Developers Seek Approval to Tap Wells

By JULIE ANN GRIMM, MAP BY ALEXANDER USATINE

SANTA FE CANYON RANCH

Housing density, limited resources worry La Cienega residents

Tap: Project to include open space

Developers of a large subdivision proposed southwest of Santa Fe have applied to the state engineer for permission to use groundwater to supply what some area residents fear will become hundreds of new homes.

Santa Fe Canyon Ranch LLC published a notice last week that the owners want to use water rights currently classified for irrigation.

The number of homes in the proposed 1,300-acre development has been a moving target, ranging from an estimated 700 homes when plans first surfaced to a low of about 200 — a number that ranch partner and former mayoral candidate David Schutz tossed into the discussion at a Santa Fe County Commission meeting in January.

Last year, an attorney for the project said developers had enough water to immediately build 120 homes.

In January, Schutz — along with partners Jim, Rick and Bob Borrego, Lee Brown and Jim Rutt — made their second unsuccessful attempt to get the county government to extend waterlines to the proposed development along the Santa Fe River canyon.

County commissioners first refused in May to include the land in an area outside city limits that is served by the county water utility.

During both hearings, some La Cienega residents urged the commission to complete a project that would bring county water to their existing houses before committing to serve a new development.

Of eight people who offered public comments, half said they were worried that the proposed subdivision would add too many homes to the area.

J.J. Gonzales, a member of La Cienega Valley Association, said Friday that he is among those concerned about the proposed housing density.

“We are not opposed to them developing the property,” he said. “We are just opposed to them putting in 400 or 600 homes on the property. And we feel we have an ordinance in place that limits them to a density of 75 or 100 homes.”

County land-use planners say ordinances governing some parts of the ranch property set a minimum lot size of one dwelling per 12.5 acres unless developers prove that a 100-year water supply exists on site, in which case they can create single-dwelling lots as small as 2.5 acres.

The county code also requires at least 30 percent of the area within a master-planned subdivision to be kept as open space.

Schutz, who said Friday that he did not have permission from his partners to comment for this story, has claimed that Santa Fe Canyon Ranch will include 600 to 700 acres of open space, or roughly half of the acreage. Parts of the property have wetlands, arroyos and other features that don’t easily lend themselves to development.

The application filed with

the state engineer says the developers propose to pump

32 acre-feet of rights at five existing or proposed wells on the ranch property. An acre-foot is about 325,851 gallons, or enough water to support at least three households for a year.

Mary Young of the state engineer’s Water Rights Division said if water rights currently classified for irrigation are transferred to another use, such as to supply a housing subdivision, the state typically allows only the “consumptive use amount” to be pumped — in this case about 14.5 acre-feet, she said.

The consumptive use figure is the amount that the state engineer assumes is actually used or consumed by crops during the irrigation process.

Schutz said in January that half the water used by the development will be recycled. To that end, the application to the state engineer also requests an allocation of return-flow credits.

The applicants are scheduled to publish a newspaper legal notice each Thursday through March 15, after which the formal protest period lasts another 10 days.

The state engineer has authority over the supervision, measurement, appropriation and distribution of all surface and groundwater in New Mexico. In evaluating the application, the agency will try to determine whether the proposed pumping would impair surrounding wells, rivers or springs.

Santa Fe Canyon Ranch has not submitted an updated master plan to the county Land Use Department, case planner Joe Catanach said.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.

(c) 2007 The Santa Fe New Mexican. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.