Smart growth?

Proposed Albuquerque infill development is opposed by neighbors due to its size.

Site of a proposed condominium project at Gold & Buena Vista Street. Photo by Marjorie Childress.

ALBUQUERQUE -- An acrimonious dispute between a neighborhood association and a developer will put the Albuquerque City Council on the hot seat Monday night.

At issue is what to value more: certain neighbors' perception that the quality of life of their neighborhood of 1930s-era homes is threatened or an environmentally laudable project that many see as the future of how growth should happen in the city.

It's a case that's generated more than 900 pages for councilors to review, covering an eight-month period of community meetings between the neighbors and the developer, multiple deferrals of official meetings, and a redesign of the project.

The Project

Neighbors say that 2000 Gold, a proposed multi-unit condo building, is completely out of scale for the surrounding neighborhood, a monstrosity of size, density, and lack of parking that will swamp the views, the streets, not to mention the privacy of the many one-story homes on three sides. They say that even if the sector plan was updated, a building so out of character for the neighborhood would not be allowed.

The developer, Rick Goldman of Sheffield Partners, counters that they are a misguided subset of residents who while active in the community do not necessarily represent the views of everyone who lives in the area.

Goldman says the project, which requires a zone change to proceed, is a trailblazer in "green building," and will help to create a mixed use neighborhood with greater density that fosters the use of alternative forms of transportation like walking, bike and bus riding, and reduces dependence on automobiles.

He added that the project is representative of the type of development other cities have successfully pursued to create mixed use, transit-oriented neighborhoods. And that in his experience over the years a project of this nature will increase the local property values of single family homes surrounding it. Plus, he says, the design furthers city objectives to conserve energy and decrease citywide carbon emissions, in a location ideally suited to enhance the centers and corridors objective of Albuquerque’s Planned Growth Strategy.

The 2000 Gold project is at the intersection of Gold and Buena Vista, a block south of Central across from the University of New Mexico. The site is currently a surface parking lot bounded to the north by a two story multi-unit residential complex and the commercial district along Central Avenue. To the east, west, and south is the Silver Hill neighborhood, primarily composed of one story historic homes, with a smattering of apartment complexes.

Parking is a big issue for residents. The parking lot provides 26 parking spaces to fulfill a requirement imposed by the city when Sheffield Partners built the Silver Hill Lofts across the street in 2002. But the construction of the condos will get rid of the 26 spaces, meaning the developer has to replace them and provide parking for the new tenants. And in order to do that, Goldman says, the economic reality is that the project will have to have more condos to help him make up the cost of the underground parking garage.

The condominium project, as it is now, would hold 46 units with an average size of 800 square feet. The concept is urban living, with units the developer claims are small enough to justify limited parking of only one parking space per unit, on the presumption that single people will most likely live in the units, and that mass transit options will reduce the need for cars.

Designed to conserve energy and to have a "roof garden," the 2000 Gold building is notable for its "LEED" design standards. LEED stands for Leadership through Energy and Environmental Design, and is a certification given by the U.S. Green Building Council for buildings that utilize sustainable strategies to reduce carbon emissions and lessen the impact of the built environment on environmental & human health. According to Goldman, the design has been accepted by the LEED program and will be verified upon completion. He also claims it is the first such multi-unit residential building in the city.

How we got here

During initial meetings last September, residents of the neighborhood expressed dismay at the size and density of the proposal, planned for just under half an acre. The four-story complex would dwarf the surrounding single family homes, they said, blocking views and sunlight, and creating massive parking headaches for the neighborhood. They also objected to the mass of the building, in particular a southern wall four stories high rising over the neighborhood.

The following picture is a digital rendering supplied by opponents of the project, showing its scale next to a house.

Exacerbating the situation, Goldman had asked that the city vacate public right of ways in order for his firm to increase the footprint of the building over planting strips, not realizing that the Silver Hill Neighborhood has as a signature project the restoration of tree lined streets, with funding from multiple levels of government to further the tree plantings over time.

In response to some of the initial concerns, Goldman made changes to the original design. The southern face of the building is now "terraced," resulting in the loss of five condos and 3,140 square feet, in order to create more space between the building and its southern residents. The height was also reduced, with the fourth floor recessed to the point that one would not be able to see it from the street. And he verbally pledged at the Environmental Planning Commission hearing in April that he would not remove the planting strips.

The following two sketches show the before and after designs respectively.

Despite these changes, the neighborhood association say the project has not been modified enough and is way out of scale for the neighborhood of 1930s-era historic homes.

And the EPC agreed, voting in April to deny the zone change request. The EPC's decision seems to be entirely based in a concern that the project is out of scale, too dense, or as one EPC member stated, "too intense for the neighborhood."

What's at stake?

Goldman argues that the neighbors are using a sector plan that is outdated, written long before the city's planned growth strategy was envisioned or before going green became a citywide imperative. And the city's planning department appears to agree with him, reversing its original position against the project after the developer more adequately justified his proposal and showed that the goals and policies of the city's comprehensive plan are "generally furthered."

Both the developer as well as the city planning department say the justifications sufficiently outweigh the limitations imposed by location, height, density and parking requirements found in the plan. In other words, it's worthy of a special use zone change. According to Russell Brito, the city planner who worked on the project, zone changes are common to allow for projects that don’t quite meet the codes, to allow for changes in policy from the both the City Council and the mayor over time.

And Dr. Lou Colombo, who is universally acknowledged as the "architect" of the city's planned growth strategy, told the Independent that "This project should go ahead because it's consistent" with the planned growth strategy."

The neighborhood has a right to be concerned about density, traffic, and the like, he said. But these conversations are best conducted through a planning process, he added, rather than erupting on a project by project basis. Indeed, the PGS calls for neighborhoods to be involved in the planning process from the beginning, ideally producing updated sector plans in a collaborative process. In this way, both developers and neighborhood associations would have clarity at the inception about what types of projects are feasible.

If the council approves the zone change, it can't be seen as a precedent for other projects. Instead, the city must update the current sector plan to avoid potential conflicts like this in the future, Colombo continued. In this way the neighborhood would be involved in deciding how much density is allowed near their homes.

Indeed, the city's comprehensive plan calls for sector plans to be updated every 10 years. From this perspective, given that this particular sector plan is over 20 years old, both the neighborhood and the developer have been let down by the lack of priority placed on neighborhood planning by the city.

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