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Executive Summary

As the new home of NMPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Mexico can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.

Many communities in New Mexico want to plan for future growth: encouraging economic investment while protecting their cultural and historic districts and agricultural and open space areas. Counties and municipalities also are limited in public funds and want to spend those monies wisely. Therefore, the comprehensive plan, a plan to direct growth and development, can be a very useful tool. The public has invested a great amount of public funds and time through community involvement to develop these plans. Yet poorly managed growth continues to threaten these communities. Large portions of Mesilla’s green belt is getting plowed over due to a zoning change, and Albuquerque’s school money will soon get diverted from much needed repairs and renovations at existing schools to building new ones in a newly approved development far away from the current urban area. The reason is that community comprehensive plans are not enforceable by law; they have no teeth. Unlike other states in the country, comprehensive plans are adopted as resolutions, meaning they are only for guidance. They are not laws.

Zoning changes that go against a comprehensive plan, like that in Mesilla, and the approval of development projects that are inconsistent with a comprehensive plan, like that in Albuquerque, are occurring in New Mexico because policy makers are not required to refer to the comprehensive plan when making such decisions. As a result, there is a greater chance that development will occur in a piecemeal fashion, not according to the community’s plan. The community’s vision is violated. It doesn’t have to be this way. Eleven other states in the country-California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Florida-all have state laws that protect their communities’ visions by requiring that plans be implemented.1 If a community chooses to develop a plan that protects its historic district or its rural character, it should be able to implement the plan. If a community chooses to invest its public funds in existing communities repairing existing streets and schools over building new ones far away from urban areas, it should be able to direct such funds through a community plan.