Commentary: Louis Biad’s recent column in the Las Cruces Sun News seriously misrepresents the status of the County Commission’s deliberations over adoption of a Unified Development Code (UDC). Contrary to his assertion that the county should extend their deliberations, it is time for the County Commission to consider and adopt what has become an excellent blueprint for responsible growth and development in Doña Ana County.
The UDC currently under consideration by the County Commission is designed to implement the county’s Comprehensive Plan, adopted by the County Commission in August, 2015.
That Comprehensive Plan was developed over a four-year period, in an open and transparent process, that involved hundreds of residents, stakeholders, planning professionals, and county staff. The final product reflects a remarkable consensus on the key principles that should guide future growth and development in Doña Ana County.
Those principles include encouraging development within or close to existing communities; putting an emphasis on flood management, infrastructure, and transportation choices; and featuring a high consideration for economic development, community health, and education (www.vivadonaana.com).
Besides implementing goals of the Comprehensive Plan, the UDC is designed to update and design all county subdivision, drainage, zoning, and engineering standards into a single, coherent code for future development. This is a painstaking process and over the past year and a half, the county Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has met in over 50 public meetings, where each section was considered in careful detail, under close scrutiny by residents and stakeholders.
All of this has been done according to an established timeline. Other than getting final details in place for County Commission consideration, the process has not been rushed. To the contrary, every step has taken months of work, in open public meetings, with the active participation of members of the public.
The current version of the UDC was unanimously recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission in their October 13 meeting and sent to the County Commission for a final hearing and vote on adoption. A handful of concerns raised on specific provisions in the code, including the ones Mr. Biad mentions in his column, were referred back to the P&Z for further study. The P&Z has now completed its work on those concerns. Their recommendations will be forwarded to the County Commission at the public hearing meeting on December 13th.
Both the Comprehensive Plan and UDC are strong, forward-looking documents that will help yield predictability and protection for developers and residents alike. They are vast improvements over what is currently in place—nine different documents, some dating back to 1989. They lay the groundwork for a wide continuum of choice in living styles for county residents, from rural to urban, and in the process will save the county millions of dollars in infrastructure and service costs associated with unplanned sprawl.
The hundreds of residents and stakeholders who have participated in development of the Comprehensive Plan and UDC deserve better than Mr. Biad’s conspiracy theories and disdain. Delay at this point, especially for political reasons, would be a mistake. The UDC should be reviewed and adopted by the County Commission at its December 13 meeting.