SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – Santa Fe continues to be a hotspot for new housing, with developers now jockeying to fit more people onto parcels of land. Two parcels of land in the southwest part of Santa Fe are up for discussion in a city council public hearing: developers are asking to rezone the land to fit more people on it.
“The city of Santa Fe is changing. As you well know we’re growing, the entire Santa Fe region. There’s been a lot of development in the county as well as in the city,” says Heather Lamboy, assistant director of Santa Fe’s Planning and Land Use Department. Lamboy says Santa Fe’s population within the city has already swelled to 91,000 people, and there is pent-up demand for housing.
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She says this is why developers are requesting their parcels of land—like one off of Caja Del Oro, and one off of Roadrunner Rail Road—be rezoned to allow more homes from low-density residential to medium-density.
“The lower density you think of single-family homes on approximately a 5,000 square foot lot with a yard. The medium-density residential is more suited for townhomes. And in this case for both projects they’re looking at paired homes,” Lamboy says. Lamboy says having more housing around could help to fight the rising rent and sale prices in the area.
Lamboy says there has been some concern raised about these developments by neighbors of the proposed sites at the Planning Commission—mostly having to do with the density and the designs. News 13 tried to reach out to the developers of those two parcels of land we highlighted to see how affordable those homes would be but did not hear back.
