The “Elevate Las Cruces” comprehensive plan is a roadmap that will serve as the city’s guide for long-term growth and sustainability over the next two decades.
The project is a full update to the document the city partially revised in 2013 based on policies from 1999.
City officials recently hosted the first round of public workshops to get feedback from residents, property and business owners to identify where and how Las Cruces should develop going forward.
Project Manager Srijana Basnyat said because it’s the community’s plan, it’s important to get as many different perspectives as possible on the project’s ground floor.
“We're looking at the guiding principles so they're very broad and we're trying to define how, what our values are as a community… it's not specific at this stage," Basnyat said. "Once we collect this input, our consultants are going to go back and they're going to provide us with a report and we're actually working very closely with our advisory committee for the comprehensive plan and that consists of people within the community as well. And so, they will have a lot of hands-on sort of feedback on what we're doing as well and then we're going to take all of this and we're going to come up with new guiding principles.”
The plan, which Basnyat said the city is required by charter to update every 10 years, focuses on issues including infrastructure, housing, transportation, land use and community character.
District 5 resident Larry Lufkin attended the meeting held at the Doña Ana Community College East Mesa Campus. Lufkin said he and his wife moved to Las Cruces from the Chicago area three years ago.
“We haven't lived in the city long but we certainly are concerned about a lot of the growth issues and other issues that this meeting is addressing. We definitely are concerned about traffic, especially high rates of speed along Highway 70 where we live. There are a lot of abandoned buildings, even homes in the area, even downtown that I think are definitely keeping the city from being an attraction for more people to move here. We'd like to see more efforts in that area," Lufkin said.
Another attendee, Paul Dulin recently moved to Las Cruces but has been living in Doña Ana County for 23 years. Dulin said it’s important for both the county and city to have continuity between their comprehensive plans. Along with affordable housing, Dulin said he values diversifying the city’s economy to drive economic development.
“There should be alignment of the schools all the way up the universities and to the businesses that there should be, you should have a future in other words in the area. Otherwise you grow up and you leave this community and we have a brain drain," Dulin said. "Our best and brightest don't live here anymore. They go someplace else where they have more together and the important thing is Las Cruces, it is a nice place to live and should stay a nice place to live both from the standpoint of crime but also think about the community's character, think about sustainable growth, think about economic development.”
Along with a resident advisory committee, the city is collaborating with numerous stakeholders and consultants like Texas-based Halff Associates. Vice-President Jim Carrillo said the project will incorporate public input into the plan’s overarching themes like economic prosperity and healthy communities.
“Then from there we go into more detail on specific aspects of the city. For example, the park system. Mobility and transportation and mobility across the board, not just cars; transit, bike and (pedestrian). What can we do to make it easy and connected across the city?" Carrillo said. "So all these pieces, we work on these pieces and at the end of the day, you have this plan that's both visionary but then it has strategies to achieve all those kinds of visionary things at many different levels across the city.”
The meeting attracted mostly older residents, but a city’s success often depends on its ability to retain young people. Doña Ana Community College architecture sophomore Joshua Hernandez said he thinks his generation should be more active in such meetings because they are the city’s future. A Las Cruces native, Hernandez said issues that matter to him include housing and the Organ Mountains.
“I think Las Cruces is doing very well in growing but I don't want to see Las Cruces turn into like a crazy city. We have beautiful mountains that I think need to be preserved, national parks that need to be preserved. But what I would like to see specifically is just more social gatherings as a community and as a city for us to get together more often and have social activities," Hernandez said.
Carrillo said it’s important for the city to reflect landmarks like the Organ Mountains in its identity as it continues to grow.
“Becasue that's one of the things that makes Cruces such a wonderful place to be," Carrillo said. "You've got you surrounded by the Organ Mountains, the beautiful sky, all these things that are just incredible. You want neighborhoods, the downtown area, the newer parts of the city to all have character that sort of reflects that natural beauty but that also creates some semi-communities, smaller communities of their own where people can live and thrive and just enjoy being there.”
An online survey will remain open through Tuesday, Nov. 20. Residents will have more chances to give input through future meetings, surveys, and a design charrette.
City planners said they expect to complete the project by December 2019.
