No. 27 | Urban Sense: The Origins of the Railyard—and the Lessons to Be Learned from Its Creation

In the January edition of The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Home Magazine, I discuss the how the Railyard’s development showcased a successful community-driven planning process, emphasizing public involvement in shaping Santa Fe’s urban spaces. Urban Sense.

Back in 2008, I remember what a thrill it was to see the word “Railyard” on a bus destination. It was even more thrilling to walk through the Farmers’ Market for the first time. And it is still thrilling to see all the activity going on there on any given weekend— the result of a six-month-long planning process in which the citizens of Santa Fe participated in the design of an urban planning project.

Now for a bit of the back story—and perhaps a refresher in some of the lessons learned from the completion of the Railyard that the City—and the citizens—of Santa Fe can apply to other areas of our beloved burg.

Back in 1995 there was land for sale and development that at the time was owned by Catellus, the real estate arm of the ATSF railroad. A Smith’s grocery store was once proposed at the corner of Baca and Cerrillos, but was ultimately deemed unsuitable for that location. (That’s another story). Catellus made a proposal for the 50 acres left in the Railyard to the City, to develop the remaining 50 acres into a replica of the Plaza streetscape, with four-story hotels, stopping the train tracks at Alta Vista. Ultimately this proposal was reviewed and rejected by the Capitol Building Design Review Committee and then the Governing Body. The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a nonprofit started in San Francisco to provide a real estate contract in exchange for conservation of land, brokered the sale between Catellus and the City of Santa Fe. People were excited and delighted that the City now owned the Railyard.

“Visualize the Railyard, Help decide its uses and plans its future.” That was the motto, the request and the hope.

It would be an understatement to say this project attracted a lot of attention. The City wanted to include the community in its planning process by designing different plans in-house and then asking the community to vote on them. The Santa Fe Land Use (another name) community had different ideas. Could we design, they mused, a process that could be more “bottoms up, not top down?”

In addition to the Planning and Land Use departments of the City of Santa Fe, volunteer professionals, enlightened nonprofits willing to take a chance (including the TPL), and many, many other people and institutions devoted much of their time and energy and resources to helping the citizens of Santa Fe visualize the Railyard. Many of the organized neighbor associations provided the connections to the surrounding neighborhoods. The Santa Fe chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Santa Fe Land Use Resource Center and the City of Santa Fe’s Railyard Ideas Center began designing the intensive public planning process that would ultimately result in three weekends of so-called “Design Days.” But first a program, or design brief, was needed for the citizen planners.

In order to provide a program, we at the TPL organized a series of meetings we called public forums. Each meeting had a theme including: The Community’s Vision for their Railyard; Financing the Project; Putting it all Together—What should be built, and how much should remain open space?; and, last but not least, The Future of the Rail Line. And these were only the beginning. Other themes and issues that needed to be addressed included: public open spaces; large-scale public uses; educational, youth and senior-oriented uses; business uses; and, yet again, last but certainly not at all in the least, residential uses and transportation issues.

There are a lot of moving parts when designing an urban space, especially with the prior history of the Railyard; and there are also just as many potentially conflicting future uses to deal with as well. Not only were discussions had at each of these meetings held two days a week, but then questionnaires were handed out and answers tabulated. Later, a long-form survey was filled out by over 600 people. And then there were the scientific surveys done by a pollster (added to the process so that not just the people who came to meetings would be heard, but also those who didn’t come to these meetings could have a say).

For the citizens and the governing body and staff this project presented an opportunity for a different kind of involvement by the community, one where its citizens could become the planners. The professional volunteers and the city administrators used to having control of the design process through their hired professionals had to take a step back and facilitate a design process.

The result, one we now take almost for granted and which so many people—Santa Feans and visitors alike—enjoy daily and especially on weekends, is a vibrant community space beloved by the community—because it was the community who designed it. A fact we should keep in mind as we consider how best to use other upcoming spaces in Santa Fe. Such as the onetime College of Santa Fe.