Albuquerque property owners could soon choose to increase housing density on their lots under a proposed resolution heading to committee review this week.
Resolution 25-167, the Opt-In Zoning Ordinance, sponsored by City Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn for Mayor Tim Keller, would let property owners choose to rezone for higher-density or mixed-use development. The measure goes before the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee tonight at 5 p.m., Aug. 13.
“The idea is that if you have your own private property, that you should have a mechanism to choose what you want to do with that property,” Keller said at a press event outside the former Range Cafe on Menaul Boulevard. “That maybe the government should not be the one telling you, you can only do one thing on your property.”
The resolution attempts to address Albuquerque’s documented housing shortage. According to the Albuquerque Regional Housing Needs Assessment conducted in 2024, over 56,000 housing units are needed by 2045, including 12,000 rental units and 20,000 ownership units for low- and moderate-income households. The New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness’s point-in-time count report identified over 2,700 individuals experiencing homelessness in 2024.
Housing costs in Albuquerque show the strain of the shortage.
Average rent in June was $1,168 a month, about 29% below the national average, according to Apartments.com. Realtor.com reported the median home price in July was about $350,000. The city’s apartment vacancy rate dropped below 3% in early 2022, and median rents rose 46% from 2019 to 2024, according to Source NM.
“Vacancy rates are still low and rents are too high,” Keller said in a statement. “If passed, this resolution will encourage development that expands housing options for a range of incomes and lifestyles.”
How the Opt-In Process Would Work’
The proposed resolution would let property owners in certain zones apply to change their zoning for more diverse development. Participation would be voluntary.
Single-family homes zoned R-1 would have several options. Corner lots could switch to low-density multifamily zoning (R-ML), raising the height limit from 26 to 38 feet. Properties on busy collector or arterial streets could move to mixed-use transit zoning (MX-T), allowing apartments and businesses up to 30 feet tall.
“We can see housing on the top, retail on the bottom, more services, more coffee shops,” Fiebelkorn said, describing the vision for areas like the Menaul corridor, where the press event was held.
The plan calls for a 90-day outreach period starting Aug. 1, followed by a 180-day application window. The Planning Department would have 90 days to review requests and send recommendations to the Environmental Planning Commission, which would forward them to the City Council.
The city budgeted $50,000 for outreach in 2026, covering ads, a dedicated webpage and work with neighborhood associations.
Opposition Raises Process and Data Concerns
Not everyone supports the proposal. Jaemes Shanley, president of the Mark Twain Neighborhood Association and a write-in candidate for District 7 City Council, challenges both the process and underlying assumptions.
“Albuquerque is not actually growing right now. It’s actually shrinking,” Shanley said. “And yet the mayor and members of council insist we have an urgent need for 50,000 housing units by 2045. There’s no basis in fact to support that.”
Shanley conducted his own survey of five major city corridors and found an average commercial vacancy rate of over 21%. He argued the city should focus on converting empty commercial properties along transit routes instead of allowing residential rezoning across neighborhoods.
“What we have is a desperate need for affordable housing, particularly affordable for people earning 50% or less than the area median income,” Shanley said. “But that kind of housing cannot be built. It can only be subsidized.”
Patricia Willson, past president of the Victory Hills Neighborhood Association and a District 6 Coalition board member, shares similar concerns but said her biggest concern is the lack of notification.
She also pushed back on claims about current zoning rules. Strong Towns ABQ volunteer Joseph Greenwald said at the press event that many housing types are “literally illegal to build” under current codes. Willson called that “disingenuous,” saying the city “completely rewrote” its zoning codes in 2018.
Under the usual zoning amendment process, “neighbors within 100 feet get written notice. This has no written notice, no yellow sign,” she said.
Willson said the city should focus on new development rather than altering existing neighborhoods.
“If the city is really serious about us being less car centric and having less single family homes, they should concentrate on convincing developers to do better new development,” she said, instead of targeting longtime homeowners who “bought their house 50 years ago, have it paid for” and could see their most valuable asset change “with no ability for them to have any input.”
She blamed high rents on corporate investment, not zoning rules.
“Rents are high because private equity moved in the last 20 years from investing in commercial real estate to investing in multifamily real estate to investing in single-family homes,” Willson said. “We have become bulldozer bait for out-of-state investors.”
Both Willson and Shanley noted that 62% of Albuquerque residents live in single-family homes zoned R-1 that could be affected. Willson said multiple neighborhood associations, coalitions and advocacy groups plan to speak against the resolution at tonight’s meeting.
National Context
Planning Director Alan Varela said the opt-in approach has been successful in other cities, including San Diego, Raleigh, Miami and Cincinnati.
“This legislation will allow property owners to have more control over their property and is 100% voluntary,” he said in a statement.
The resolution marks a change from past citywide zoning overhauls that stirred controversy. In 2023, the city approved allowing casitas across Albuquerque after months of debate and a narrow 5-4 Council vote. The rule took effect July 27, 2023, according to city records.
“We want to be both bold and gentle,” Keller said. “Forcing people to change their zoning — that has been a rub historically with some of the changes, and they failed also at Council. We respect that this isn’t for everyone. On the other side, we do believe that folks should have some say over what they want to do on their property. You can call it a compromise, but I think it’s more the opposite, where you can have sort of the boldness of an individual choice, but also the gentleness that we’re not forcing anyone to do anything.”
Next Steps
If the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee approves the resolution tonight, it will move to the full City Council for a final vote.
Shanley said neighborhood association leaders from several districts plan to attend the meeting.
The measure is part of Mayor Tim Keller’s fall “Housing Now” package, which also includes changes to safe outdoor space rules and housing rehabilitation programs.
The Land Use, Planning, and Zoning Committee will meet at 5 p.m. in Vincent E. Griego Chambers at One Civic Plaza. The opt-in zoning resolution is one of several housing-related items on the committee’s agenda, which includes Safe Outdoor Space amendments and the Adopting The Renter’s Empowerment And Neighborhood Transparency(RENT) Ordinance.
What? Your reporter didn’t stay for the final vote on up-zoning? Many of us stuck it out till past 10 p.m., when the proposal was voted down 4-to-1. Clearly conflicted, Councilor Rogers asked a number of questions that stemmed from her constituents’ worries about tall buildings, 4 stories on some corner lots, springing up without neighbors’ being able to object. Councilor Grout forthright that the idea of no notification being required for properties neighboring those being chosen to upzone really troubled her. This proposal was presented in a KRQE news story that interviewed Councilor Fiebelkorn, its sponsor, as adding housing as a building choices in the blighted Menaul NE area near I-25/Diversion Canal. If it had been written to be restricted to that or like areas, it probably would have sailed through the LUPZ Committee. Applying it citywide defeated the good by trying for the perfect. Politics is the art of the possible.
I’m so tired of NIMBYs. Ignoring that there’s a housing shortage, that people are desperate in trying to pay rent, new buyers can’t afford anything, and that their potential for having to look at a short building is somehow an injury.