Bernalillo County delays vote on South Coors Boulevard sector plan after debate over heights, density and road safety

Bernalillo County commissioners on Feb. 10 heard staff presentations and public testimony on proposed amendments to the Southwest Area Plan and the South Coors Boulevard Sector Development Plan before voting to continue the item to March 11, 2026.

Senior planner Mino Savoca told the board the package would add three neighborhood activity centers along Coors Boulevard (Coors & Blake, Coors & Arenal, Coors & Sage) and create two new sector zones that would be applied within the plan boundary. He said the intent is to concentrate commercial and mixed uses along the corridor, protect adjacent residential neighborhoods and align the rank-2 Southwest Area Plan with rank-1 centers-and-corridors policy in the county comprehensive plan.

Richard Meadows, the county’s transportation planning manager and applicant on the sector plan, framed the land-use proposal around three transportation goals: safety, sustainability and multimodal mobility. Meadows cited corridor crash data and said the corridor has seen “8 fatalities over the last several years” and “250 or so severe injuries,” and argued that targeted mixed-use development and planned activity centers would reduce vehicle…