Elizabeth Christine

We are currently facing the end of what might be called The Age of Cheap Oil. This relatively brief age has been the most exciting and innovative period in our history as humans discovered thousands of ways to use fossil fuels to better our lives. The stored power within oil allows us to accomplish a hundred times more work than we can accomplish without it. Because of this increased power, life on Planet Earth experienced radical change over the last 160 years. Most of us take our life based on fossil fuels for granted. We move through daily activities unaware of what it will mean to be without easy and inexpensive access to fossil fuels.

The use of oil produced miracles, as life expectancy was increased, along with our productivity and our global connections. Currently, however, our oil dependency leaves us in a place of great vulnerability. We have to face the fact that our whole system of life is dependent on fossil fuel availability and we have now exhausted virtually all of the highest grade and most easily accessible oil. We have reached the point where, for every four barrels we use, only one is being extracted. And extraction of each barrel now comes with a magnified cost – economically, and to the environment and our health.

Up against the wall of global warming and peaking oil, it is time for us to rally and transition out of our dependency. Such an initiative is rapidly spreading through towns and cities across the world. Through the Transition Movement, begun by Rob Hopkins and the town of Totnes, England, people are gathering in their communities to mastermind how they can build local resilience and simultaneously cut carbon emissions.

So what does it mean to build local resilience? Resilience is a term that comes from ecology and refers to the ability of a system to hold together and maintain its ability to function in the face of change and shocks from the outside. Resilience is what carried Santa Fe and areas of northern New Mexico through the Great Depression with a minimum of detrimental effects. Santa Fe was not hit hard because the area was largely rural, and life had always been rugged but resourceful on the little ranchos. Homes were built from mud, there was room for animals to graze, food to be grown and wood to be gathered for heat and cooking. During the Depression, the people did not have money for luxuries, but they survived well. They had local resilience to carry them through.

In 2011, we have a much larger population; one that is mostly dependent on food and goods arriving from the outside. We rely on fossil fuels to cook our food, heat our homes and get us to work to make a living. In the face of peak oil, the degree to which these dependencies exist reflects the degree of our vulnerability. Every step we make to decrease this dependency represents an increase in our resiliency.

Santa Fe is home of many commendable organizations working diligently to increase different aspects of our local resiliency. Their efforts have not yet grown to the point of building the level of resiliency needed to carry us through the times we are facing. If the majority of the population continues to wait for the government to come up with solutions for us, the solutions will come too late. If we remain separated as individuals attempting to make a difference or passively wait for the innovative organizations to implement the needed changes, the results will be too little. Only if we come together and apply our collective genius will we make it through.

This is what the Transition Movement is about: activating the collective genius arising in our lives in Santa Fe and elsewhere, as we join to rebuild local agriculture and food production, generate local energy, rethink our healthcare, means of transportation, waste management, and strengthen local business. The Transition Movement puts forth the vision that life post-oil can be even better than life has been during “The Age of Oil.” We are on the brink of a great opportunity to change how we live. It involves coming home to our community and to ourselves.

If this piques your interest, join us on Facebook at Transition Town Santa Fe or contact me: 505.982.2929, 505.310.7654 or elizabeth@birthingcommunity.com.

Resources: The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins, www.transitionus.org and www.transitionnetwork.org

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As a best practice, the way we think about and pursue our network-connected lives should be considered, along with all other aspects of community-building, within a complex, dynamic, whole-ecosystems approach, so that it may serve as one of the means by which the concepts of sustainable “community of practice and community of learning” are realized and exemplified.

Unless an “intentional community” determines that it wants to be un-connected, it will currently want to plan and deploy a ubiquitous fiber-optic and wireless-networking infrastructure, with symmetric, high-bandwidth fiber connection to all premises (institutions, businesses, residences), along with high quality mobile devices service coverage. How this is engineered and implemented in detail will vary widely. Technologies, standards, services and business models will continue to evolve, driven largely by evolving social and technical understandings, and by the forces of “consumerism.”

Scale is a critical consideration when planning any aspect of a community or of networks. Personal networks and neighborhood networks interconnect with city, regional and global networks, now being built, operated and provisioned primarily by large telecommunications companies. While ‘network neutrality’ is now getting a lot of media buzz, we are actually experiencing another wave of corporate media consolidation, the impacts of which are not favorable to the public interest.

Municipalities are beginning to invest in and build civic networks, in part to reduce spending on network services and to generate new income. Not all municipalities are capable of or good at managing and operating such networks. Those that are, most often already operate other municipal utilities, such as for water or electricity.

Community networks present the opportunity, as with renewable energy, local agriculture, community currency and other efforts, to vitalize localism, to consider alternate economic and organizational models. Two key concepts are important to understand: “open” and “commons.”

Open networks are those where fiber infrastructure and RF spectrum is owned by the public sector, or by cooperating public and private sector partners, who lease wholesale access and capacity to all providers; as opposed to the current less-than-competitive, proprietary access models. Open networks can offer subscribers greater competitive choice, reduced pricing and allowed interoperability of devices.

The commons can be applied to our networked environment in the same ways as to watersheds, parks or wild lands, or even whole neighborhoods. The EM (RF) spectrum, while essentially a public (global-universal) commons, like other “common pool assets,” is currently treated as private property, being auctioned off to highest bidder companies that package and rent use thereof back to us, for their stockholders’ profit.

In 2009, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to the developer of fiber optics, and the Economics prize was awarded for the first time to a woman, Elinor Ostrom, for her work on economic and governance structures for ‘common pool assets.’

Very few “experts” or others think about our information environment within an inter-dynamic ecological understanding of matter, energy and information. Ecological economics extends this fundamental understanding to the re-framing and application of ‘the dismal science’: economics.

Like all other life forms, we are “tuning organisms,” entrained to dominant forces and signals that envelop and permeate us. We exist, bathed in a cosmic, life-giving shower of electromagnetic radiation, and in the last century, have learned to “ride the waves” by creating “techne” to extend our sensing and communicating abilities in evolutionarily transformative ways. As with the harnessing of energy and the development of industrialism, we are generating everything from valuable resources to waste. In ecological terms, waste in the information environment is both material (rare earth mining, obsolete tech junk, warfare) and immaterial (information overload, confusion, deception, speed). Truth, openness and creativity are among the immaterial value-added qualities of information.

The flow of networked information, learning and knowledge, much like water irrigating our fields, is radically transforming all human processes and social constructs, from governance to education to commerce, science, religion, community and family, to war and peace.

Copper wires having provided the means of transport of electrons for the last 100 years, are now being replaced by fiber optic lines which transport photons (light) at high speed and bandwidth capacity. Most wireless systems utilize radio frequency (RF) portions of the EM spectrum. New technology developments are beginning to utilize frequencies in the visible light spectrum for some wireless communications, thereby lessening RF spectrum congestion, while promoting more energy-efficient, dual-use lighting systems (LEDs), and alleviating some growing concerns about possible health effects of RF signals, a path that is ripe for “clean and green” development.

Today’s “broadband” phase of networked society development is focused largely on technologies, infrastructure, ownership and control. What really matters, though, is how we use broadband networks, especially to improve the quality of our lives and livelihoods. A vibrant public media initiative is an important part of growing contemporary community, augmenting other forms of interpersonal exchange and relationship.

A community network must be citywide and should be planned as such. City of Santa Fe has no overarching telecommunications master plan, and though recommended since the coming of the Internet, has not yet been able to manifest a community-centric public networking initiative.

A community network would ideally be a cross-sector organizational partnership among cooperating local entities: government, school districts and higher education institutions, nonprofit organizations, large and small businesses, private sector telecommunications providers and individuals. It could provide shared local peering, network operations and a data center, lease wholesale broadband network access, provide subsidized accounts (via ISP partners), offer classes and education outreach, initiate “pilot projects,” provide expertise and serve as an online front-end, content and applications manager for the community.

Community networks should not compete with private-sector companies to provide commercial services, but should partner with willing telecommunications companies and ISPs to offer public information services for government, education, libraries, healthcare, arts, economic development and public safety. They could provide participatory, community-centric content management, multi-lingual and cultural services, decision-support tools, mapping, simulation and modeling capabilities, increasing numbers of mobile applications, innovation R&D, as well as support services for online teaching, learning and tele-work.

Financially supporting such efforts is not easy; however, if properly organized and structured, a community networking initiative can be sustained and may even thrive, its economic life based as much on earned income as on cost savings to partners and the community.

Individuals, households, businesses and institutions in the City of Santa Fe, currently spend over $100 million per year on aggregated telecommunications services (phone, cable, wireless, satellite, Internet). Most of this expenditure leaves the state. If only 1% of this total were to be re-allocated and re-invested in well-considered and agreed-upon ways, we could meet our networked requirements and desires in a few years’ time, without need for any additional funds.

Commitment and coordination are critical to all aspects of community building, including broadband networking. Integrated, strategic master planning is a must. Broadband infrastructure deployments should be coordinated with new “smart energy grid” deployments, water systems, transportation and right of ways. Whenever street or road construction or new building projects disturb the ground or do trenching, we should put in open conduit. Cities should institute “dig once” ordinances for public safety, to minimize disruptions and for practical cost effectiveness and savings.

Good planning, coordination and public processes can result in win-win financial outcomes for telecommunications providers and for the community. It can result in improved location and engineering of wireless towers, antennas and coverage areas, while mitigating unwanted impacts. Application of the “precautionary principle” could result in limiting wireless signals in elementary schools, in setting aside electromagnetic “quiet zones,” or in location of free WiFi coverage areas as a civic amenity.

The path to a networked future requires that we all take greater responsibility for understanding, intentions and actions, while practicing a personal sense of “information ecology.” Not easy, but one of our many grand challenges and opportunities for this creative “city different.”

Democracy (people power) + information + learning = Demosophia (people wisdom).

Resource Links:

1st-Mile Institute: NM broadband initiatives and email list www.1st-mile.com

Santa Fe Regional Telecom Coalition: e-Cequia open fiber network www.sfrtc.org

Slow Tech essay: www.radlab.com/tele-community/slowtech.html

Richard Lowenberg is a multi-forms artist, tele-community planner and eco-systems designer. He is Senior Broadband Planner with Design Nine, Inc.; Director of the 1st-Mile Institute; and is on boards of Parallel Studios/Currents New Media Festival, and the Santa Fe Complex. Richard led the Telluride Institute’s InfoZone, the first rural community Internetwork project; was a co-author of the National Research Council study and publication, “Broadband: Bringing Home the Bits”; developed the New Mexico “Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative” plan for the Governor’s Office in 2008; and has been involved with New Mexico broadband stimulus funded projects since 2009. rl@1st-mile.com

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It all started several years ago when a few of us got together and decided we had to create a new way to live. It was tough at first, because most people couldn’t imagine it or thought it couldn’t be done. “You guys are on drugs,” they said. “The City won’t let you. Americans will never give up their cars. Developers will crush you. Get over it!”

We were kind of discouraged until someone reminded us of what Gandhi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” We decided that meant we had already advanced to Stage 2. We were progressing!

We figured out a way to involve folks through events like potlucks, dances, picnics and soccer games. People came for the fun and stayed to envision and design the kind of lives they wanted to live and the communities they wanted to live in. We used a self-organizing model so people could choose areas that were important to them and invite others with interest and knowledge to participate.

Teaming with local architects and green builders, we worked through a community outreach and design process. Then we worked with planners to adopt necessary zoning changes. The City did push back at first, but they came on board after we helped realtors and investors recognize the economic potential of redevelopment. Once the City saw the opportunity to increase the tax base, reduce traffic and pollution, save water and avoid the infrastructure costs of sprawl, they adopted the model and it became the centerpiece of the mayor’s economic development program.

Now people can hardly imagine that we ever used to live the old way. As I write this, I’m sitting in the shade of a blossoming peach tree in our cluster’s rooftop orchard, listening to the buzz of bees pollinating and the laughter of children working in the gardens with their parents and friends. Several Blue Energy wind turbines are silently producing electricity. (They’re so beautiful most visitors think they’re art mobiles! In peak production times, we sell the excess power to PNM.)

In fact, the community owns our “commons” of water, power, communications and food production. We collect all our rainwater and recapture all our greywater, processing through “living machines” that provide both pure water and habitat for birds, frogs and small mammals. Our “digester” plant for human, food and garden waste takes 14 days to turn input into perfectly pure compost. We use it in our gardens and landscaping and sell the balance to a local garden center. The whole thing is powered by the methane it produces.

Our communications collective offers voice, cable and data services for a reasonable fee. We own the fiber optic “pipe” and charge content providers like Comcast to move their product over our network. This data/communications system is managed by a local board and maintained and operated by a crew of “tech monsters” from our local school. They get educational credit and some cash, and we get top quality service.

Folks are healthy here. The low-stress lifestyle probably has a lot to do with it, since we don’t spend our time being stuck in traffic or scuffling over silly things. Now if we wait in line, it’s a social occasion. With the time we once spent commuting and scuffling, we walk, jog and bike along the trails, hit the gym, do yoga and Pilates, play music, create art and just play. Local organic food from our “edible landscapes” and close relationships are healthy, too. We have primary- and urgent-care facilities in storefront locations when we need them, and lots of holistic wellness practitioners. And we have excellent elder-care services and housing, so our seniors can age in place.

A lot of people have created wonderful “neighborly livelihoods” – a day working in the library; a day or two in one of the shops; some child or elder care; a bit of gardening or landscaping; maybe some writing or web design. Because our facilities are co-located, it’s easy to work in a variety of places if people choose to.

Annika and I live in 600 square feet. It sounds small to some people, but we designed the interior with a boatbuilder pal, and he utilized every square inch, so everything fits and works perfectly. It’s oriented to gain solar heat and light in the winter, and to be shaded and cool in the summer. It’s so efficient that we use almost no energy for heat or cooling. When we need more space, we utilize the community facilities – laundry, yoga studio, guest quarters, music room, art loft . . . We also spend a lot of time outside in the community green spaces. We don’t own a car, since we can walk, bike or take transit almost everywhere we want to go. If we need a vehicle, we rent a “Flex Car.” It saves a ton of money, and we never worry about parking.

We’re very involved in community process, but in a loose way, because the neighborhood is largely self-governing. We have a very effective communications network that lets us know about issues and opportunities. When information goes out over it, the people who are most interested band together to respond. Groups coalesce to deal with emerging issues, then disband when the work is done. In all group processes, we adhere to the principles of Non-Violent Communication to make sure everyone is respectfully heard.

Our young people are healthy, happy and delightful to be around. Because they’re known and valued members of the community, the alienation and suspicion we used to see between kids and adults just doesn’t exist. Crime is unknown in the village. People know each other and look out for each other.

We had to laugh the other day when some policy wonk argued that we needed to distribute our critical infrastructure to protect it from terrorist attacks. We distributed ours because it’s more efficient, good for the environment, creates jobs and saves us a lot of money! That’s what we call security.

John Goekler is the founder of Change Factors, a training and consulting firm in Santa Fe. His work is applying complexity science to help individuals and organizations learn to act with greater clarity and effectiveness to create a better future for our children, our communities and the planet. jgoekler@rockisland.com

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For the last 50 years the dominant street form for commercial environments in America has been the auto-oriented strip arterial. These are places where the car is king, where formal planning is almost exclusively about managing car movements and car storage, and where formal consideration for the needs of pedestrians is largely absent. Almost every town now has these strips—streets dominated by parking lots, driveways, wide roadways, tall cobra-headed streetlights, big intersections, and an almost total lack of visible people outside of cars. Parking requirements for commercial uses almost always mandate more parking spaces than ever will be used, so asphalt dominates. Cars travel at 40 mph, which means that collisions with pedestrians are usually deadly; the times when parents didn’t worry about children bicycling to the store are long gone.

When we create our before-and-after street transformations, such as the one we did of St. Michael’s Drive, we almost never encounter citizens who express preference for the before view. And we are never asked by developers of these kinds of environments to create visualizations to help market them. They know that photo-realistic visualizations of their auto-oriented plans will not sell the product. Citizens may criticize the “after” images we come up with by arguing about the style of architecture we show, or the appropriateness of street tree species, or whether people really dress like that in their town, but we consider these healthy topics for debate. The important thing is whether the vision shows a formal concern for human welfare: Are buildings accessible from sidewalks? Are sidewalks wide enough and protected enough from car movements to feel comfortable and safe? Can children and seniors – not just daring young athletic adults – safely and comfortably bicycle to stores and services? Are buildings and signage scaled to be seen at slow walking and bicycling speeds, not just whizzed by at 45 mph? Is the street beautiful – does it function as an attractive public space that people will enjoy being in?

It is estimated that during the next 10 years America will add another 33 million people. Where will they live? Often you hear citizens say that our towns and cities can’t accommodate more people – our cities are “all built out.” Were people saying that about Paris in the 12th century? Or the 13th? Or the 17th? Or the 19th? Does St. Michael’s Drive, with all its asphalt, look “all built out?” Cities don’t get “built out.” Cities are living things, and living things dynamically evolve. Once we get over the idea that our communities have an end state where improvement stops, then we will realize how much more potential they have.

The demand for houses is shrinking, but the demand for apartments is growing. Professor Arthur C. Nelson of the University of Utah thinks the rental share of housing will surpass 41% by 2020. If you look around most attractive, walkable, commercial areas you will see that there are usually multiple housing types nearby. The apartment-, granny-flat-, and row-house dwellers help keep the coffee shops and restaurants alive. Nelson thinks that we should be looking to auto-dominated strips like St. Michael’s Drive as the new centers of pedestrian-friendly development.

Complete town centers can fit into many big-box store centers. An historic center, like that surrounding Santa Fe Plaza, would easily fit into any one of the commercial stretches along St. Michael’s Drive. And since such new development would be on the linear Drive, it could easily be served by transit. The demand for transit-oriented development over the next 30 years will grow to 68 million units, according to Nelson. Along St. Michael’s Drive, such development could happen without bulldozing any existing houses. In fact, present house-dwellers could now have stores and services within walking distance.

Strip arterials with acres and acres of under-utilized parking lots have room to build new walkable neighborhoods complete with greener streets, calmer traffic, comfortable sidewalks, local coffee shops, convenient housing, accessible transit, and safe bicycling throughout – all enriching the experience of living locally. A key to local prosperity and civic pride is for the community to share a common vision for the future and be willing to support the plans and regulations that would bring the vision about. St. Michael’s Drive can be a safer, more hospitable and more beautiful place if Santa Feans want it to be.

Steve Price is with Urban Advantage, Inc.

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Our world is changing radically, yet we struggle to stay the same. We face multiple threats to our continuance: dwindling supplies of oil, gas, and coal; diminishing access to pure drinking water; strange weather and rising temperatures; spreading pollution and the ever-present threat of a nuclear incident.

How can we respond to these overwhelming challenges and survive? Avoidance will not produce the answers we seek; neither, apparently, will our government. We need to begin to have the conversation, an Open Space dialogue where we can explore the possibilities and begin to create alternatives that will enable us to weather the storm of the coming transformation, nature’s response to the activities of civilization as man has made it.

On July 30, Brian Skeele created one such opportunity for conversation. Hanging on the wall at the Santa Fe Complex was a depiction of his vision of a generic Sustainable Urban Village, a pedestrian-friendly space at its center, where cars are accommodated to a lesser degree. In this “SUV,” walking is the transportation of choice! Solar panels, rooftop gardens, recycled water, community agriculture, and community waste processing rule the day. Shared common spaces compensate for smaller living spaces, encouraging enhanced social interaction. The picture beckons with the possibility that Community might overcome the alienation and loneliness that is the price we have paid for our obsessive individualism, independence and privacy.

Will Brian’s charming, multicolored design answer all questions, solve all problems? Surely it will create new challenges, new problems! Who will sweep the leaves in the fall? Where will we park the family car? What would our relationship be with the larger city? Can several thousand people live together in this village within a city without some form of governance, and if not, what form of governance would that be?

Innovations always create new problems, but if the innovation offers a new approach to an intensifying crisis, surely it is worth exploring. Besides, creation is fun. In a flowing, creative atmosphere, we find the courage to face our situation joyfully. The energy of imagination and fresh action helps to move us out of despair. At last we are doing something, and the doing feels good.

Perhaps our avoidance of these overwhelming challenges is partly due to our preference for feeling in control of our circumstances. This circumstance is just too huge! But changed circumstances are sometimes the necessary trigger for change. It turns out we were not so happy with the existing order anyway. At a recent meeting of Transition Town Santa Fe, participants spoke rhapsodically about the joys of harvesting fruit from trees, the rich smell of compost, the flavor of freshly made soup bubbling on the stove. In times of resource depletion and economic austerity, simple pleasures restore and nurture the soul as plastic never did. Is it possible that this Brave New World will be an improvement over the chaos of clogged traffic and speculative hedge funds, the noise of bleeping video games, the isolation of separate rooms and personal cell phones? May it be so! We won’t know until we try: Let the conversation begin!

Stephanie Hiller is a Santa Fe-based life coach and freelance writer who has written about many environmental issues. hiller.stephanie@gmail.com

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Just few years ago, a conventional approach to redeveloping St. Michael’s Drive was still feasible. The collapse of the real estate bubble, and with it, the collapse of many other elements of the growth economy, gives us the opportunity to engage in a different kind of redevelopment. Communities around the world are using another model of economic development, based on the capacities of local residents – “development from within” – that is suited to St. Michael’s Drive and to the current state of our economy.

But first, let’s review the conventional model for contrast. A typical redevelopment project of the past few decades brings resources, customers, residents and cultural patterns from outside of the area. Often, local residents welcome the changes, benefiting from increased job opportunities, housing choices, property values, safety and urban amenities. But just as often, there are serious unintended consequences of gentrification that leave locals priced out of housing, under-qualified for new jobs, and excluded from new cultural activities.

How can we get started with the “development from within” model in the St. Michael’s area?

First, we need to engage local leaders, and invest in their personal capacities. We need to fund them to lead small groups in the discovery and mapping of local assets and needs. We need to start new community economic organizations, and we need to build neighborhood centers to host cultural and economic activities. All of this work should be planned and implemented locally, with as much self-determination as possible. And the question of scale is vital: groups should be organized geographically, and should be sized to emphasize personal relationships.

In the St. Michael’s area, it quickly becomes apparent that most of the work under this model will happen away from St. Michael’s Drive, in the neighborhoods, with a smaller effort on the part of St. Michael’s Drive small business owners and employees. You could visualize the work like this: small groups of neighbors outside of the commercial strip join together to strengthen their personal capacities, their economic opportunities, and the physical places. Over the course of years, they build up the strength to converge on St. Michael’s and transform it economically and physically, in their own image. This is a model of community economic development that truly addresses the social justice and sustainability issues that every redevelopment process raises.

Each nearby neighborhood needs a new type of community organization that combines the roles of a community center and a small business incubator. And each neighborhood needs a small civic and commercial district, located towards the St. Mike’s side of the neighborhood. The neighborhood center should have an outdoor public space, a meeting hall, and a few blocks of small storefronts for new business startups. The configuration of these organizations and public places should be determined by the neighborhoods themselves.

This approach to community development is described in much more detail in the “Neighborhood Handbook for Second Street and the Triangle District Neighborhoods”. You can download a copy at www.rwup.org, on the Publications page.

Roy Wroth is an urbanist dedicated to strengthening our community’s livelihood and public places. He the Director of Community of Santa Fe Complex, the President of Santa Fe Alliance, and was a co-founder of the Triangle District Resource Center. His urban design work has included studies for St. Michael’s Drive and the Rail Corridor Strategic Plan.

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Kris Swedin

Imagine a vibrant and innovative community stretching along St. Michael’s Drive in the center of Santa Fe. You can help choose the design. The city’s Long Range Development Division has come up with ideas to develop the neighborhood of the future in the corridor from Cerrillos Road east to St. Francis Drive.

The population center of Santa Fe is somewhere on the campus of Santa Fe University of Art and Design. An equal number of people live north and south, east and west of that location, according to recent census data.

Anyone who drives through this area witnesses creative driving experiences all day long. Six lanes of traffic – seven with the turn lanes popping up here and there, dozens of hidden driveways, and cars trying to negotiate left-hand turns through the maze makes for quite an adventure. Add in a few bicyclists and pedestrians darting across the road, and there is real danger out there, as we sadly know from recent traffic accidents.

The mayor and city council have directed staff to present a plan that will create community connectedness and improve safety. The project has its roots in the economic development strategy the city adopted several years ago that focused on expanding creative industries – arts, culture, design, new media and film, to name a few.

A year ago the city showcased the work of seven urban designers who presented visions of what “St. Michael’s Boulevard” could look like in the future. Their visions included a focus on a safe and lively streetscape, pared down traffic lanes, affordable apartments and mixed-use spaces to house creative enterprises.

City Councilors Rosemary Romero and Rebecca Wurzburger introduced and passed Resolution 2011-18 in March of this year to further shape this project and move it along.

Patience and persistence are required to help shape city projects and see them through to completion. This planning process has moved forward relatively quickly. The city invested $35 million in keeping a university focused on nurturing our number two industry – arts and culture – in our community. The growing student body and graduates will need places to live, jobs, transportation and entertainment.

Could this new creative and cultural corridor become a vibrant neighborhood and not just a place to drive through after picking up groceries? You can help decide. Participate in upcoming discussions and share your ideas.

Kris Swedin is a writer, community activist and Chairman of Creative Santa Fe. 505.989.9934, info@creativesantafe.org, www.creativesantafe.org

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Lanes

1. Reasonably narrow lanes to naturally slow traffic to posted speed limit.
2. Stoplights to be in median, pole mounted without arms.
3. Curbs to have tight radius corners for slower speeds and greater pedestrian safety.
4. Permanent white markings for crosswalks and lanes.

Utilities

1. All utilities underground.
2. Utilities under access street to avoid conflict with tree roots.
3. Streetlights to be scaled to pedestrians and placed in the medians at close intervals.

Medians

1. Native plants in medians for hardiness, low water use, and regional identity.
2. Plants to be deciduous trees and low (30” maximum) shrubs to provide spatial definition, summer shade, winter sun, and clear visibility at eye level for security.
3. Rainwater from streets and sidewalks collected and stored to reuse as irrigation for plantings.
4. Walking and jogging path of compacted crusherfines slightly meandering in the center of the medians.
5. A few benches in the medians.
6. Bollards on edge of median by access lane and pedestrian realm to allow stormwater drainage into median.
7. Openings in raised curb between through lanes and medians to allow stormwater into medians.

Bicycles

1. Bicycles to share driving lane in parking/access realm.
2. Bicycle racks on the sidewalk.

Parking

1. Parallel parking next to the sidewalk within the pedestrian realm.
2. Parking temporarily prohibited at sidewalk cafes only during active table service.
3. Off-street parking only behind buildings.
4. On-street parking free until a future point when demand overwhelms supply.

Sidewalks

1. Sidewalks lit by sconces attached to buildings.
2. Sidewalks to allow encroachment of portals, balconies, canopies, awnings, and café tables.
3. Sidewalks to have bike racks and some planters.

Buildings

1. Mixed uses to be mixed with retail and office space predominating the street level and residential and office space on the second and third floors.
2. Private development to build to edge of right-of-way, either with building façade, or a landscaped walled courtyard.
3. Buildings along boulevard sidewalk to have frequent doorways, windows and architectural details.
4. Buildings encouraged to have roof terraces and balconies in keeping with regional tradition and to enliven the street.
5. Predominantly two-story buildings to a maximum height of 30 feet at street edge with an allowable third-story set back to provide full winter sunlight.
6. Wall-dominated stuccoed buildings, predominantly contemporary in design.
7. Thick walls, flat roofs, portals, zaguans, canales, and bancos encouraged. Corbels, viga ends, curvilinear parapets, pitched roofs discouraged.
8. Stucco colors from a palette reminiscent of mid-century Santa Fe and northern Newe Mexico as well as Colonial Mexico.
9. Sinage limited in size.
10. Landmarks needed. A new City Museum established on the Boulevard. Churches, public institutions and government offices encouraged.

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CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The most serious constraint inhibiting Santa Fe from achieving a sustainable urban system is its insistence that our future will always be based on our history. In addition to our architectural design choices being informed by our traditions, it is openness to change, flexibility, adaptability, diversity and creativity that are the essential tools of sustainable consciousness, that when applied in the present, lead to an abundant future.

The St. Michael’s corridor between Pacheco and Cerrillos affords us an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our skill in using these tools. The increasing number of commercial vacancies, redefinition of the former College of Santa Fe, absence of historic architectural significance, and the Rail Runner present ripe opportunities for transforming this area into a new model for a sustainable future.

At the invitation of the City’s Long Range Planning Division, six boldly creative concepts were submitted in May 2009 envisioning the future of the St. Michael’s corridor as a pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use zone.

DESIGN CONCEPT

At the heart of the am+a design concept is the designation of the area as a Special Zoning District for Contemporary Architecture, Arts, Education and Creative Consciousness where expansive thinking and progressive design provide a pathway to an exciting, positive and prosperous future for current and future Santa Feans.

This proposal includes five generative private-sector development projects that establish the environment to attract the people necessary to ensure the zone’s social and financial success:

• Integration of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design (the former College of Santa Fe) into the corridor by incorporating campus facilities and activities into the land uses, buildings and streetscapes of the district
• A multi-modal transit facility
• A Museum of Modern Architecture and Art in association with the UNM departments of Architecture and Planning and Arts
• A Think Tank for Creative Consciousness to draw world leaders in every field
• A film-industry center for post-production services

DETAIL HIGHLIGHTS:

STREETS AND BLOCKS

Existing street and block patterns remain the same – except Sixth Street is absorbed into its block, and the north side of Llano Street is redesigned. The current right-of-way along St. Michael’s Drive is modified to be consistently 130 ft. Properties fronting on the boulevard absorb former right-of-way land on each side of the street.

STREETSCAPE

The boulevard median is a 25-ft.-wide raised planter with a rainwater detention system for irrigating landscaping. The median contains left-turn zones in each direction. Two drive lanes in each direction flank the island. A 5-ft.-wide landscaped median separates vehicular and bicycle traffic. The remaining 22 feet includes a 10-ft. pedestrian activities zone for street vendor booths, entertainment and landscaping. Twelve-ft. sidewalks for pedestrian circulation and outdoor cafes encourage a very lively and rich sidewalk life as well as retail success. The Boulevard Zone is highlighted with entry features and structures at each intersection, designating safe crossings areas and organizing street signage and lighting.

OPEN SPACE SYSTEM

A linked system of sidewalks, alleyways, courtyards, mid-block pedestrian connectors, linear and vest-pocket parks make up a diverse and integrated open-space network. The linear parks contain pedestrian and bicycle pathways and buffer existing residential areas from the active boulevard.

VEHICULAR CIRCULATION

All curb cut access from the boulevard directly into properties is eliminated, facilitating traffic movement along the boulevard. Vehicular access to buildings and sites is reoriented to side streets and new alleyways behind the buildings facing the boulevard.

LAND USES

To encourage mixed uses and promote strong pedestrian volume, land uses are mixed and distributed vertically:

• Ground-floor uses are designated for retail

• Second-floor uses are designated for commercial offices

• Levels above the second are designated for residential or temporary accommodations

PARKING

85% of the parking requirement for each project is achieved below grade or in structures above the ground floor. Projects with innovative solutions to reduce auto usage are favored.

LOT COVERAGE

To support economic viability projects:

• Cover 65% of the lot with income-producing space

• Cover 15% of the lot with temporary on-site parking and vehicular circulation

• Cover 20% of the lot with landscaping

BUILDING PLACEMENT, DENSITIES AND HEIGHTS

Buildings along the boulevard are placed on a build-to line at the front property line to assure pedestrian use and safety. Densities and building heights are determined by a project’s economic sustainability because below- or above-grade parking is required. Further,

• First-floor heights are 18-ft.-6-in. (15-ft. floor to roof plus 3-ft.-6-in. parapet)

• Second-, third- and fourth-floor heights are 12-ft. each floor-to-floor
• Roof parapets are 3-ft.-6-in.
• Total allowable as of right building height is typically four stories or 60-ft. along the boulevard
• Up to two additional floors of residential are permitted along the boulevard when 8’-ft. setbacks from second-floor main façade are provided.

Along side streets

• Total allowable building height along side streets is three stories or 40-ft.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY

Public Policy is designed to facilitate the redevelopment process administered by The Long Range Planning Division. Of primary importance to the District’s success is enrolling existing property owners and/or assisting them to find partners in redeveloping according to the District Concept. The public sector establishes a Special Tax District to finance construction and maintenance of public improvements.

Albert Moore, AIA, is the owner of am+a design. 505.988.4988, acm@acmoore-architects.com, http://amaarchitecture.com.

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In New Mexico, landowners who donate conservation easements can be eligible for federal income tax deductions as well as a transferable state tax credit. New Mexico is one of only a handful of states across the nation that has such a transferable state tax credit for landowners who donate conservation easements or land for conservation purposes. This state tax credit was enacted in 2004, and then expanded and made transferable in 2008. Landowners who receive the state tax credit have 20 years within which they can use the credits to offset their state tax credit liability or to sell them at a discounted rate on the open market and convert them to cash. This incentive, combined with the federal tax deduction, can make all the difference for a landowner considering a conservation easement.

For example, the Shortes family in Catron County has worked with NMLC to conserve over 4,800 acres of land along the eastern flanks of Alegres Mountain. The family’s conservation goals were achieved through a partnership between NMLC, the NM State Forestry Division, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, with partial funding through the NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the USDA’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program. Through two conservation easements, the family was able to keep their ranch in the family and in agricultural production but also benefit from a combination of partial payments and tax credits in exchange for the development rights they permanently gave up.

Zeke Shortes explained that the family made their decision to respect the wishes of his grandfather. “He founded the Pie Town ranch in 1971, and loved the history, the rugged beauty, the pristine nature of the place. The area has suffered from the influx of subdivisions, and has threatened the sacredness that first entranced my grandfather. A conservation easement will forever preserve his legacy and respect my grandfather’s wishes while allowing us to provide an unspoiled landscape for my family to enjoy for generations to come.”

Although conservation easements permanently restrict development, private landowners can continue to farm, ranch and engage in other compatible land use practices, while realizing tax and/or financial benefits for the development rights they are foregoing through the granting of the easements. And New Mexicans and the public at large benefits from the beautiful landscapes, wildlife habitat and other resources that the conservation easements will forever protect.

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