Boundary Debate

Santa Fe County Commission to consider a do-over on annexation fight that would carve out large vacant land

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It’s back to the drawing board—both figuratively and literally—for a proposal to designate a section of land into the historical Agua Fría Village and thereby avoid it becoming part of the city limits. The Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners late Tuesday night voted unanimously to postpone consideration of an ordinance that stemmed from a petition to halt the area’s planned annexation.

County Commission Chairwoman Anna Hansen, who has both advised residents of the area about petition the process and served on a negotiation team with city councilors working to complete the annexation, proposed the board reconvene in June 13 with a new map that excludes some major land owners from the absorption into the Agua Fria Traditional Historic Community.

She acknowledged to petition signers that the alternative proposal is not perfect, but that she believes it’s the best way forward for those who live within a section of county land known as “Area 1B” and are opposed to city annexation.

“I know that you and the residents want the whole area,” she said just before the vote to delay. “I recognize that. I recognize it for the wildlife, for the scenic beauty that that area opens up. But I also know that I’m a politician, and that compromise is my responsibility to the constituents and to the county. So I’m trying to make sure that we have some resolution.”

Mike Loftin, CEO of land developer Homewise, pitched to the commission the idea of carving large, undeveloped pieces of land out of the petition area as a way to appease both existing residents who want to join Agua Fría and landowners who want to build housing under the watch of the city—such as Homwise, which owns about 200 acres of the more than 1,000 acres in the area. Loftin told commissioners that Homewise started considering alternative maps after Commissioner Camilla Bustamante in a previous meeting mentioned other traditional historic communities that have allowed such opt-outs.

“Homewise said, ‘Well, we have to think about how that would work. How does that work from a land use perspective?’” Loftin said during his presentation on Tuesday. “And we have, we’ve done a lot of work on this, and we do think that it can work and we think it actually is a good option.”

Although Loftin brought a mock-up of what he thinks the new proposal could look like, the commission would next have to determine which property owners may want to join Agua Fria and which ones are in favor of city annexation.

Like many compromises, the new plan would not quite mark a win for either side, particularly those who spent weeks collecting signatures and hours pleading with the commission to act on their petition. Sid Monroe, a 20-year resident of the Coyote Ridge neighborhood who ran point on the signature drive, tells SFR the decision to draw a map that zig zags around certain properties is “bittersweet,” particularly to homeowners whose properties will butt up against potential housing developments, but he chalks the decision up to “politics.”

“Potentially, I could be right up against some developments that’s now open space,” Monroe says. “Obviously, other people and neighborhoods would have that similar thing, so we all share that concern. But until there’s a development plan, we have no idea.”

Aaron Miller, who lives in the area and signed the petition, told commissioners the alternative proposal would harm current residents.

“I feel like there has been a lot of insincere gestures along this whole path of the annexation discussion and a lot of namecalling. I don’t feel like trust has been earned. There has been no engagement between the developers and community and so to show a proposal where they would basically envelop this community with high-density housing development and take away the right for the community to have sense of that rural community or history…and then also not giving that community the opportunity to benefit financial or economically from that same land use change is another insincere gesture,” he said.

The land in question was the last bit of land that was supposed to be annexed by 2018 under a joint settlement agreement that ended a lawsuit over which jurisdiction would oversee development along the edge of the city. But the deadline passed without final action on the “1B” territory. The governments agreed in 2021 to take another crack at it. Then, amid secret negotiations between the city and the county, Monroe, with the help of Hansen, rallied his neighbors to petition the Board of Commissioners to halt negotiations and allow the absorption of 1B into Agua Fria.

The commissioners voted unanimously last month to delay the decision after hours of public testimony and two separate closed-door sessions, which commissioners said were devoted to discussions about pending and threatened litigation by the city and Homewise after the commission officially accepted the petition signed by hundreds of 1B residents.

Nearly a week before the county’s May 1 meeting, when commissioners punted the vote, the City of Santa Fe filed an injunction request, asking a judge to stop the move. During that same meeting, land-use attorney Frank Herdman warned commissioners they’d be in for a legal fight if they approved incorporating the area into the historical district. Days after the May 1 meeting, Herdman filed a notice of administrative appeal, on behalf of Homewise and two of the developer’s land holding companies in First Judicial District Court, arguing the commission improperly accepted the petition to stop annexation.

Parts of the arguments from both the city and Homewise focused on the legal standing of the petition-driven resolution and whether the county could legally approve labeling 1B as part of a historic community, which spilled over to Tuesday’s meeting.

City Attorney Erin McSherry was the only person from the city who directly addressed the proposed compromise during Tuesday’s meeting, noting the new map should be published well in advance of the next time the commission discusses the proposal. City Manager John Blair urged commissioners from creating a rural “doughnut” in the middle of an ever expanding metropolitan city. But Mayor Alan Webber used his time to call out Hansen, particularly for her involvement in connecting residents with Monroe and publicly pushing for a halt to annexation, even though she simultaneously represented the county as one of two members in annexation negotiations. Webber accused Hansen of “bargaining in bad faith” and creating an “adversarial proceeding.”

“I think we should return this issue to that committee with Commissioner [Hank] Hughes and a different second member from the County Commission to see what can be hammered out and to pursue many of the loose ends that have not been tied up,” Webber said.

Many proponents of the move to Agua Fría have criticized the city at being inept, particularly when it comes to fixing infrastructure, but on Tuesday several criticized Webber and his staff for not staying until the end of the meeting, which lasted for nearly six hours.

Just before commissioners adjourned, Hansen made a point to say she wasn’t going to comment on Webber’s remarks, but then did anyway.

“I don’t really want to respond to what the city said about me, so I’m just gonna leave it alone,” Hansen said. “I think that I know who I am, and I care and represent my constituents, and that is my job as an elected official.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story has been updated to correct an error in paraphrase of John Blair’s statements.