Residents blast county over land code administration

Dozens of Santa Fe County residents submitted a scathing petition to county commissioners Tuesday seeking changes to the administration of the Sustainable Land Development Code, saying the lengthy document governing land use and development has been an economic hindrance since its adoption late last year.

The petition, signed by more than 80 people, says that while the code was billed as a mechanism to expedite developments, the county is instead “getting bogged down in its own regulatory morass,” with architects, planners, builders, engineers and surveyors “experiencing significant delays” in the processing of applications.

“The goal post keeps moving for no reason except that everything is continually reinterpreted,” the petition reads, calling for a management consultant to review the county’s procedures.

Commissioners resisted the petition’s characterization of the code’s administration, and some vehemently defended county staff.

Referring to a section of the petition that says sustainability “has been focused on growth management at the expense of what is fair and practical,” Commissioner Anna Hansen said, “I’m sorry; I find that offensive, because sustainability is really important to me, and we are living on a planet that is warming every single day.”

She also chastised the petitioners for submitting a document that she said seems like punishment. “Maybe that wasn’t the intention,” Hansen said. “But that’s how it came off to me — like, ‘You are bad children and you don’t know what you’re doing.’ We have people who are working really hard.”

Commissioner Ed Moreno called the petition “misguided” and said of the almost 800-page sustainability document that “it takes some time to figure out what is working and what is not working.”

The Santa Fe County calendar of events shows the growth management department has been closed for three and a half hours for three days each week in October for training.

“I’m going to believe in the people who are working on these things and carry on,” Moreno said.