The City of Santa Fe has officially released four draft planning frameworks for Santa Fe Forward—our 25-year General Plan update.
The deadline to submit feedback is August 9th.
The website is confusing, so first an orientation to where we are in the process.
The city has collected community input and produced an Assessment Report, which informed a Vision Summary of high-level goals.
Now we are in Scenario Planning—a critical phase where planners are supposed to lay out distinct, physical choices for the city’s future so the community can debate real trade-offs before a final plan is codified into law for the next 25+ years.
Unfortunately, the city’s draft frameworks don’t resemble actual scenario planning. Instead of presenting real spatial alternatives, they offer abstract ways of viewing the city that reinforce divisive “us-vs-them” dynamics.
Worse, the frameworks pit fundamental urban components against each other—asking residents to choose between housing, transit, and sustainability as if they were competing priorities rather than interdependent elements of a cohesive vision.
In short: the draft fails to imagine compelling ways to achieve a thriving Santa Fe in 2050.
Here is how Friends of Architecture Santa Fe is responding—and why we urge you to submit your own comments before August 9th.
1. Clarify the Vision: Housing Is Everything
Santa Fe Forward avoids prioritizing its myriad goals and ignores what we overwhelmingly already know: Housing is THE priority. The city and county’s own assessments, consultant studies, the Housing for Santa Fe Platform, and the Homewise Livability Series all point to the same conclusion: housing is the single biggest policy lever we have.
Housing is relevant to every Santa Fean and central to achieving nearly all other goals. By building a variety of housing types where people actually want to live and work, Santa Fe can lower living costs, boost economic vitality, and reduce carbon emissions all at once.
Santa Fe Forward must adopt a comprehensive approach to housing as its driving focus. The draft frameworks should ask:
Connection: What housing types and densities are needed to support walkable streets, safe bike infrastructure, and improved transit?
Places: How can housing for teachers, service workers, artists, and young families support education, enhance cultural vitality, and expand economic opportunity?
Resilience: How do we build housing in existing neighborhoods to make better use of water and infrastructure while reducing carbon emissions from long vehicle commutes?
2. End Exclusion: There Is Only One Santa Fe
Our housing and affordability crisis has been exacerbated by decades of exclusionary land-use practices. By dividing Santa Fe into Eastside “Established Areas” versus Southside “Investment/Enhancement Areas,” this plan perpetuates divisive “us-vs-them” policies—locking in class divisions and shielding wealthy neighborhoods from change.
There are not two or three Santa Fes—there is only one city. As the city’s own Hopewell Mann Stabilization Plan makes clear, every neighborhood in Santa Fe—regardless of income or demographics—is “established,” possesses unique character, and deserves thoughtful investment paired with cultural and economic protections.
Genuine preservation is about managing change over time, not freezing some districts in amber while others shoulder the burden of new development. Santa Fe Forward must adopt a citywide approach to cultural preservation and replace its polarizing Prioritization Framework with two non-negotiable principles:
Share the Wealth: Everyone deserves access to well-designed, walkable neighborhoods anchored by vibrant community centers—not just tourists and wealthy historic district residents. The plan should explore the kinds of investments different neighborhoods need, not whether they deserve investment at all.
Share Responsibility: A citywide approach to housing growth ensures that all neighborhoods benefit from the vibrancy and community that new neighbors and multigenerational living bring. The plan should explore how different types and scales of Missing Middle housing (duplexes, triplexes, family compounds, courtyard apartments) can fit seamlessly into every neighborhood, rather than presupposing whether they belong at all.
3. Show, Don’t Tell: Visualize Compelling Scenarios
The single most important outcome of any general plan is the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) — a coherent vision for the city we actually want to build over the next 25 years.
To get there, this phase of Santa Fe Forward should be presenting the public with compelling scenarios—spatialized alternatives for the future of Santa Fe that allow the community to assess real trade-offs on their merits. For example:
What would it look like to intentionally limit low-density development on open land or in areas vulnerable to wildfire?
Where does it make sense to capitalize on existing road and utility infrastructure for infill development?
Where can we lift current zoning restrictions to make compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods financially and physically feasible?
Which corridors might support improved bike infrastructure and multi-modal transit?
How do we transition density gracefully into surrounding residential areas?
These are the types of substantive scenarios we should be evaluating on their merits—not absurd trade-offs like whether we prefer “People Pathways” over “Natural Features.”
A compelling FLUM will set a decisive foundation for the Land Development Code updates that follow—streamlining approvals so the high-quality development we want gets built predictably, without endless administrative delays.
Take Action by August 9th
It is urgent that we get serious about this process. Scenario Planning sets a decisive foundation for the Land Development Code updates that follow. We cannot let the current bureaucratic process set a weak agenda for the next 25 years.
How to Submit Your Comment:
Go to the Portal: Head to Santa Fe Forward before August 9th. Review the content in tabs 1–4 and then go to the fifth tab: “Share Your Feedback.”
Skip the Scenario Planning Survey: Do not complete the prioritization exercise. The options presented are false choices, not real tradeoffs.
Share Additional Thoughts: Scroll down and use the open text box to share your thoughts. Feel free to adapt our three core demands: Focus on Housing, End Exclusion, Visualize Compelling Scenarios.
Spread the Word: Forward this post to neighbors, architects, builders, and advocates who care about the future of Santa Fe’s built environment.
IMAGINE a vibrant and equitable future for Santa Fe. DEMAND a General Plan that will deliver it.
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What a clear and valuable critique of The Four Draft Planning Frameworks for the Santa Fe Forward planning process, along with instructions on how to most effectively submit input on this draft.
One key insight of the post, “…the frameworks pit fundamental urban components against each other—asking residents to choose between housing, transit, and sustainability as if they were competing priorities rather than interdependent elements of a cohesive vision.” A central strength of urbanism (as opposed to the type of suburban development that has dominated Santa Fe since WWII) is that urbanism is mixed use and multi-functional. Every design and planning decision works to address as many of the needs of the city’s residents as possible, rather than isolating and trying to optimize the response to individual issues as the draft frameworks does.
With gratitude to Friends of Architecture Santa Fe and everyone else working to make the city a better place for all residents and workers,
Chris Wilson
Good comments, as far as they go. Also Chris' comments about the urban fabric being of a piece. One of the identifying factors in suburbanism is its focus on the individual lot, the individual building, and the connecting communal fabric (streets, utilities, etc.) simply a means to tie the individuals together.
What's missing is any statement about the character of our city. What do we have that we love and where do we want to take this into the future? This is essential in planning an urban ideal, a communal fabric. It's also what's missing from almost all city planning. Santa Fe is one of the few places in the US that routinely addresses and considers our character. It's the source of most of the concerns about new development, even when veiled in code language (i.e., "traffic"). It should be one of the first questions we ask ourselves.