Master Plan gets OK from panel
Green development intends to offer 965 residences in 300 acres
By David Collins, The New Mexican
Plans for the area’s most ambitious green-building development moved a step closer to fruition Thursday when the County Development Review Committee recommended approval of the master plan for the Village at Galisteo Basin Preserve.
“It’s a wonderful affirmation,” Commonweal Conservancy president Ted Harrison said after the seven-member panel unanimously gave its nod to the plan.
The conservancy, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit, plans a high-density village of 965 residences and 150,000 square feet of civic and commercial space in buildings covering about 300 acres.
Most of a 10,000-acre area outside the village is designated as a publicly accessible open space, with about 1,000 acres set aside as a unique green-burial cemetery where cremains or unembalmed bodies can be interred with little impact on the land.
Some area residents told the Development Review Committee that Commonweal’s plans for the former Thornton Ranch between Lamy and Galisteo offer the best hope for preserving the area’s rural character. But others expressed fear the project would deplete Galisteo’s water supplies and increase traffic on U.S. 285.
“There is little evidence this will have any measurable impact of these wells on the community of Galisteo,” Harrison said.
Commonweal submitted its plan to the county in January 2006, then spent the next 14 months convincing county development-review staff members that sufficient groundwater is available within the project boundaries to supply the new village for 100 years. To satisfy water-supply requirements, Commonweal planners drilled several test wells and incrementally expanded the master-planned area to include 10,000 of some 13,000 acres Commonweal contracted to buy.
“I believe this project is our best hope, not only for Galisteo but for the entire region,” architect and Galisteo resident Ted Fleming told the committee.
A spokesman for a Galisteo community planning committee said the proposed village would be six times the size of Galisteo but the committee strongly supports the plan — with a couple of conditions. Richard Griscom said Commonweal should post a performance bond and be required to help Galisteo residents monitor wells.
The Development Review Committee recommended County Commission approval of the plan if Commonweal helps monitor Galisteo wells.
Contact David Collins at 995-3893
Source - http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/58753.html