Building the Future by Saving the Past
Photo by Michael R. Swigart
Ever since Santa Fe embraced Pueblo Revival architecture as its defining style in the 1930s, aesthetic consistency has been a hot topic here. Now the debate’s extended its reach, thanks to the proposed Neighborhood Conservation District Ordinance, a law that, if passed, would enable residents of in-town areas that lie outside the jurisdiction of the Historic Design Review Board (like Juanita Street near the Railyard, and Casa Solana) to determine their neighborhood’s building-design standards. Ten years in the making, the ordinance was introduced to the public November 2007 by city councilor Karen Heldmeyer as protection against what she calls “inappropriate development.”
The concept, which she floated at a series of five community meetings in the fall, would allow property owners to form self-defined coalitions to decide which architectural requirements—building height, scale, setbacks, tree size, etc.—are essential to the spirit and style of their neighborhood. Once two-thirds of homeowners and the city council agree on the regulations, they’d be enforced by City Hall at the building-permit stage—not, Heldmeyer notes, through time-consuming site visits or hearings.
At a public-comment meeting at Casa Solana’s Gonzales Elementary School in December 2007, the crowd of about 80 was by turns openly skeptical—raising questions about whether stricter design standards might encourage sprawl or limit affordable housing, and how an overburdened planning department would manage the process—and cautiously optimistic. “While I need to see more details, I support any move toward self-determination,” said councilor Chris Calvert of the draft ordinance, which is expected to go to a final vote before the city council in February. “It’s not going to solve everyone’s problems,” admitted Heldmeyer, who modeled the plan after similar programs in Chapel Hill, NC, and Cambridge, MA. “But it can be a tremendously powerful and empowering thing.”
