People seeking to undo a city council vote should tell us the truth when soliciting signatures, as laws require.
That seems basic. In the heated debate over the city minimum wage, rightists with some outside financial support tried to recall three city councilors. Signature-collectors, some hired by the hour, told some whoppers, including telling that the petition was to stop councilors from closing a popular boxing gym. Upon learning the truth, many signers requested their names be removed.
Recently in the Farmers Market, a gentleman asked me to sign a petition seeking a referendum to undo “Realize Las Cruces!” – a significant municipal zoning change that makes it a lot easier to use one’s property in different ways, such as adding a “mother-in-law” building or an office. That’s good for folks who want that flexibility, and seems good for the city generally, but could anger single-family home-owners.
The basics of the Realize local zoning plan are in the Comprehensive Plan completed in 2020. It sought to update our zoning code, which hadn’t been updated since 2001, the year Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who some thought might be a reformer, started his first presidential term. The update doesn’t ban single-family housing, as some have charged. Building permits still go through Community Development, to make sure it conforms to what’s allowed or not in a neighborhood.
To hear this signature-collector, an aggrieved citizen, say “They jammed it down our throats without asking us,” grated, because for four years, I saw so many invitations to hear or read more about it that I got tired of them. The city councilors who started this movement, mostly now gone, recognized this was important, and might be controversial, so they made extensive efforts to explain it to the public and field questions and arguments, oral and written, in many different ways. When I asked follow-up questions, he waffled, likely staying within the law.
He also said it would let someone put a McDonald’s in next to your house. In fact, existing regulations would likely prevent that; and fast-food joints want visibility, not a spot on your quiet, shady backstreet. He’d likely have preferred to avoid our lengthy discussion, but we but it was civil and collegial on both sides. He said he’d try to be more careful.
The merits and flaws of “Realize!” are fairly clear. It increases flexibility and they say it helps the moderate housing crisis, but a few single-family landowners could experience disappointing consequences. It gives people more choices; and by letting developers not be limited to purely single-family residential areas, it could facilitate more imaginative plans to be set within the city’s boundaries, which is better for the environment and the city’s tax base.
It’ll mostly affect new developments; but there’ll be the occasional single-family homeowner reasonably annoyed that someone’s second-unit, in the back of their quiet yard, feels too close.
I declined to sign. But seeking a referendum on such an issue seems reasonable. The current petition seeks to undo a striking change on which folks could reasonably disagree. If enough folks sign to force a referendum, the citizens will decide it. I’d likely vote to leave the new ordinance in place; but I’ll listen to both sides first. As I hope everyone will.
But I’d caution the petitioners to be sure they’re straight with the people, as the laws require.
Petitioners have turned in signatures, which are being verified.
-- 30 --
[The above column appeared Sunday, 30 March, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and on the newspaper's website, and should be posted soon on the KRWG website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the coming week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
[ Let me make this real clear: I watched at a distance as people I tend to trust proposed this change, which has worked elsewhere, and guided it through an extraordinary amount of public input and meetings, modifying and refining it. It’s carefully worked out, and people with questions or criticisms had more than ample chance to ask or voice those. The folks leading this are folks who tend too take issue with most everything the City Council or Las Cruces School Board does. They deserve to be heard. If they gain enough signatures, legally, they may trigger a revision and/or a referendum. It’s part of our local democratic system. ]
[ I’d rather it weren’t happening. I haven’t yet heard anything new, or any facts to suggest that the zoning change is any kind of disaster. I’ve heard appeals to fear, but to fears that are extremely unlikely to be realities for any large number of homeowners. I don’t like bullshit, either by the signature-gatherers or by spokespersons for the City of Las Cruces. Nor do I sympathize with folks questioning the right of other folks to gather these petition signatures. ]
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