The Development Battle in Los Ranchos Gets Nasty

There is a split in Los Ranchos over a couple of development issues. One is a large multi-use project at Fourth and Osuna that is being developed by Palindrome Communities from Portland, Oregon...

This Los Ranchos massive project is on about 13-acres that was deemed blighted as a Metropolitan Redevelopment Area (MRA) back in 2007. Bernalillo County is partnering with Los Ranchos to the tune of $29 million to help fund the 204 affordable housing unit sections of the development. The rest of the development is small business spaces and rumor has it that a grocery store is considering the anchor site as well.

The other project is 9.26 acres of the original Chavez Farm at Guadalupe Trail and Chavez Road, west of the Palindrome development. This is being proposed to be a 16-unit housing compound with two plus acres of accessible open space.

There are powerhouse attorneys on all sides of the issues. Palindrome is represented by well known attorney David Campbell, the Village has the Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores and Dawes law firm on their side, Joe Craig and the Friends groups have the Mel Eves and the Peifer, Hanson, Mullins and Baker firm arguing their points and developer Jim Long is represented by The Rodey Firm. It's an impressive line up to debate whether government actors did the correct legal thing when approving these developments all these years...more