Annexation Hearing, Taos Regional Water Plan, and the LUR

On Wednesday, Dec. 18, the district court will hold a hearing on the County’s motions that oppose the Town’s annexation of the Highway 64 corridor from the town’s current boundaries, six miles north and west to the Taos Municipal airport. The County, historic village of El Prado, El Prado Water and Sanitation, and a local acequia oppose the land grab. Basically, the Town has ignored public notice provisions while sitting as judge and jury on its own petition for annexation, which movida benefits the few at the expense of the many.

The loss of potential gross receipts taxes from commercial businesses along the corridor and at the airport itself, which help fund services for County residents are at risk. The current mayor and town council, according to news reports and insiders, are allegedly more interested in enriching themselves and their supporters than supporting the public infrastructure or cooperating with the County in a mutual venture at the airport that benefits all residents.

The town’s proposal to annex can be seen in the light of its high-handed treatment of the County regarding the Command Center, another movida that serves special interests, specifically those of the Kit Carson Coop as opposed to the community at large. For a further example of high handed privatization of public policy, the Town has been issuing building permits without notifying neighbors and approving projects that don’t meet town, county, or state standards when it comes to issuing “Certificates of Occupancy.” The poorly designed and constructed Command Center is only one example. The Town’s building department has been decimated so that executive employees at the behest of the Mayor and Council can make decisions by fiat.

Meanwhile the County, in an effort to satisfy the Abeyta-Taos Pueblo Water Settlement signatories has ignored the Taos Regional Water Plan, specifically, the Public Welfare Statement, designed to lawfully protest the transfer of water rights outside of Taos County and from one water basin to another inside the County. In other words, if the County wants to stop sales of water rights to thirsty municipalities downstream, it must act consistently to build a record of protest within the County.

Currently, according to news reports and Water Trust Board Members, the state engineer, Scott Verhines, a former (?) lobbyist and stockholder in the Ute Pipeline project, wants to spend state dollars on funding pipes carrying New Mexico water to Texas allegedly for fracking, according to insiders. Every time I hear an elected official talk about the good graces of the state engineer I am aghast. Currently, the state, according today’s news, is looking at updating and/or rewriting 16 regional water plans from throughout the state, according to Interstate Stream Commission Chair Estevan Lopez in a piece by Journal science writer John Fleck.

Gov. Martinez and her acolytes owe their election funders in Texas and their supporters want our water. If Texas gets more water from whatever source in New Mexico and if the drought continues in the greater Southwest and West, and if a call is made for more water on the Colorado by Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or San Diego, then the San Juan-Chama Water diverted from the Colorado for the use of Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Taos will dry up. Hence a drop in water supply anywhere in the state will send New Mexico municipalities and counties looking to Taos and the upper Rio Grande for more water.

The Taos Regional Water Plan is designed to protect Taos against the privatization of water by both outsiders and exploitation by locals. For a water system to remain viable the water rights and usage should remain in the watershed of origin for the sake of historic acequias and for the sake of the streams et al that nourish the Rio Grande. Watersheds transcend political boundaries and legal conundrums. Ignore Mother Nature and she will leave you with a dry and arid planet.

The County’s refusal to acknowledge the Water Advisory Committee’s recommendation to protest intra-County transfers—for political reasons—reminds me of the hoop-la surrounding the committees chosen to rewrite the Subdivision regs and the LUDC regs. I served for several years on the Subdivision task force and then for a couple of years on the long-running battle to institute LUDC regs. When the subdivision advisory committee presented their recommendations to the commissioners, last minute changes were made by staff and politicos that undermined the intent of the original documents. The LUDC process has been going on so long that finally, even Butchie (RIP) abandoned the process. Maybe that’s a sign.

The Land Use Regs are undergoing turmoil today. The patchwork process is based on human behavior, ideology, and self-interest wrongly or rightly understood. On the one hand the democratic process moves forward and those who show up and have the most influence, shout the loudest, tend to prevail at meetings, while attorneys and bureaucrats amend the citizen’s wishes behind closed doors in favor of the powerful.

One can understand why developers argue for a degree of certainty and against the influence of the hoi polloi or neighborhood associations and residents. Some of my longtime acquaintances in Taos are developers. But I tend to favor the citizens at large because narrow self-interest costs the community at large in terms of degrading the culture and increases the potential for higher costs and taxes. Besides hypocrisy and irony are cheap forms of public discourse today.

After all, the outpouring of protests have saved Taos from Super Walmart, a Dollar Store in El Prado, and a Casino in the historic district at the Kachina Lodge—not to mention numerous ill-conceived subdivisions that would have destroyed the peace and quiet of neighborhoods. Whether it was resistance to the Valdez Condo project in the 80s or an ill-conceived Las Sierras golf course in Lower Las Colonias in the 90s, or a subdivision in Arroyo Hondo next to the cemetery or a wind farm out by Cielito Lindo on Highway 64 in the 2000s, there is something to be said for resistance by Taosenos. When politicians and developers get together and ignore the citizens we end up with haphazard and destructive developments like Central Station, Valverde Commons, and, in the County, a lot of rural-suburban sprawl.

Yet we all pay for roads, fire, and public safety.

Even those who achieved, they thought, a degree of certainty by passing planning and zoning ordinances for the Upper Las Colonias neighborhood association are now at each other’s throats, according to some of the members. They want changes to protect their perceived property interests, whether single story houses, chickens in the backyard, or preservation of the view sheds. Nothing so enlivens democratic participation as a proposed development or worse, a cell phone tower in the neighborhood. More regulations and bureaucracy means more work for lawyers, interpreting the regs, and more divisiveness in the community.

Those with the most money usually win but there is hope in numbers. Hence, I am not so sure that the current LUR that seeks to abrogate or delete the application for a “special use permit for commercial development” in the county is good for democracy. I know this goes against the grain of planners and entrepreneurs everywhere but I have more faith in public pressure and local politics than in developers, who run rough shod over their neighbors.

While the Town is trying to run roughshod over county residents and annex six miles of byways or make its back door deal for the Command Center to bail out the Coop, so the County should “Let the people speak” and listen when the citizens recommend a protest against water rights transfers that will impair the welfare of the villages and neighborhoods. Preserving the villages and the culture, the water rights and the land, should take precedence over temporary short-term projects that do little beyond enriching a few developers or property owners, who would drain the watersheds and the acequias, while increasing the costs of living. We’re all in this together.

A LUR that proposes a kind of “one size fits all” plan is not unlike the state’s attempt to impose a “one size fits all” statewide water plan. Let us have more turmoil and more democracy. Keep your powder dry and don’t turn your back on los politicos or their supporters who whisper sweet nothings.

A Reader Responds:

Editor:

Please keep pounding on the county LUR (Land Use Regulation) theme. It’s a big deal and the time is ripe.

Here are some nearby examples of the process: San Juan County mounted a “comprehensive” P&Z effort, with a zoning map and spent years with surveys, professionals and could pass the law soon. Then there’s the Santa Fe version, a huge file but readable at http://www.santafecountynm.gov/sldc. Even Rio Arriba has one.

These counties have created documents (at great expense) to govern land use that serve as prime examples.  Thousands more documents exist across the US.  There is no requirement to “reinvent the wheel” for Taos. By overlooking these “tried and true” documents, Taos will engage in a long path of controversy, re-writes and stalemates.

How many differences exist for land use in northern NM counties? The real customization concerns the land use map, the proverbial zoning map… regardless of the land use code nomenclature, the permit process, or the “boilerplate” stuff. But guess what Taos County provides? Nothing in terms of the land use zoning map.

A planning pro could take Taos County draft 2013-8, the Santa Fe SLDC, the Rio Arriba LUR and the San Juan LDC and in less than a week, produce a vetted document, usable document for Taos.  Then the Taos County Planning Department could focus on the zoning maps, the heart of the issue, instead of word processing, redlined drafts and arcane loopholes for special interests.

Thanks

A Commissioner Responds

Bill,

I think that the best way to prevent water transfers from Taos to the south is to implement Abeyta by allowing water transfers in those instances where the transfer does not endanger water supplies in the basin from which it is being transferred.  I think that that is a better rule to proceed with than protesting all transfers from one basin to another.

The LUR process is moving along and will, I believe, result in passage before spring, and then the neighborhoods will bring in their zoning overlays.  All of this will improve Taos land use regulations.

The only last minute subdivision change that I remember was to include a two acre minimum in all subdivisions.  I put a lot of hours into adapting the recommendations of the committee to an ordinance form.  Its a pretty good ordinance, and will probably be getting some more usage going forward than it has in the last 5 years since the crash.

I think that the Town is going to have to join us above the jail for dispatch.  It would be a whole lot cheaper for all of us if they do so sooner than later.

It is going to be something to see the ski valley with an influx of capital.  I love the idea of more terrain and faster lifts, and I imagine that it will bring a whole lot more people visiting us.

Tom
From Santa Fe:

Our new Sustainable Land Development Code (SLDC) was adopted last week by the Board of County Commissioners however,  there are still a few changes that are being made to it.  Also, it  won’t actually take effect until our Zoning Map is adopted which may be 3-6  months from now.  You can access the most current version of the SLDC on our website at http://www.santafecountynm.gov/userfiles/SLDC/SLDC-SantaFeCountySustainableLandDevelopmentCodeDecemeber2013FINAL.pdf