There are two important meeting possible withing the next two weeks, Stay tuned here for confirmation and details. We have learned there may be a Town Hall covered by the County on July 27, and another important meeting the next day. DETAILS TO COME.
Meanwhile, please mark your schedules for the critically important ELUA and ELUC meetings in August, details and contact in post below.
The Santa Fe New Mexican had this article on other areas being annexed, and this editorial on planning, which followed the previous editorial specifically about changes to our neighborhood.
"The greatest growth is expected inside Santa Fe's newly expanded city limits — the guessing is an additional 28,000 people. Will those folks represent enough revenue to pay for the police and fire protection they need? For the water they'd use — assuming the city system has enough to supply them? What about the 10,000 or more new homes they'd need? The streets along which those homes would lie — and the main roads their cars would travel? How much infrastructural investment will it take to absorb so many more families, to keep things going in a small town turned into a city of 100,000? How closely should the development of subdivisions, shopping centers and business parks be guided? Will our community's strict but mostly sensible land-use rules be eroded, case after case, by one slick sprawl promoter after another? Or will some local-government body sell out Santa Fe wholesale — and with it the streetscapes and lifestyle that have made this town the attractive one it is?"
Be informed. Be involved.
The New Mexican has this thing pegged: "such things tend to be cyclical." We have grown beyond our means to sustain continuous growth.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, from the 1880s to the early 1900s, Highway 14 from I-25 to the end of Santa Fe County at Golden-San Pedro there were hundreds if not thousands of 40 acre homesteads given out to anyone who would build a house and stay a year. The population of the San Marcos District for community planning was more in that earlier era then until the 1980’s when Silverado started to develop. The Town of Cerrillos had a population of 2,500, much more than the City of Santa Fe back then. The talk was that Cerrillos had 25 saloons and 10 brothels and was much more business oriented than Santa Fe to such a point that it merited moving the Territorial Capitol. A few poor years of rainfall and all the homesteads were abandoned. A few poor years of mining and Cerrillos, Madrid, Golden, San Pedro, Kennedy and Waldo became virtual ghost towns. Land went from $5.00 an acre to $1.00 an acre.
Fast forward to 1969 and Colonias de Santa Fe on U.S. 285 by Tesuque and its 25,000 lots was never built because no water could be supplied. The Golden Triangle on I-25 south of La Cienega and its 30,000 homes was never built because no water could be supplied (and there was a little problem with “fraudâ€).
Fast forward to 2005 and you see the completion of a seven year cyclical drought as bad as the one in 1250 A.D. when Bandelier, Chaco Canyon and Pueblo Pindi in Agua Fria had to be abandoned.
Fast forward to 2009 and you see the 20th year of continuous layoffs at Intel, the fall of Eclipse Aviation, the College of Santa Fe and Thornburg Mortgage. All the fancy sales pitches and glossy brochures can not hide the fact that these entities were built on a financial house of cards. All the tax cuts and financial incentives to them were lost and only you and I remain.
Almost every big subdivision in my lifetime has been sold by a “snake oil salesman.†The promise to deliver the moon and the stars to the community they are next to and all they get is a patch of grass in an arroyo that is a park named after a city councilor. City and county have been all too willing to jump into something that advertises economic development and turns out to be a drain on city and county resources like police, fire protection, roads, and sewer and water. Then you and I get stuck with the tax bill.
If you are sick and tired of this---join the United Communities of Santa Fe County who are monitoring and critiquing the County's growth management planning process
For more information email me at: WilliamHenryMee@aol.com.