Cracking the Code

At least it's fixed now, theorizes Santa Fe architect and general contractor Carlos Kinsey.

"In the end, the [new] code helps in the future, but it hurt me and my client," he tells SFR. "I lost that job. I was the architect and was also going to be the general contractor."

Last fall, Santa Fe County weathered a storm of criticism over its implementation and interpretation of a new Sustainable Land Development Code. It tied building permits to improvements that had to be made to what were sometimes rutted or narrow dirt roads that had been around for decades. The roads were private, but the county wanted access to the homes for fire trucks and ambulances. If those roads were lengthy, the cost of a project could jump by tens of thousands of dollars.

That was the situation with Kinsey, where the price of his client's $100,000 garage renovation and addition project jumped to $150,000 after the county rejected a building permit unless she added base course and 8 feet of width to a 1,000-foot-long gravel road in Arroyo Hondo.

Neighbors couldn't be required to pay in such instances, even if the building permit application came from the last house on the road and everyone else benefited from the road improvements. The county was getting deluged with variance applications. It was, ironically, unsustainable. SFR wrote a story about it (News, Oct. 4, 2017: "Take Me Home, County Code").

In late November, the county made several changes to the code which ease the requirements for landowners who want to improve existing property or build on property they've owned prior to the implementation of the new set of rules. They also allow much more flexibility when it comes to dealing with access for emergency vehicles.

County staff wouldn't tell SFR if it's made a difference in the number of variances they've had to handle, but anecdotally, it seems to be working.

"I guess no news is good news in that respect," says Kim Shanahan, who heads the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association. "I've not heard anyone complaining. But there were issues last year."

At the Board of County Commissioners meeting the week after SFR's story ran, County Manager Katherine Miller said the county's Land Use Department took the extraordinary step of closing its offices during the morning three days a week for training on procedures and how to better handle variance requests. Miller did not return a call from SFR.

Filling in the blanks for the the county, Shanahan says that month-long "navel-gazing review" appears to have been a worthwhile exercise in introspection.

"I suspect that may have done just as much as the code change, if not more. It's much more customer friendly. It's 'How can I help?' instead of 'No, you can't do that,'" he says.

That attitude seems to be reflected in the changes to the code, which allow the county fire marshal to request different sorts of fire prevention measures. In theory, that lessens the likelihood that county emergency vehicles would need to use a legacy access road that hasn't been improved by its private owners.

"I deal with it on a daily basis," says Fire Marshal Jaome Blay. "There's so many areas in Santa Fe County that are existing that have already been built out. And some areas don't even have the easement to impose like a 20-foot-wide access road. So what do you do? I mean, do you start knocking down people's walls and homes for somebody else down the road who wants to build? It's just impossible."

While Blay handles requests on a case-by-case basis, he strives to make uniform requests of property owners that conform to all the other fire and construction codes. He's working on a checklist of expectations to give to the Land Use Department for prospective builders.

"I would say 90, maybe even 95 percent of them understand the situation they're in. And they always have the availability of an appeal of the decision," he says. "But nobody has appealed, at least to my knowledge."

Kinsey, the local architect, says he got a call from Penny Ellis-Green, the county's growth management administrator, in February saying that the code had been changed and his building permit was approved. Great news, except he applied in the previous September. The job was long since gone.

Not only that, Kinsey says, but his client's efforts to get the three other residents living on the private road to pitch in led to a bitter neighborhood divide. When none of them was willing to pay for an improvement they wouldn't have otherwise needed to make, people who had lived together in harmony for a decade got angry at each other.

"She was at odds with her neighbors and they had a huge falling-out," Kinsey explains. His client ended up listing her home for sale. "I think when the county makes these rash moves, they sometimes do it without thinking of the consequences."