Santa Fe council hears preview of 'Santa Fe Forward' general plan and CitySmart digital platform
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Summary
City officials and consultants presented the Santa Fe Forward general plan update and a new CitySmart GIS platform. Consultants described engagement metrics (thousands of participants), three planning scenarios and priorities including housing affordability, displacement risk in Agua Fria, and a timeline for adoption and code updates.
Consultants and city staff presented a status update on the Santa Fe Forward general plan and a live demonstration of CitySmart, a new GIS-based public portal accompanying the update.
Heather Lamboy, the city's land use director, introduced the project and consultants from Continuum Strategies and WSP. Consultant Nick Fazio said the general plan update—mandated by New Mexico statutes amended in 03/2009 and directed by a governing-body resolution—kicked off technical work in September 2024 and public engagement in January 2025. Fazio described the assessment report as an extensive existing-conditions analysis and said the project has collected roughly 8,000 pieces of public input and seen more than 9,500 unique website visitors.
Manjeet Ranu and Nick Fazio presented draft mission and vision language and three scenario frameworks—'connections' (a mobility spine and community connectors), 'places' (three big places plus smaller linked places), and 'resilience' (housing and environmental resilience). They outlined five place-type categories, a prioritization framework for investments, and a plan to convert the concepts into a preferred plan and implementation actions.
Janice Biletnikoff, project manager for Santa Fe Forward, said the immediate next steps are to solicit public feedback on the mission, vision and scenario frameworks, synthesize community partner input, and prepare a draft preferred plan and implementation/action plan for the governing body. The consultants indicated the general plan document itself is on a schedule targeting adoption in late spring or early summer, with the implementation plan to follow.
Jay Puckett then demonstrated CitySmart, a public-facing ArcGIS-based portal that includes thematic web maps (about 11 themes and 350 GIS layers), a parcel viewer with linked planning documents, a residential-pipeline map, and an 'active initiatives' viewer. Puckett said the open data portal and additional datasets remain under development and will be launched in coordination with the planning department.
During council Q&A, members pressed staff on how the general plan will align with existing planning documents (sustainability plans, transit, bike/trail, street design) and the land development code, how community partner input is synthesized and reported, and how displacement risks—especially near Agua Fria and downtown—will be mitigated. Staff replied that alignment with the land development code is intentional (the code is the implementation arm of the plan), that a community-partners synthesis is available and can be shared, and that displacement heat maps and targeted neighborhood conversations will inform policy choices. Funding and scheduling questions were addressed: consultants noted some contract amendments are pending to accelerate deliverables, and the land development code update will proceed in phased amendments to allow targeted engagement.
The presentation package and CitySmart demo materials will be posted to the Santa Fe Forward website and incorporated into future public meetings for deeper review.