Economic Justice or giving a developer a break?

Councilors debate waiving impact fees to spur development

Lot on SW corner of Unser & Central, looking west to nine mile hill, April 22, 2008

Residents of the Southwest Mesa have sent a strong message to Albuquerque city officials: They want more retail space, even if it means that the city uses a designation that will waive impact fees for a developer.

The case of Unser’s Crossing, a shopping center being developed by Armstrong Development Co. on the southwest corner of West Central and Unser, straddles competing sides of an ongoing battle over development in Albuquerque: when to waive impact fees -- a major tool in the city's kit to curb sprawl -- to help lure retail business to an under-served population.

Dozens of neighborhood residents turned out Wednesday to tell the Albuquerque City Council Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee that they favored waiving impact fees to make sure the developer builds the shopping center.

The supporters said it's about economic justice and the City Council shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it.

The city can waive impact fees by including the land into a Metropolitan Redevelopment Area. An MRA designation provides the city a variety of options to spur redevelopment in an existing neighborhood struggling with blight, including the waiver of the impact fees.

Adding Unser's Crossing to the West Central MRA, which ends right at the boundary of the project, would remove roughly $1.8 million in impact fees, said Jack Cloud, the city's impact fee administrator.

Jobs and retail space added

Located in an area of the city with approximately 110,000 residents, the Unser’s Crossing shopping center is estimated to be a $60 million investment bringing 500 jobs to the area.

Extension to the city limits?

The issue of adding this project to the MRA has in the past been part of a larger question of whether or not the MRA should be extended out to the city limits, toward Paseo del Volcan. While the Unser's Crossing project is adjacent to the current MRA, extending the MRA beyond Unser and Central would essentially give the tax benefits and impact fee waivers to a large area of undeveloped land.

Councilor Ken Sanchez presented a bill back in January that would have pursued a feasibility study of that idea. But Councilor Michael Cadigan challenged it at the time as potentially removing tens of millions of dollars from capital improvement projects because the designation would eliminate impact fees on new construction.

Sanchez told the committee members that he is willing to back away from the idea "at this time" in favor of moving the Unser's Crossing project forward.

Economic justice to an underdeveloped area

Miguel Maestas, executive director of the West Central CDG, said most residents believe that the Unser's Crossing development wouldn't happen if the land where the shopping center goes doesn't win a MRA designation. He said that the extension was a means to an end and that it wasn’t about impact fees but about what the community needed and wanted.

Bernalillo County Commissioner Teresa Córdova, state Rep. Antonio Maestas, and state Sen. Linda Lopez spoke at Wednesday's meeting in support of the extension of the designation to the new shopping center.

Córdova said the proposed development was consistent with the Southwest Area Plan and the Comprehensive Plan, and she also said the community’s well-being was in the balance.

While Lopez said she supported the intent of impact fees, she recognized how important the Unser shopping center was to her neighbors and constituents who confront increasing fuel costs and few shopping alternatives in their neighborhood.

Several speakers noted the 20-30 mile round-trip drive necessary to shop in other parts of the city.

Maestas noted that he was “a big fan” of impact fees, too, but said he felt the area's demographics -- one of the oldest communities in the city with a high Hispanic and low-income population -- had led to a lack of private sector economic investment, resulting in "a double whammy" of too few roads, laid water lines and sewer pipes to support economic development projects. In other words, economic discrimination had led to the area not developing before the new impact fee structure was in place.

“Some things are more important in the struggle for justice,” he said, “and economic justice and human rights are more important than impact fees.”

Noting that an overwhelming majority of the surrounding communities were in support of the project, he urged the council to defer “to the leadership of the southwest mesa, which really, really wants this.”

City Councilor Isaac Benton made the point that areas of his district have seen a similar dynamic, with lots of rooftops but a lack of economic investment by national retail chains. He said the community had raised the issue of discrimination on the part of national retailers and that national chains look for incentives in order to move into these areas.

Support for the idea

Councilor Cadigan said, “It’s the end of a policy goal we’ve had for years, which is to put more jobs and retail on the west side, and we all want to incentivize it. This isn’t about whether we will help, it’s about whether or not the MRA extension is how to do it.”

He suggested that the City Council should look into the entire package of options at its disposal before settling on extending the MRA designation to the area. He said one of the primary reasons for not granting the extension was the possible dilution of the current West Central MRA, which is a blighted area in need of reinvestment dollars.

Councilor Rey Garduño echoed that sentiment, saying that his hesitation was not about “slamming the door on development.”

He recognized a need for the project given the history of the area but said that “we shouldn’t give this tool lightly. An MRA is for redevelopment, not new projects. I will support other methods wholeheartedly.”

The question now goes before the full City Council.

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