The following letter was sent by a neighborhood association board member. Of all the responses he received, not one supported the actions of the City Council.
Dear **** ***** Neighbors,
Most of you are now aware that our City Council on Monday night passed three and deferred one of four measures intended to redefine the scope and role of Neighborhood Associations and especially Coalitions of Neighborhood Associations in Albuquerque.
The most significant measure, which passed, is O-26-61, removing recognition of Coalitions of Neighborhood Associations under the City’s Neighborhood Recognition Ordinance (NARO), with the effect Coalitions will no longer receive notification of developments within their boundaries and will have no standing to appeal developments on behalf of their residents.
Neighborhood Associations will retain notification and standing to appeal but it should be understood that decline in Neighborhood Associations in the past years leaves vast parts of most Districts, including District 7, without Neighborhood Association representation. O-26-61 effectively renders them voiceless about what is built in or around them.
The main justification for this Ordinance O-26-61 is the unsubstantiated claim that appeals from Coalitions cause unwarranted delay and cost to development projects to solve our “housing crisis”. I have spent much of the last 3 months extracting the actual numbers and state of housing in Bernalillo County and can assert with mathematical certainty that the “crisis” in Albuquerque is not housing availability. We have more housing units than households. The crisis is housing affordability and no developer can or is solving that, unless heavily subsidized with public funds.
Sadly, our District 7 City Councilor Fiebelkorn was one of the 5 votes (along with District 1 (Telles), 5 (sponsor Lewis), 8 (Champine), and 9 (Grout)) in favor of this ordinance. Districts 2 (Baca), 3 (Peña), 4 (Bassan), and 6 (Rogers) voted against.
Associations and Coalitions can and should continually seek to improve and be better community representatives. As someone who, until two years ago, was relatively passive and unengaged in the local community I fully understand how easy it can be to ignore this stuff. Organizing and maintaining groups to represent and advocate for community interest can be time-consuming and often seems inconsequential. Why not just let our elected government representatives and the developer community run the show, especially since they are paid to do so?
For me the answer to that question becomes abundantly clear every time I venture beyond the borders of **** *****. It becomes even more apparent when the “numbers” are tallied; the actual number of dwelling units vs. households, vacant buildings, closed businesses, or homeless living on our streets. Albuquerque is not thriving….though it should be. Throttling community voices, especially those representing neighborhoods, is the last thing we need.
Mayor Keller can veto this measure O-26-61, which only barely passed. The veto almost certainly would not be overridden.
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