Rio Rancho council rejects Orchard Park plan for 270 homes

The first practical question for north Rio Rancho is simple: does the 4-2 council vote slow new housing there, or send builders and demand to other tracts in the city? By rejecting the Orchard Park Master Plan, Rio Rancho leaders stopped a 278-home proposal that would have put single-family lots on more than 43 acres near Northern Meadows Unit 19, Yellowknife Drive NE, Wilpett Drive NE and Montoyas Arroyo.

Councilors Deborah Dapson, Jeremy Lenentine, Nicole List and Karissa Culbreath voted no on April 10, while Councilman Paul Wymer and Mayor Gregg Hull voted yes. Bob Tyler was excused. The plan, brought by AMREP Southwest, Inc. through Tierra West, LLC., would have been built in four phases and included open space and parks. But city staff said the applicant’s land-control claim fell short of the city’s updated Development Process Manual, which is now part of municipal code and is meant to set the standards for orderly development.

That ownership issue became the central fault line. City review found that if the unowned holdout lots inside the boundary were counted, AMREP controlled only about 70% of the land needed for the master plan. Planning Director Amy Rincon acknowledged during the meeting that the boundary strategy amounted to a loophole in the manual. Councilors said that meant the project was not truly ready for master-plan approval, even though AMREP representative Sergio Lozoya said the company had been working to acquire the holdout parcels and had sent outreach quarterly.

The park plan drew similar scrutiny. Orchard Park included 2.2 acres of parkland spread across four disconnected parcels, described as just within the 10% deviation allowed under city standards. Councilors said two of those parcels were too small to meet active-recreation requirements, and the plan offered no equipment and only minimal design. Nicole List said the proposal seemed to go “even further down the rabbit hole” of skirting requirements.

The Planning and Zoning Board had recommended approval 6-0 on March 10, but the Governing Body took a stricter line. For residents tracking growth, the decision signals that Rio Rancho is willing to use its revised development rules to slow or stop large projects when land control is incomplete, a stance that could affect where the next wave of homes, traffic and utility demand lands in the city. AMREP and Tierra West declined comment after the vote.