Residents watch with dismay as development grows around them.
Al Duran stares out at the massive dust-swept lot behind his mobile home and shakes his head.
"It's like a mining operation," he says,
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pointing to the flock of yellow diggers that heave
countless loads of dust in the distance. "That's how I would describe it."
The local car salesman and lifetime resident of Santa Fe turns away, unable to view the flurry of midmorning construction any longer.
"If they had just bought us out, everyone would have been happy!" he says. "Who wants to live like this?"
Where Duran lives is basically in the middle of one of the biggest developments the city has ever approved.
San Isidro Village is an 82-acre development that includes a Lowe's Home Improvement store, a 14-screen movie theater and up to 440 multifamily and 187 single family units. The project has been under construction since October, but work to ensure the development began much earlier.
Prior to seeking government approval for the project, developer Jeff Branch met with many long-time landowners around the development site, near the intersection of Cerrillos Road and Zafarano Drive, to negotiate sale of their properties. Subsequently, 35 landowners sold to Branch. Last year, Branch sought, and received, annexation for San Isidro, by the city [Cover Story, June 29, 2005:
].
But not every neighbor was given the chance to sell. Eighteen properties still remain, hemmed in on all sides by a mammoth project that could be completed within three years.
A strip of those properties is owned by the Duran family, whose plots of land line an unassuming, pothole-ridden road called Camino Polvoso.
Duran and his sister, Sylvia Duran Nickerson, say Branch made little effort to inform them of his plans for San Isidro, even after Duran Nickerson made repeated efforts to reach him over the past year to express her concerns over the project's proximity to her property.
"I've tried to talk with him and arrange to have our questions answered," Duran Nickerson, a dean at Doña Ana Branch Community College, says. "We're in the middle of this development, and we've been left completely out of the discussions."
Duran Nickerson says she also tried contacting the city's permit and development review division, as well as mayor pro tem Miguel Chavez.
Greg Smith, supervising planner for the permit and development review division, confirms his office has been in contact with Duran Nickerson over her concerns. Smith defended the configuration of San Isidro, citing the exhaustive development review process through which the project received city approval. He did, however, say the city could work with the "remaining parcel of owners" to try to create an annexation plan for them, since their property was not incorporated into the city along with Branch's project.
Chavez, who has been out of town, was unaware of Duran Nickerson's attempts to reach him. But he says he was satisfied with Branch's efforts to consider residents' input.
"I think Jeff did more than the law required to get residents involved," Chavez says.
But a heated May 3 meeting at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center with Branch's partner on San Isidro, Mark Ruhlman, brought few answers and lots of tension, Al Duran says.
"People were really upset," Duran, who notes that unsightly dust from the nearby construction has layered the walls of his mobile home, says. "We kept bringing up points, and they kept telling us to stick to the agenda."
Fellow Camino Polvoso landowner Mike Larranaga agrees that the Durans and others on the street were not treated fairly. Larranaga, who sold his plot to Branch for "a fair price," says he had to approach Branch in a last-ditch effort to sell his land before construction started.
"Jeff should have contacted everyone. I think a lot of people would have sold," Larranaga says. "To leave this one little strip and build around these poor people-I just think he thought it wasn't profitable for him to buy everyone out."
For his part, Branch says there was simply no way he could buy everyone out.
"I had to stop at some point, from an economic standpoint and because of time constraints," he says. And even though it's not feasible now, Branch says he's open to the possibility of purchasing the remaining properties some time in the near future.
"We plan on continuing to meet with neighbors and keep them informed on what we're doing. And if we can come back sometime in the future and buy, that's what we'll do."
Branch also disputes the Duran family's contention that they were not adequately informed about the project's machinations.
"These families are all related. They have been quite aware of our plans for some time," Branch, who notes that he and Duran Nickerson recently have been trading phone calls, says. "I'm sorry they didn't participate in the overall neighborhood process."
Concerning Duran's complaint about the construction dust, Branch says he and the project's builders will continue to do everything possible to keep the dust down, including using water trucks to moisten the land.
For the Duran family, though, it's all too late.
Duran Nickerson says she planned to retire to her home on Camino Polvoso. Now, she has a hard time imagining just what sort of life that would be-her tiny, rural neighborhood eclipsed by a bustling village and shopping center.
"We're being marginalized," she says. "They're going to ghettoize us in our own neighborhood."
