Rio Rancho Council Approves 109-Unit Encore Multifamily Subdivision on Broadmoor Boulevard

Rio Rancho's Governing Body voted March 26 to approve the Encore Multifamily subdivision, clearing the way for 109 housing units on 11 acres along Broadmoor Boulevard in the city's northern corridor, a decision that drew public pushback over the Santa Fe Group aquifer, the only groundwater source serving the entire city.

The council approved the site plan on the meeting's consent agenda in a recorded vote, bundling it with routine implementation items. Planning staff had recommended approval with findings and conditions, and the council voted in alignment with that recommendation.

Encore organizes 28 lots across the 11 acres, with individual lots ranging from 2 to 7 units each, yielding roughly 109 units at full buildout. The approval came attached to conditions, meaning developers cannot pull building permits until those requirements are satisfied. Vertical construction depends entirely on completing that compliance phase first, making the council's vote the legal gateway but not the construction trigger.

The project lands on a boulevard already absorbing significant strain. Broadmoor has been the subject of a nearly yearlong city road reconstruction and waterline replacement project, and striping work on the corridor was still underway the same week the council voted. A 109-unit residential buildout bringing construction staging, material deliveries, and new driveway traffic to the same road compresses multiple pressures onto a single arterial.

During public comment, at least one resident raised concerns about the added demand that denser development places on the Santa Fe Group aquifer. Rio Rancho draws its entire water supply from that aquifer, a sediment formation extending thousands of feet beneath the Albuquerque Basin, and growth without commensurate supply expansion remains a persistent fault line in northern Rio Rancho's development debates.

The same March 26 consent agenda that sealed Encore's approval also included a well rehabilitation contract that, once completed, could restore roughly 2 million gallons per day of production capacity. Whether that recovered supply keeps pace with the demand 109 new units generate is a question the city's water utility will carry forward as the project moves through engineering and permitting.