Homeowners in Corrales’ Far Northwest Sector (the territory east of the Rio Rancho Industrial Park) are likely to be most affected by completion of Don Julio Road out to connect at Highway 528, referred to as “Access A.”
Several years ago, those folks complained the expected traffic from the Northern Boulevard-Highway 528 intersection would disturb their neighborhoods’ peace and quiet.
A formal public hearing on the Village’s environmental assessment will be held Tuesday, July 31 at the Old Church starting at 6:30 p.m.
The topic will be validity and completeness of the environmental assessment (EA, a minor environmental impact statement) conducted for the Village’s project.
Homeowners along Albino Road and Todos Juntos Road complained to Village officials in November 2010 that they had no idea the main north-south road in the area would be extended to the west to connect to Highway 528. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXIX, No.18, November 6, 2010 “Riled Residents Hear Reasons for ‘Access A’ Road Extension”)
Deadline for comments on the EA is August 14. Written comments should be mailed, e-mailed or faxed to Jessica Sebring of Marron and Associates, 7511 Fourth Street NW, Albuquerque 87107.
The e-mail address is
The EA can be reviewed at the Village’s website, www.corrales-nm.org/ notices. Copies of the EA may be reviewed at the Village Office, at Corrales Library or at the Corrales Main Fire Station.
The project under consideration is described as “constructing new roadway with two travel lanes and turn lanes to connect Don Julio Road with the [528] intersection. Right and left turn lanes will also be constructed on NM 528 at the intersection. An existing bike path along Northern Boulevard will be extended south of NM 528 along Don Julio.”
The EA addresses just the last 200 feet of the right of way from the current end of Don Julio out to the 528 intersection.
Village officials were poised to finish the “Access A” link out to Highway 528 and Northern Boulevard months ago. But completion snagged on state requirements for cultural resource clearances, especially from neighboring Pueblo representatives.
When those finally came back presenting no problems, officials in Santa Fe went on to insist that Village officials had to call a public hearing to review and comment on the expected impacts.
The roadway and link to Highway 528 was called for in Corrales’ 2002 Far Northwest Sector Plan. It was to be a new “gateway” into Corrales leading to a new potential commercial area along Corrales’ boundary with Rio Rancho east of the Rio Rancho Industrial Park. The 70 acres of the sector plan’s designated “neighborhood commercial, office district” (NCOD) was envisioned as a major new source of gross receipts tax revenues for Village government.
Back in the 1990s and earlier, the northwest corner of Corrales had been vacant and barely accessible; it was the last, vast tract of undeveloped territory here. It was essentially cut off from the rest of Corrales by the Montoyas Arroyo, the Lomitas Negras Arroyo and by Rio Rancho’s city limits on the northwest and north.
The land use sector plan devised by an appointed citizens’ group called for construction of several access points into the mostly empty territory. The main one was called “Access A” with its road out to Highway 528. To pay for those access projects, including two bridges and the link to the 528-Northern intersection, the Village Council adopted the municipality’s first “development impact fee” program. Developers, builders or homeowners would have to pay a fee at the time they got a building permit.
The EA document prepared by Marron and Associates states, “This EA demonstrates that the proposed action meets the project purpose and need for improving safe and efficient travel in the project area. The project would have no significant adverse social, economic or envisionmental impacts of a level that would warrant an Environmental Impact Statement. Unless significant impacts are identified during the public review, comment and hearing, a “decision document” or “finding of no significant impact will be requested from the N.M. Department of Transportation.”
If the decision is made to proceed, the state’s municipal arterial program (MAP) funding would be released to partially pay for construction.
The EA notes that “excavations for roadway construction and traffic control device installation would be one to 1.5 feet deep. Two drainage ponds less than 18 inches deep would be constructed along the east side of NM 528 and south of the intersection.”
The entire disturbed area would be less than three acres.
So far, commercial developers have shown no interest in any of the lots designated for potential business use in Corrales’ Far Northwest Sector despite nearing completion of “Access A.”
The road dubbed “the gateway to the Far Northwest Sector” a decade ago was meant to open up a new commercial district to generate retail sales taxes desperately needed for municipal services such as police, fire-rescue and road repairs.
The future commercial area identified in the 2002 Northwest Sector Plan adopted by the Village Council was justified by three main factors:
• the planning area’s “Access A” is the community’s only near-access to potentially lucrative traffic on Highway 528 (see the Corrales map in this and every issue of Corrales Comment);
• opening a new commercial area in the relatively isolated Far Northwest Sector might take development pressures off neighborhoods at the south end of Corrales; and
• it would be relatively easier politically to approve plans for commercial ventures in an unpopulated area.
Over the past 40 years, the prospect of commercial encroachments into residential areas has been a primary ongoing political battle. Invariably villagers would say their lifestyles and the community’s rural character would be ruined by allowing new commercial activity.
Having watched that play out again and again, and with officials increasingly concerned about an inadequate economic base to support municipal services due to dwindling sales of new homes as vacant lots became scarce, the idea of creating a new commercial district in an area that had no existing homes had great appeal back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
So, according to the Far Northwest Sector Plan, an area along the Rio Rancho boundary abutting the industrial park was designated for future commercial and/or office development. And with direct access off Highway 528 (“Access A” in the sector plan), traffic impacts to residential areas would be minimized. People would come into the NCOD from the Highway 528-Northern Boulevard intersection along Don Julio Road, spend money at the shops and offices, and then depart out to the 528-Northern intersection.
