RR governing body makes full changes to development manual

RIO RANCHO — Following a public hearing in which some community members expressed criticism, the Rio Rancho Governing Body on Thursday finalized changes to a city manual that provides local regulations for developers.

The six-member body, with Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull presiding, unanimously approved an ordinance amending a chapter of the development process manual to align with standards and requirements set in the manual's updates.

The updates, contained in a resolution the council approved Oct. 23, included changing the land ownership requirement to 90% and lowering the master plan acreage threshold from 20 acres to 10 acres.

The resolution passed unanimously during the October meeting, but not before District 4 Paul Wymer proposed an amendment to change the ownership requirement to 85%, which failed. Councilors Wymer and Nicole List voted yes, while Bob Tyler, Deb Dapson, Jeremy Lenentine and Karissa Culbreath voted no.

During the October meeting, Hull talked about about the flexibility the council and staff has shown to developers over the years.

"As we continue to evolve as a community, we've got to continue to review these documents," he said. "No document is going to come forward that is going to please everybody 100% ... but we have to go forward and make sure we're planning and doing things appropriately."

Hull added that he is in favor of reviewing developer guidelines every two years and receiving public comments about them as revisions are made.

The purpose of the manual, in part, is to "provide uniform standards for development" within city limits, according to council meeting presentation slides provided during the Oct. 23 meeting by Amy Rincon, director of development services for the city of Rio Rancho. One of the goals in updating the manual is to "update outdated processes and design requirements utilizing what has been learned in the past 15 years," the slides said.

Historically, Rincon said, the city has not had a master plan ownership requirement but defaulted to 100%. Only in the last five years has the city received master plan proposals containing less ownership than that, she said. Staff recommended 75% be formally integrated into the manual, but stakeholder feedback led to the 90% recommendation, Rincon said.

A committee, which included developers, began working on the proposed amendments as far back as March 2022, according to the slides. After numerous surveys, stakeholder and committees in the years that followed, the proposed amendments went to the Rio Rancho Planning and Zoning Board.

On May 27, the board voted against the amendments to the manual, and summer meetings with developers followed, according to slides and board meeting minutes. A July 22 board meeting was postponed to "allow more time for staff to address additional comments that were provided by stakeholders," the slides said. The board denied adopting the manual amendments and resolution containing the proposed changes to the manual at its Oct. 14 meeting.

During her presentation Thursday, Rincon addressed that stakeholder feedback by asking rhetorically, "What if we totally got it wrong?"

"I truly feel that we haven't," she said. "I feel we have a lot of good data and understanding of what's going on. We've taken a lot of time with this document. But if we have, we have built in a waiver process ... for developers to request deviations and that we review this (manual) every two years."

Following Rincon's presentation, but before the council moved for a vote, a Rio Rancho-based real estate law attorney and corporate officials spoke out about the manual's proposed revisions.

Attorney Matthew Spangler requested the ownership requirement be lowered to 51%, stating his belief that 90% ownership makes developers' ability to craft a master plan "logistically and economically unfeasible."

"Often, you can't even find people who own the lot," Spangler said. "Other people are asking huge prices for their lot."

On the proposed acreage requirements, Spangler asked the council to set the threshold at 50 acres because, "at a certain size, master plans are not feasible."

Spangler said in response to an inquiry following the meeting he had no further comment at this time.

Carey Plant, vice president of Amrep Southwest, suggested that the council either amend the requirements to the company's suggestions on several items or table them so "we can continue to work toward a sensible solution." Following her comments, a colleague of Plant's also made suggestions.

The amount of work between the city and stakeholders was noted Thursday by council members, including List.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of growing pains in this because we have evolved; our city has changed, our city has grown ... our idea of what life should look like has changed," List said. "It's super important we remember also, our role is to the people and so, while ... we very much appreciate ... the developers, the people are the heart of this community and the people are speaking very clearly about what they need and what they want. It is our role and our obligation to provide that to them. This is our roadmap to get there."

Hull turned to City Manager Matt Geisel and quipped, "Matt, if you had hair before this, you wouldn't have had hair after this."

"It's been many, many years," Geisel responded, patting his head.