The Bernalillo County Planning Commission voted on Wednesday (June 7) to recommend approval of the Santolina’s request to strip water requirements from its Level B approvals. Developer, Western Albuquerque Land Holdings (WALH) has asked the County to disregard mandatory water requirements in its approval process because it does not yet have a necessary water agreement […]
Our clients (including SouthWest Organizing Project and Pajarito Village Association) won an important victory on June 2 when state District Court Judge Nancy Franchini ruled that the 2015 Santolina approval process was flawed. Judge Franchini’s decision reverses and remands the Bernalillo County Commission’s (BCC’s) approval of the project’s “Zone Map Amendment,” which changed the zoning […]
“We respectfully disagree with the judge’s analysis relating to the master plan,” said Douglas Meiklejohn, the executive director and an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. But he added that her ruling on the zone change decision is a “big victory for fairness and due process.”
Attorney Douglas Meiklejohn, who represented Santolina opponents in the case, said he disagreed with Franchini’s decision regarding the master plan, but was happy that she struck down the zoning change. “We respectfully disagree with the judge’s analysis as to the master plan, but we believe that the determination that our clients were denied fairness in […]
Today, the Honorable Judge Nancy Franchini of the New Mexico Second Judicial District Court, ruled that the Bernalillo County Commission did not grant community advocates a fair hearing when it approved the “Zone Map Amendment” (ZMA) for the proposed Santolina mega-development.
Aquifer Science drilled two wells, one nearly 4,000 feet deep, but did not hit either the quantity or quality of water needed for the development. The Master Plan estimates a need of 1,500 acre-feet a year. That application was protested by close to 300 people; that opposition coalesced into Deep Well Protest, which hired the […]