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ReVisioning Planning

Thursday, June 25, 2021
@ 5:30 PM

free and open to the public

AIA members receive 2.0 LU/HSW for attending
See course description and learning objectives here

 
 

ReVisioning Planning provides an examination of the past, present, and future of the City Different’s land use and planning efforts with a focus on the values that shape policy and development outcomes for our community. This session specifically addresses the role of regulatory frameworks, community process, city planning efforts, and urban design strategies in delivering greater access to affordable housing, promoting sustainable development, and creating equitable and healthy communities.

 
 

ABOUT ReVisioning Planning PANELISTS

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Carlos Gemora

Senior Land Use Planner, City of Santa Fe

Carlos is an urban planner working to facilitate creative changes in the built environment. He currently works for the City of Santa Fe as a Senior Land Use Planner, where he advocates for long-range planning efforts. He is focused on big, invisible systems and transformative change, specifically in the areas of affordable housing, long-term infrastructure costs, and the effects of land use on sustainability, equity, and local businesses. Carlos studied regional, community-based, facilitative planning practices at Cornell University and the Evergreen State College and has previously worked in New York and Washington State. He volunteers his time with educational non-profits like Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Telluride Association. Starting in 2020, he joins Friends of Architecture Santa Fe board and is the up and coming PechaKucha Program Lead.

resource: General Plan (1999)

Resource: SANTA FE DOWNTOWN VISION PLAN (2007)

 
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Suby Bowden, AIA

Principal, ​SBA

Suby is an architect, planner, performer and artist. She leads architecture and design studio SBA, and is honored to have worked with the citizens of Santa Fe since 1984. Her practice values community participation, humor, collaboration, and the preservation of our natural environment while pursuing affordability, the appropriate use of technology, quality and elegance in design. Suby’s planning background includes participation in the “Santa Fe Land Use Resource Center,” the early “Hillside Protection Ordinances,” “Early Neighborhood Notification Systems,” Water Resource Guidebooks, Santa Fe’s County-wide Affordable Housing Study, and 36 years of fun in planning the Santa Fe Railyard.

resource: Northwest Quadrant Master Plan (2009)

resource: Homework: A user’s guide to housing affordability in Santa Fe County (2008)

resource: TIERRA CONTENTA MASTER PLAN AND DESIGN STANDARDS (1997)

 
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Miguel Angel Acosta

Co-Director, ​Earth Care

Miguel is the Co-Director of Earth Care, a multi-generational community leadership organization in Santa Fe, where his current focus is propelling Santa Fe Mutual Aid—a collective of organizations that have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Miguel brings more than 45 years of experience in advocating for educational opportunities and sustainable community development for underserved populations. He has been the Director of El Colegio Sin Fronteras, a Principal Associate at the Center for Relational Learning, a Community Health Promoter with NM DOH, a program developer at UNM, and has served on the Board of Education of Albuquerque Public Schools. Miguel’s family originated in Jalisco, Mexico and migrated to Chicago in 1919. He studied urban planning and community development at the University of Illinois in Chicago and at the University of New Mexico.

resource: SOUTHWEST SANTA FE COMMUNITY AREA MASTER PLAN (2005)

resource: Teen center outreach report (2019)

 
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Andrew Irvine

Senior Principal / Co-Leader Planning & Urban Design, ​Stantec 

Andrew brings more than 30 years in the industry, a knack for bringing people together to work towards a common goal, and skill in leading large interdisciplinary teams. His range of projects includes major infrastructure, urban renewal, public domain, and traditional park design. Fundamental to his practice of urban design is consideration of the health and happiness of the future communities, and COVID-19 has shown this to be more important than ever. Andrew has served on Building Healthy Places Advisory Services Panels in Lamar, and Colorado Springs CO, and co-authored ULI’s Ten Principles for Building Healthy Places. He has also worked in collaboration with Charles Montgomery’s Happy City Lab integrating the principles of happiness into the planning and design of our communities.

resource: LAND USE AND URBAN DESIGN PLAN (2017)

resource: URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR THE CITY OF SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO (1993)

 
 

ReVisioning Planning Resources

click on the document title to view and download

General Plan (1999)

THE CITY OF SANTA FE PLANNING DEPARTMENT (WITH CONSULTING TEAM)

The most comprehensive of city-scale plans, the General Plan is a vision statement which aims to reflect the values and aspirations of all Santa Feans in addressing long-term health and well-being of the city. It informs decision making about the built and social fabric of the City, such as the creation of programs and services, investment in capital improvements projects, preservation of cultural heritage, management of natural resources, and scale or location of proposed land development.

While the General Plan is a policy document containing recommendations, the land development laws which enforce those policies—such as zoning ordinances, subdivision design standards, and building codes—are contained in Chapter 14 of the City Code. “Only full consistency between the General Plan and land development laws in the City Code can ensure realization of the city’s vision for its future. Thus, upon adoption of the General Plan, the city’s zoning and subdivision regulation in the City Code, would be revised to be consistent with the General Plan.”

A General Plan intends to reflect changing conditions and community needs across a long period of time and as such is regularly amended and updated. The 1999 General Plan replaces the 1983 General Plan.

Homework: A user’s guide to housing affordability in Santa Fe County (2008)

SUBY BOWDEN + ASSOCIATES

This document was prepared for the Santa Fe County Affordable Housing program. Designed as a magazine, it was released to county commissioners, developers, bankers, homeowners and the general public as a way of providing high-quality information on means and methods for achieving affordable housing throughout the county. An accompanying study analyzed 58 building sites in the county for potential affordable housing development. As an example, 90 new passive solar homes were proposed for the site of the Santa Fe County Public Works Department, of which 50 would be workforce owned, and 40 would be affordable rental units with additional community amenities.

LAND USE AND URBAN DESIGN PLAN (2017)

CITY OF SANTA FE

Created “to help prepare an update to the City of Santa Fe’s 1999 General Plan by looking at recent and anticipated development trends and incorporating a vision for future growth,” this document provides a summary of recent demographic and economic trends, environmental and cultural preservation measures, land use and growth management efforts, and urban design guidelines. The report ends with an extensive list of goals and policy recommendations that “reflect action needed to encourage desired development patterns, support economic strength, preserve and protect natural resources, provide fiscal direction and foster a strong, diverse and unified community.”

NORTHWEST QUADRANT MASTER PLAN (2009)

DESIGN WORKSHOP • SUBY BOWDEN + ASSOCIATES • BOHANNAN HUSTON

This document envisions a 540 acre master planned community in the city’s Northwest Quadrant—a 2,770 acre undeveloped city-owned remnant of the original Spanish Land Grant. This parcel is culturally significant to the Pueblo people, a beloved community open space, and a great hope for housing close to the downtown area. The Plan, sanctioned by City Council and informed by feasibility studies and public input, focuses on increasing housing affordability, creating a dynamic and organic community fabric while employing sustainable planning and building practices, and preserving open space.

SANTA FE DOWNTOWN VISION PLAN (2007)

STEERING COMMITTEE APPROVED DRAFT

CONSULTANT TEAM LEAD BY CRANDALL ARAMBULA FOR THE CITY OF SANTA FE

The Downtown Vision Plan provides a strategy to preserve the character of downtown in the face of inevitable change and a framework to allow for appropriate growth and redevelopment within the 300 acre Downtown Study Area (Paseo de Peralta loop and Guadalupe). The visions and goals of this planning effort reflect the preference of citizen participants in the public planning process. These elements include enhancing the focal point of the Plaza, Santa Fe River and the public realm, increasing local-serving retail, increasing local-serving housing, expanding employment, promoting sustainability, increasing parking and access to transportation, expand programs for arts and creativity, and maintaining the vitality of the downtown neighborhood which is safe and welcoming to all at any hour. The document urges that new development and redeveloped areas adhere to clearly defined standards of character and architectural style, and makes policy recommendations to strengthen and close gaps in existing regulatory documents.

SOUTHWEST SANTA FE COMMUNITY AREA MASTER PLAN (2005)

CITY OF SANTA FE

This Plan addresses the southwest area of Santa Fe, over 5100 acres, with widely diverse uses and densities. A collaboration between city and county planning departments and governments, the plan recommends that neighborhoods should be varied in lot size and building style, walkable and safely connected to commercial areas and to each other with institutions dispersed throughout. As such this plan is a framework for future neighborhood development patterns, land use, connections and movement patterns. The version available here is a preliminary draft.

Teen Center Outreach Report (2019)

Earth Care

This report, generated by Earth Care and its community leaders, is a needs survey conducted through public engagement of southside residents for a new southside community-use  teen center. “This campaign imagines the Teen Center not only as a place for young people to learn and grow and thrive but also a community space and practice at the center of civic life.” The resulting recommendations are intended to inform the program, planning, and design of the new building in Tierra Contenta, with continued input from Earth Care’s Youth Steering Committee.

Tierra Contenta Master Plan and Design Standards (1997)

TIERRA CONTENTA CORPORATION

The Tierra Contenta development was begun in 1993 by the City of Santa Fe. It is an award-winning mixed income development, initially with three tiers of affordable homes, encompassing 1,000+ acres on the southwest side of Santa Fe. This new community will eventually be home to 10,000 residents and contains several schools, a public library, a business incubator, a youth center and a rape crisis/trauma center and 324 acres of parks, trails and open space, connected to the larger trails system. The design of the Tierra Contenta community is intended to reflect “neo-traditional” or “new urbanism” concepts as well as the traditional development patterns of residential compounds of Santa Fe with primarily a pedestrian orientation, smaller streets, neighborhood orientation, dispersed commercial, loop roads and connected streets in lieu of cul-de-scas, and porches fronting the street. The master plan created three village centers that provide shopping, recreation and employment, with the intent of significantly reducing vehicle traffic. A bike and pedestrian trail system is organized along the Arroyo Chamiso. Planning for the last undeveloped parcels is underway.

Urban Design Guidelines for the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico (1993)

A. Nelessen Associates Inc. with Spears Architects

This planning document arose in reaction to automobile-oriented land use and circulation patterns resulting from new development and growth outside of Santa Fe’s historic downtown. While planning documents aimed to preserve the unique historic character of Santa Fe’s charming narrow streets, current land development policy struggled to enforce an “appropriate expression” of small town form in recent developments. Cited is a lack of coordination, and thus, “a lack of overall framework establishing the appropriateness or inappropriateness of any particular combination of street type and land use.” The goal of this study is to examine public perception, current regulations, street design standards, and planning documents, to inform future Code revisions. The resulting design guidelines proposed are intended to re-establish “the balance between contemporary requirements and local character.