier, the $77 million worth of just general infrastructure that the city has to do as well as all the community benefit costs. But also because with this like eye on Fee in Lieu and wanting to understand what does the market actually carry, and we were hoping to start to get some data and information around that, that if people were going to propose this, hey, we'd get the little bit of information about why are they saying that these costs don't add up and could also inform us in some other ways. That obviously, you know, that hasn't occurred, but it doesn't mean that there's not other ways that we can do some of these economic analyses.

So at this point, because I agree we have to change this policy. Santa Fe Homes program is not giving us our intended outcomes, whether that is because it was never designed correctly or just because times have changed or both. I just, I'm going to have to abstain from this vote because there is a lack of information for me to make an informed decision. So thank you.

No, thank you, Counselor. And just for a little bit more context in the discussion, and I want to represent the CDC. I don't want to represent myself. The consensus I heard was that we want both. We want to find ways to help developers have incentives so they build the units, and we need more resources so that we can partner with more not-for-profit developers, which we're now attracting based on our last RFP, to do the deeply affordable work that we want to do. So the conversation is being had. We are here to listen to all of us, and they are an advisory board to us, which we made very, very clear today. So please come to any meetings. We will be reaching out to you as CDC members to talk about this, and I also invited them to be part of our conversation on the 29th on homelessness and on our special study session on July 1st around housing. So hopefully they will be in the audience as well. Any other questions from the governing body? Counselor Faggali.

Thank you, Director Lamboy. What did you say about our affordable housing plan? Did you say we don't have one or that we're working on one?

Chair Castro, Counselor Faggali, there is no formal affordable housing plan that touches on this issue. So we have our CDBG consolidated plan and the Community Development Block Grant, but truly the guidance we get from affordable housing is pulled from many multiple sources, and we need actually a plan that targets and does the analysis that Counselor Cassid is talking about and then really roots everything in what is the best approach for providing for affordable housing in Santa Fe. Thank you.

I mean, I just, we're having a study session in two weeks about affordable housing or about housing, I think, in general. I don't know if it's particularly affordable housing. We, in my view, we don't have a great strategy right now. We're kind of trying a lot of things, and this is another like, "Well, let's try it and see if it works." I would rather talk about it a bit more first. See what, like if the CDC is recommending that we do do something else with our affordable housing trust fund, if we do plan on making our own funds or attracting different kinds of developers or changing the Santa Fe Homes program entirely. I just, I feel like this, when we are about to discuss all this as a governing body, is like a little premature. Like maybe next month would be better to visit this than right before we have that conversation.

So we're over here canoodling about potential processes. We do have the ability in this committee to hold it to a date certain. I correct, we can only hold it for one committee meeting. Mayor.

So, Madam Chair, so this is not scheduled to go for a final vote until after our special governing body meeting, if that's helpful.

Correct.

July 8th is when this is scheduled for a final vote.

So, we can hold it in this committee and have more discussion.

It's also going to be hitting some other bodies that we're all on. So, again, I think that the schedule allows for it to be held here for one committee.

Yeah, I think I get that it will be a governing body after we meet, but I think we're all going to be in a room discussing something that's important like this, and I think that that discussion needs to be had before it goes to any more committees. I think we're...

So, I would entertain a motion from anybody.

So, just for reference though, it would be, we can only hold it for one committee meeting. We cannot hold it longer than that. We would be holding it to the committee meeting that the discussion will be happening. So, the Quality of Life is happening. Are we doing the study session first or the committee meeting first? We're doing Quality of Life first. I'm not sure that gets us where we want to go. I think, yeah, I think maybe holding it is beneficial just in the sense that we'll all be in the room to have the discussion before it does pop to other committees. So, in that sense, but in terms of our committee, we'll be holding the committee right before the study session, and so therefore we won't get the discussion, but I agree. You know, we'll all get to see it in other places, which is beneficial. So, I'll make a motion to hold this item until the July 1st Quality of Life Committee meeting.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed. We should probably do a roll call. You're right. We do because this is pulled off consent. So, Marcel, would you mind doing a roll call on that?

Councilor Fagali?

Yes.

Councilor Barrett?

Yes.

Councilor Chavis?

Yes.

Councilor Cassett?

Yes.

Madam Chair?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you. So, as mentioned, just so everybody is aware, we will be seeing this again right before our July 1st study session on housing. Next item on our agenda. Get myself back together here. We have no executive session matters from staff. Johan, I know you gave a presentation already, but would you like to share anything from Economic Development?

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair and councilors. I really appreciate the time. I know that was a long presentation, but we have a lot of activity going on, and it's really important that we get the word out about that great initiative and continue the support where and when we can. And again, thank you for listening. Happy to answer any questions. Additionally, I would love to make sure that folks are aware of the many community events that are going on. We had a really great Black Business Alliance meeting today. That was the first time we had convened the group. There was a lot of excitement and talk about the Juneteenth celebration coming up on Saturday, and appreciative of all the leaders that have made sure that that continues and grows into the successful community event that it is. We also are in the throes of the Social Venture Network conference that is currently happening at the Farmers Market Institute. I was able to go today for some of those sessions. Really exciting that that conference is convening here in Santa Fe. Some of the top investors and thought leaders in the social venture and impact investing world are here in Santa Fe, and ideas are flying left and right about how we can support our local entrepreneurs and community groups seeking funding. And I'm going to, I've talked enough tonight, so really encourage you to read our newsletter and reach out. Thank you so much, Director.

Director Emory, Director Nelson is always a hard act to follow. So, thank you all. A few things from Community Services tonight. Last reminder to everyone, Senior Prom, Seniors Prom next Thursday, 1:00 to 4:00. Formal wear is encouraged. I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to wear for weeks. 1:00 to 4:00 at the Eagles on Early Street. We also, there is a presentation upcoming, I think in August, but as I mentioned at last Quality of Life meeting, we have funded a series of domestic violence and intimate partner violence training through city ARPA funds that wrapped last week, and our current count as we're getting together all of the data is that we actually were able to deliver this training to 162 people. That includes providers, leaders, just kind of across the board. So, you'll hear more about it in August, but just super proud of that training. For seniors who are registered for our at-home meals program, they will be getting frozen meals tomorrow to make up for the Juneteenth closure of the city. So, that's going on. Last Friday night, we had a teen night at Bicentennial Pool. All of the food was eaten, all of the drinks were drunk, and we served about 30 teens. So, that was a really super fun event. And then in line with Director Nelson, our libraries have tons of events happening upcoming. Please attend all of our libraries. They're free. The library will have a booth at Pride on the Plaza and be part of the parade in tandem with the regular city float. They will be distributing books for all ages. The summer reading program began June 1st, and we have over 1,000 registrants. Over the past two years, the program has been adapted to include adults and teens as well as families. We are having a closeout party at the GEC July 25th from 4:30 to 6:30 with swimming, games, and snacks, and also, of course, book giveaways because that's what we do at libraries. And just tons of events. So, check the library website. It is always up to date. There are social media posts, but super proud of the work happening in Community Services. Thank you all. So, Elizabeth, on to matters from the committee. I will start with Councilor Fagali.

Thanks, Chair. I just want to wish everyone a happy World Cup. We had a great event at the Railyard on Friday with the first US game, which we won. So, it's very exciting, and yeah, I'm looking forward to the rest of the tournament, and I think that's all the fun events I have right now. Thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Barrett.

Yes, I just wanted to shout out that pool night at Bicentennial Pool because my son was there, and he thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was amazing. Thanks for all the teen events. And he also joined the Teen Center for their drop-in hours, which we're also taking advantage of, which are amazing. And I wanted to shout out that Railyard World Cup event. It was packed. If you guys were there, maybe you were, maybe you weren't, but it was packed at the Railyard. So, it was amazing. I've never seen so many people in the Railyard for an event. So, it was really a really cool community event. And I just wanted to thank Economic Development and the Santa Fe Film Commission for the tour of Camel Rock Studios, which was very impressive and amazing, and we maybe met some celebrities. It's very hush-hush. I can't talk about it. Signed a non-disclosure agreement, but it was so exciting, and it was amazing. So, just thank you for that. And then we had a District 2 coffee with a counselor at Iconic. Some of you were there. So, and Habitat was also there, which was amazing to answer some questions from the community about AMI. They can really get into the nitty-gritty sometimes, and they've got those numbers that just can pop them out like that. So, thanks. It was amazing to have some experts there. And then Councilor Bamante and I are also June 19th, which is this Friday at 5:00 at Regel, where it's a family-friendly meetup to talk about how to make Santa Fe more family-friendly. And we're going to have snacks, and kids are welcome. I know it's after hours. It's Juneteenth. We planned it earlier. So, yeah, show up if you want to talk about how to make Santa Fe more family-friendly. You might have a list of things already in your mind. I've gotten a lot of emails about it, but bring the kids, and we'll see you there. Thanks, Chavez. And Councilor Cassett. All right. Matters from me. I am also just inviting folks to a conversation 6:30 at the Jean Cocteau this Thursday. We're having a panel discussion on food justice and food access. So, if you have any interest on food deserts and why, you know, certain grocery stores closed down, let's go have that wonderful discussion Thursday 6:30 at the Jean Cocteau. And with that, our next meeting will be very exciting, July 1st. And we are adjourned.