Following a viral post on Nextdoor, a recent northeast Albuquerque neighborhood association meeting saw a record turnout where angry community members showed up to question the new Safe Outdoor Spaces being implemented throughout the city near residential areas.
The Nextdoor post named North Domingo Baca Park as a potential location for the recently passed “safe outdoor space,” a recent KOB 4 news report said. Councilors had provided a map of potential locations based on zoning at a meeting earlier in June, including the lot in question near North Domingo Baca Park, but the location was never set in stone.
“This is the biggest turnout I’ve ever seen in a meeting,” northeast heights resident Amie Norman told KOB 4. “There are probably 150 people that all have something to say, opinions one way or another. I am definitely not for it. I don’t know what the solution is but this isn’t it.”
The meeting follows the passing of two proposals by the Albuquerque City Council on May 16 that were supported by Mayor Timothy Keller that will change zoning codes to allow government-sanctioned homeless tent encampments throughout the city of Albuquerque similar to those in Coronado Park. One proposal, sponsored by Councilor Brook Bassan, proposes the most radical version of tent encampments with a new-use “living lot.” This means people living in light vehicles, recreational vehicles or tents would be given a piece of property—mixed-use zones and non-residential zones—to live on with very little regulation. The other proposal calls for up to 45 so-called “Safe Outdoor Spaces” throughout the city with at least five tent encampments in every council district.
KRQE News reported that at the meeting, Bassan guaranteed attendees that the safe outdoor space was never going to happen south of North Domingo Baca Park or near residential properties in Albuquerque. But residents are already seeing the backlash of the two proposals and are being turned away by the city when asking for help to address homeless people threatening them on residential property.
"It is downright laughable when City Council Brook Bassan says this is a case of 'miscommunication,'" New Mexico attorney Pete Dinelli tole the New Mexico Sun. "At one point she also said 'social media' is responsible for the miscommunication. The truth is, there was absolutely no communication on her part and the City Council to have any meaningful dialogue with city residents on their feelings about Safe Outdoor Spaces, albeit because they know damn well that property and home owners would strenuously oppose them, as they should. City Council Brook Bassan at worst lied and at best mislead her constituents..."
The proposal was opposed by Bernalillo County Commissioner Walt Benson on grounds that these safe spaces would lead to increased rates of crime.
“We’re enabling and incentivizing homelessness and crime,” Benson told KOB 4. “The real winners to these sanctioned encampments are drug dealers and human traffickers. I’m absolutely opposed to it. Setting up a permanent tent where they can just do drugs all day long that’s not the solution.”
A native of Albuquerque, Pete Dinelli is a licensed New Mexico attorney with 27 years of municipal and state government service including as an assistant attorney general, assistant district attorney prosecuting violent crimes, City of Albuquerque deputy City attorney and chief public safety officer, Albuquerque City councilor, and several years in private practice, the Sun said. He also publishes a blog covering New Mexico politics.
