Planning Levels

Comprehensive Planning

Albuquerque's planning program is organized by levels, with the first, or "Rank One" level being the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Comprehensive Plan . This approach recognizes that planning and development issues in a growing city are numerous and complex, requiring a flexible program designed to respond both to area-wide issues and to neighborhood scale issues at the same time. It is also designed to address both new development and the policies that shape it, as well as preservation and redevelopment in existing and older neighborhoods.

The Long Range Planning division prepares amendments to keep the Plan relevant and forward-thinking. The most recent significant amendments are the policies added to help create mixed-use activity centers and transit corridors along many major streets. The division supports work on modifications to the Subdivision and Zoning Code, and on spending priorities in the capital program to help implement the vision of the centers and corridors policies. Through interagancy coordination, these efforts also work to implement objectives of the Planned Growth Strategy, approved by the City Council in 2002.

Area Planning

Area or "Rank Two" plans, provide a more detailed analysis of development issues and policy requirements for large sub-areas such as the North Valley [pdf, 16MB] and the West Side or for City-wide facilities such as Trails, Bikeways and Arroyos. Such plans tend to be prepared for portions of the city and county where growth and/or redevelopment pressures are such that action must be taken to guide the change positively and protect natural and cultural resources. Rank Two plans are prepared to further the policy objectives of the Comprehensive Plan.

Sector & Neighborhood Planning

This "Rank Three" planning level is the most detailed. These plans include site-specific land use and often zoning regulations, housing and other design guidelines, streetscape recommendations and capital project priorities. They are focused on a single area, neighborhood or street corridor.

There are 46 Rank Three plans in existence, approved as long ago as 1976. Some, but not all, have been amended or updated since their original passage. The Planning Department is devising a way to more reliably re-examine these plans periodically for validity. At present, new Rank Three plans are in progress for the North Fourth Street corridor between downtown and Los Ranchos and for the Near North Valley. Updates are in progress or have recently been completed for the following Rank 3 plans: Nob Hill/Highland, Barelas, Coors Corridor, Uptown, the Southwest Heights and Volcano Heights. Menaul Boulevard may become the focus of a new design overlay zone, or the model for more broadly addressing city street standards. The Department occasionally is called upon to assist the private sector with specific plans and processes them as either new plans or amendments to existing ones.

Metropolitan Redevelopment Plans for selected areas also qualify as Rank Three plans, tied to various funding mechanisms. Recent examples include Los Candelarias at 12th and Candelaria, and the International Marketplace at Louisiana and Central Avenue. The Highland-Central Avenue district just east of Nob Hill is the focus of a new redevelopment planning effort.