INTRODUCTION
The Albuquerque City Council has enacted four measures sponsored by Republican Dan Lewis misleadingly labeled the “Better Neighborhoods” package under the guise and falsehood to cut red tape and spur development projects. The “Better Neighborhoods” package consists of two ordinances directed at neighborhood coalitions and two memorials that request action from the New Mexico legislature.
CITY ORDINANCES PASSED BY CITY COUNCIL
The two city ordinances that make dramatic changes to the Neighborhood Association Recognition Ordinance (NARO) are O-26-61 and O-26-60.
O-26-61 EXPLAINED
Ordinance O-26-61 was introduced and moved forward within 2 weeks for a full council vote without a committee hearing and no community discussion. O-26-61 strips standing from neighborhood coalitions, raises appeal fees, and requires coalitions to pay legal fees if they lose a challenge against a developer who has applied for permits. The ordinance eliminates formal city recognition of neighborhood coalitions and eliminates automatic development notices to them.
Appeal rights under O-26-61are limited to resident-based neighborhood associations near a project. Neighborhood coalitions to a limited can still file appeals but they must prove legal standing. The ordinance caps individual neighborhood association boundaries to 2 square miles.
The ordinance requires individual neighborhood associations to come into compliance with boundary requirements by July 1, 2027 and allows associations to retain current boundaries until July 1. Amendments to the ordinance requires associations to approve appeals by a majority vote and change advance notice of an appeal vote from seven days to two weeks. An amendment requires approval from at least 10% of an association’s members or 15 confirmed members for any appeal.
Ordinance O-26-61 passed on a 5 to 4. Voting YES were Republican City Councilor Dan Lewis, Dan Champine, Renee Grout and Progressive Democrats Stephanie Telles and Tammy Fiebelkorn. Voting NO were Democrat City Council President Klarissa Peña, Progressive Democrats Jaquin Baca and Nichole Rogers and Republican Brook Bassan.
If signed by Mayor Tim Keller O-26-61 will become law. If vetoed by Mayor Keller, the veto would require six votes of nine to override.
0-26-60 EXPLAINED
O-26-60 substantially raises appeal fees which are currently between $190 to $265 to $925 for approved appeals and $300 for denied appeals. Amendments added indigency waivers for people who cannot afford the fee, extended the payment deadline to two business days. It requires the Planning Department to give the City Council an annual report on land-use appeals and their outcomes. O-26-60 was deferred by Councilor Lewis to the October 19 City Council meeting. On October 19, the Albuquerque City Council approved ordinance O-26-60 which increases fees for appealing issues surrounding a development.
CITY COUNCIL MEMORIALS
State law gives “home rule” authority to municipalities when it comes to zoning and governs zoning appeals. Councilor Dan Lewis sponsored two memorials asking the New Mexico Legislature to make changes to state law governing zoning appeals. The two memorials ware M-26-01 and M-26-02.
M-26-01 asks the Legislature to clarify state law allowing municipalities to define the circumstances under which someone can appeal a development. It ask that the legislature clarify who qualifies as an “aggrieved” person with legal standing to challenge and sue and asks state lawmakers to remove restrictions that allow home-rule cities to set local definitions for legal standing. Memorial M-26-01 passed UNANIMOUSLY on a 9 – 0 vote.
M-26-02 asks the Legislature to allow municipalities to designate certain land-use categories, including zoning and development decisions, for direct appeal to District Court. Lewis said this about M-26-02 : “Currently, a coalition can appeal an approved project and ask the City to review a decision the City has already made, delaying the project for months. … We are asking the Legislature to eliminate this duplicative review and require the appeal to proceed directly to court.” M-26-02 passed on a 6-3 vote, with Bassan, Rogers and Peña voting against.
LORETTA NARANJO LOPEZ GUEST OPINION COLUMN
Loretta Naranjo Lopez is a life-long resident of Albuquerque and 6th generation Martinez from Martineztown in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has a Master of Community and Regional Planning and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of New Mexico. Ms. Naranjo Lopez was employed with the City of Albuquerque for 25 years of which 15 years was in the City Planning Department. She retired as a City Planner and worked as a staff planner. She serves as the President of the Santa Barbara Martineztown Neighborhood Association (SBMTNA). Loretta Naranjo Lopez submitted the following guest column for publication. She has not been compensated for the article, and it is being published as a public service.
GUEST COLUMN
Mayor Tim Keller And City Council Betray And Disenfranchise Neighborhood Associations, Coalitions, Citizens And Voters To Empower Developers And Investors To Determent City; City Council Should Repeal Enacted City Ordinance Zoning Amendments
BY Loretta Naranjo Lopez
Albuquerque residents have a legitimate interest in how development decisions affect their neighborhoods, from traffic congestion and infrastructure to building heights, land use, open space, and the preservation of established residential communities.
Neighborhood associations and coalitions provide an important connection between residents and City Hall. They allow communities to organize, share information, communicate concerns, and advocate for development that respects the identity and needs of existing neighborhoods.
Recent changes to Albuquerque’s Neighborhood Association Recognition Ordinance by the City Council make it clear that Mayor Tim Keller and the City Council are making it far more difficult for residents to influence development decisions that affect their communities.
Ordinance O-26-61, sponsored by Councilor Dan Lewis and signed by Mayor Tim Keller, changes the City’s Neighborhood Association Recognition Ordinance (NARO) and the formal role of neighborhood coalitions. When considered alongside the separate Ordinance 0-26-60 governing development appeal fees, these changes raise serious concerns about the ability of volunteer neighborhood organizations to participate effectively in the development process.
The issue is not whether Albuquerque should grow or whether developers should be allowed to build. The issue is whether residents have a meaningful opportunity to influence that growth and challenge development decisions when they believe those decisions conflict with the City’s adopted plans and regulations.
THE CHANGING BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN DEVELOPERS AND NEIGHBORHOODS
Developers, investors, and land speculators often have access to professional attorneys, consultants, and substantial financial resources. Neighborhood associations, by contrast, typically depend on volunteers who donate their time to protect their communities.
When the costs and procedural requirements of challenging a development decision increase, the burden can fall disproportionately on the residents who have the fewest resources.
A neighborhood association may have legitimate concerns about a proposed development’s impact on traffic, infrastructure, building height, land use, or nearby residential properties. Yet having a legitimate concern is not enough if the association cannot afford to pursue an appeal or satisfy the requirements within the prescribed timeframe.
A right that exists on paper, but is difficult to exercise in practice may offer little protection to a volunteer organization.
The Mayor and City Council should explain how the revised rules ensure that residents have a fair opportunity to challenge development decisions, regardless of their neighborhood association’s financial resources.
THE COST OF APPEALING DEVELOPMENT DECISIONS
The financial burden of development appeals is a central concern for neighborhood associations.
Ordinance O-26-60 addresses fees associated with development appeals. Reported fees include a $925 filing fee and a $75 notice fee for an appeal of an approved application, totaling $1,000. This does not include the fee if the neighborhood association loses and has to pay $1000 to the City including lawyer fees to the developer.
For a well-funded developer, these amounts may be a routine business expense. For a volunteer neighborhood association operating on limited funds, they can represent a substantial barrier.
Neighborhood associations should not have to choose between preserving their limited resources and challenging a development decision they believe violates the Integrated Development Ordinance (IDO) or threatens their neighborhood.
The issue is not whether every appeal should succeed. It is whether every eligible community has a realistic opportunity to bring forward a legitimate challenge.
The City should consider reasonable fee structures, hardship provisions, or other safeguards that prevent the appeals process from becoming accessible primarily to those who can afford it.
WHY NEIGHBORHOOD COALITIONS MATTER
Neighborhood coalitions bring individual neighborhood associations together to share information, coordinate their efforts, and address development proposals that may affect multiple communities.
A development project does not always stop affecting residents at an association’s boundary. Increased traffic can spill into surrounding residential streets. Commercial development can change the identity of nearby neighborhoods. Taller buildings can affect adjacent properties, and development on open space can have consequences extending well beyond the project site.
Coalitions allow associations to work collectively on these issues rather than forcing each neighborhood to confront complex development proposals in isolation.
O-26-61 changes the formal recognition of neighborhood coalitions and their associated automatic notice and appeal rights under the City’s framework. Although coalitions can continue to organize and advocate, losing formal recognition and automatic appeal standing can reduce their ability to participate collectively in the City’s development process.
The City has argued that individual neighborhood associations should provide authorized representation for their own communities and that no outside group should automatically represent a neighborhood without its consent. The coalition only represents the neighborhood Associations that agree to join the coalition. In addition, protecting a neighborhood’s right to choose its representatives does not require eliminating meaningful opportunities for recognized associations to work together.
A better approach would preserve individual associations’ authority over their own representation while allowing them to authorize coalitions to coordinate advocacy and, where legally appropriate, pursue matters affecting their communities.
The City is making it harder for willing, recognized neighborhood associations to work together to protect their communities.
HOW NEW REQUIREMENTS MAKE IT HARDER TO APPEAL
Another concern is the additional procedural burden placed on neighborhood associations seeking to challenge development decisions.
Under the revised framework, associations face requirements concerning member support, voting, and documentation before pursuing qualifying appeals. The precise voting threshold, deadline, and recordkeeping requirements should be evaluated against the final ordinance.
Requiring an association to demonstrate that it has the support of its members must also be workable for volunteer organizations. Short deadlines, meeting requirements, and documentation rules can create practical obstacles, particularly when residents must be notified, a meeting or vote must be organized, and records must be submitted within a limited period.
The City Council should explain why the requirements are necessary, how they accommodate the realities of volunteer organizations, and whether less burdensome methods could achieve the same accountability goals. The current process is working why are we asked to change the process.
If neighborhood associations must meet strict procedural requirements to demonstrate member support before exercising an appeal right, the City should be transparent about why those requirements are appropriate and how they serve the public interest. Accountability should strengthen community participation, not make it unnecessarily difficult.
THE DANGERS OF RESTRICTING NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARIES
The revised neighborhood recognition framework also raises concerns about geographic boundaries. For associations whose existing boundaries exceed the two miles, the practical consequences deserve careful examination.
Neighborhood boundaries can reflect established communities, shared concerns, historical development patterns, and the areas residents organize to represent. Changing those boundaries can affect the number of residents an association serves and its ability to coordinate issues across a larger area.
The City should explain how existing associations will be affected, what options they have to adjust their boundaries, and how the revised rules will protect residents whose community concerns extend beyond a smaller geographic area.
A boundary restriction should not inadvertently fragment established historical communities or make it more difficult for residents to organize around shared development concerns.
THE REASON FOR THE DECLINE IN RECOGNIZED NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS
The history of neighborhood associations in Albuquerque also deserves attention.
Historical figures cited by neighborhood advocates indicate that the City once had approximately 318 neighborhood associations under Mayor Jim Baca in 2000, compared with approximately 144 in 2024.
If confirmed, the comparison would raise important questions about the long-term health of Albuquerque’s neighborhood participation system.
Why has the number of recognized associations changed? What barriers do residents face when forming and maintaining associations? How will additional administrative requirements affect volunteer recruitment and organizational continuity?
The City should examine these questions before adopting policies that could further complicate neighborhood organization and coalitions.
Neighborhood associations depend on residents who are willing to serve on boards, attend meetings, communicate with neighbors, and review complicated development proposals. If the process becomes increasingly demanding, some communities may struggle to maintain the volunteer leadership necessary to represent their interests.
When neighborhood organizations become less effective or disappear, residents can lose an important means of communicating collectively with local government.
THE CONSEQUENCES FOR ALBUQUERQUE’S ESTABLISHED NEIGHBORHOODS
These concerns are particularly important when development proposals involve commercial uses, taller residential buildings, changes in density, traffic impacts, or the loss of open space near established residential areas.
Residents may worry about increased traffic on residential streets, the capacity of existing infrastructure, parking, building compatibility, or whether a proposed project complies with the City’s development regulations.
Those concerns do not automatically mean that a development should be rejected. Development can provide housing, services, investment, and economic opportunities. Nor should neighborhood opposition automatically determine the outcome of a land-use decision.
But residents should have a meaningful opportunity to identify potential problems, provide relevant evidence, and challenge decisions through established procedures when they believe applicable rules have not been followed.
The City should also consider how new development interacts with existing infrastructure and who bears the costs of addressing increased demand.
A balanced development process should consider the interests of developers, future residents, existing homeowners, renters, and the broader community. It should not leave volunteer organizations at a structural disadvantage when they seek to raise legitimate concerns.
THE LONG-TERM IMPACT ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
The combined effects of changes to coalition recognition, geographic boundaries, voting procedures, and appeal costs deserve scrutiny.
Each provision may have its own stated rationale. Taken together, however, they raise a broader policy question: Will neighborhood associations and coalitions retain a meaningful ability to organize, communicate, and challenge development decisions that affect their communities?
The concern is not that the Mayor and City Council have necessarily set out to eliminate neighborhood organizations. Without documentary evidence, that intention should not be assumed.
The concern is that the cumulative effect of the changes could make neighborhood representation more difficult, particularly for communities with limited financial and volunteer resources.
The City should demonstrate that its revised framework preserves meaningful participation and does not unintentionally privilege well-funded development interests over residents seeking to protect their neighborhoods.
WHAT NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS ARE REQUESTING
Neighborhood associations and coalitions should ask the Mayor and City Council to reconsider the effects of O-26-61 and the related changes to the development appeals process.
Specifically, the City Council should repeal 0-26-60 and 0-26-61. When meeting with the association the City Council needs to reconsider the ordinance impact on coalition recognition. Allow Coalitions to have standing. The Council should ensure meaningful and affordable appeal rights and consider that volunteer neighborhood associations have limited financial resources. While working neighborhood associations make voting requirements workable.
CONTINUE THE CURRENT HISTORICAL BOUNDARIES OF NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS
The City Council should preserve meaningful development notifications. The associations and coalitions should receive timely information that allows residents to participate before consequential decisions are finalized. The City Council should engage directly with neighborhood organizations in order that affected associations receive timely information that allows residents to participate before consequential decisions are finalized. These measures are to help ensure that residents have a fair opportunity to participate in decisions affecting their communities.
BRING GOVERNMENT BACK TO THE PEOPLE
Albuquerque needs housing, investment, economic development, and essential public services. But growth and meaningful neighborhood participation should not be treated as competing goals.
Neighborhood associations and coalitions are part of the civic infrastructure that allows residents to organize, share knowledge, identify local problems, and hold government accountable. Their role should not be measured solely by whether they agree with the Mayor, the City Council, or a proposed development.
The fundamental question is whether Albuquerque’s development process gives residents a meaningful opportunity to influence decisions before those decisions permanently change their communities.
When the costs of challenging a decision are substantial, procedural requirements are difficult to satisfy, and the formal role of neighborhood coalitions and neighborhood associations is reduced, the City must explain how residents’ interests will continue to be represented effectively.
The Mayor and City Council should reconsider these policies, work directly with affected neighborhood organizations, and restore a framework that supports meaningful neighborhood participation, accountable representation, and a fair opportunity to challenge development decisions.
A city that values its neighborhoods must do more than allow residents to speak. It must provide a fair and practical process through which their concerns can be heard, considered, and addressed.
Albuquerque residents deserve a development process that encourages investment while respecting established communities, protects the public interest, and gives neighborhood associations and coalitions a meaningful place at the table.
The goal should be growth with accountability, development with community participation, and local government that remains responsive to the people it serves.
Respectfully submitted,
Loretta Naranjo Lopez
President of the Santa Barbara Martineztown Neighborhood Association
DINELLI COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Passage of the Better Neighborhoods ordinance O-26-61 within two weeks of its introduction and without public hearings was as underhanded as it gets by City Councilor Dan Lewis with the City Council going along with it to shut out public input. Enactment continues with the City Council’s dangerous practice of amending the city’s zoning laws to prohibit or limit extensive public input and to stifle public opinion.
The very real consequences of passage of O-26-61 are clear and are as follows:
- Thirteen neighborhood associations will either lose recognition or have to kick out their county neighbors as members.
- Loss of recognition equals the loss of notification to those individuals and neighborhoods that are likely to be harmed by the development.
- It makes sure contact information is publicly available to neighborhood associations and volunteers only who can disseminate information on developments. Currently, contact information is publicly available only by request to developers from the Office of Neighborhood Coordination and only after the neighborhood association has submitted the correct Public Notice form.
- It removes the requirement for developers to act in good faith and to cooperate with the very neighborhoods they chose to develop.
The two memorials sponsored by Councilor Dan Lewis and enacted by the city council do not officially end Albuquerque’s Home Rule authority, but they do undercut the “quasi legal” review process for appeals within the city. By inviting the State legislature to alter the process of zoning appeals, the City is clearing the way for fast-tracked developments. It makes it much harder, and far more expensive, for regular people to have a voice in how their neighborhoods develop.
The Better Neighborhoods package benefits the development, real estate and investment community to the determent of established neighborhoods it will lead to displacement of residents and gentrification. It will have a major impact eliminating the rights of neighborhood coalitions to challenge developments.
When a new apartment complex or commercial development is proposed in neighborhoods that will have a detrimental impact on the neighborhood, especially historical or established neighborhoods, individual property owners look to neighborhood coalitions to help appeal or challenge the projects. All too often, private property owners and individuals do not have the financial resources nor knowledge of the appeal process of their own to oppose multimillion dollar development projects and developers. A good example would be data center development.
Passage of the Better Neighborhoods package is an effort to deconstruct guardrails and protections. It marginalizes the voices of neighborhoods and city residents. Simply put, the passage of the Better Neighborhoods package on a 5 to 4 vote was a sellout by Mayor Tim Keller and the Albuquerque City Council of the citizens of Albuquerque, property owners and neighborhood associations and coalitions in favor of the development community.
CITY COUNCIL CAN REPEAL“BETTER NEIGHBORHOODS” PACKAGE
The four City Councilors who voted NO to enact O-26-61 were Democrat City Council President Klarissa Peña, Progressive Democrats Jaquin Baca and Nichole Rogers and Republican Brook Bassan. One or all 4 should take immediate steps to repeal O-26-61 and the “Better Neighborhoods” package by sponsoring and introducing a resolution or ordinance repealing the legislation and demanding public hearings before the City Council’s Land Use and Planning committee to allow the public sufficient time weigh in and to avoid the the two week rush job that came with enactment of O-26-61.
Contact your City Councilor and tell them to repeal O-26-61 and protest the underhanded way it was enacted.
CITY COUNCIL CONTACT INFORMATION
CITY COUNCIL PHONE: (505) 768-3100
CITY COUNCILOR AND SUPPORT STAFF EMAILS
ipadilla@cabq.gov (Director of Council Services)
mmmontoya@cabq.gov (Council Clerk)