From Crisis to Consensus: A New Vision for Santa Fe Housing

A growing crisis in Santa Fe is the lack of affordable housing. In response, ten local organizations have come together to form the Housing for Santa Fe Coalition. The August 4th episode of The Forum explored the Coalition’s newly released policy platform—PIP: Protect, Invest, and Permit—a bold plan aimed at addressing the city's housing challenges. This conversation is the second in a two-part series, following that show.

With municipal elections approaching this November, affordable housing is expected to be a defining issue for Santa Fe voters. The Housing for Santa Fe Coalition has released a platform titled PIP—an acronym for Protect, Invest, and Permit. The goal: to build consensus and advocate for policies that address the city’s housing challenges.

In this episode of The Forum, leaders from two member organizations outlined the third component of the PIP platform – Permit - and the changes they hope elected officials will adopt. Among the concerns raised were the lack of alignment between city code and the land use processes, the need to address homelessness, and the need to meet affordable housing goals in both the rental and homeownership markets in order to attract and/or retain young families in Santa Fe and promote economic growth.

Specific discussion items included:

· Changing the permitting process from an “allowing” attitude to and “enabling” attitude

· Rethinking code definitions so that they are more inclusive, thus reducing time in process.

· Changing when and how the public’s concerns and priorities can be heard in a constructive and helpful way.

· Including all four City Council districts in the response to the housing crisis

Host: Jim Falk

Co-host: Peter Smith

Guests: Cathy Collins, Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity

Anthony Guida, President, Friends of Architecture

Show Notes:

Housing for Santa Fe Coalition 

Friends of Santa Fe Architecture