LETTER TO THE EDITOR

s Among the items to be discussed, I don't see planning itself. We have two documents that are Sustainable something. One is a plan and the other is a code to implement the plan. The residents of Santa Fe county who understand any of this are very few. There are planning issues emerging in the field that contrast "land use" planning with "form based" planning. I think what we have here is land use planning, which groups developments into different uses, such as industrial, light-industrial, residential, and so forth. This is an old formula of planning dating from the height of smoke stack era and the 1950's explosion of car travel. This outdated form of planning--not suited to our climate realities, among much else in today's world--is the paradigm which Ms. Penny Ellis-Green, the chief county planner, has championed and is expert on. It is, however, inappropriate for the county, and indeed for most places today. Form based planning is visual and shows how development is allowed to look in a given area. But it doesn't prohibit various uses within those spaces. Mixed use zoning seems to be an improvement over single use zoning. For instance, Rancho Viejo exemplifies single use residential zoning, while south Cerrillos in SF exemplifies single use commercial zoning. Single use zoning exacerbates commute traffic, since it requires automobile travel for employees to reach work. How form based planning and mixed use zoning intersect needs to be studied. Each might have considerable improvements to offer over what we have now.