The Town of Edgewood held a public meeting Nov. 19 to present the draft of its Comprehensive Plan, a 20-year framework for how the town should grow and develop. The plan, which addresses potential future land use, housing, economic development, community facilities, infrastructure and transportation was presented by Edgewood’s consultant Consensus Planning, an urban design and consulting firm based in Albuquerque.
Community Liaison Linda Burke says the public meeting is a great opportunity for the community to voice their interests, their desires and their concerns about the town’s future. She says that the Comprehensive Plan outlines a series of activities that will help Edgewood complete tasks and projects that represent the needs and desires of its residents. However, designing a plan that makes everyone happy can be a bit like walking a tightrope.
“Usually people are very vocal about wanting to maintain our small town feeling, our rural character, our friendliness, our community neighborliness. And some of those are rather intangible, but we kind of innately understand them. Other things are really specific,” she says. “Wanting to secure water for the future, that’s a very tangible act. Getting roads fixed, getting roads paved, those are very tangible. So it’s this balancing act of the things that are clear to define and the things that are less obvious.”
Like always, use of limited water resources was high on the list of concerns Edgewood residents raised at the public meeting, and Burke said it’s a top priority for the town as well.
“In fact, the town is already starting on a 40-year water plan,” she said.
Because the Comprehensive Plan contains data about the two water utilities in Edgewood, residents requested information about the percentage of homes served by private wells — data Burke says can be determined through a process of elimination and added to the plan’s final draft. Attendees were also concerned about the town’s growth rate, and whether Edgewood has enough water resources to accommodate new development and new residents.
“We have been averaging somewhere in the rate of 25 to 30 new homes being built in Edgewood a year over the last three years or so,” Burke said. “We will be looking at data for projections that help us to determine what level of water we are going to need to acquire if we are extrapolating out over a period of 40, 50 or 100 years so that we have a sustainable community.”
The Comprehensive Plan calls for cluster housing, and residents attending the meeting had questions regarding high density housing in Edgewood. Burke said the town could preserve acres of open space by “clustering” groups of homes into spaces about 1/4 the size current zoning requires for individual housing plots. Burke says she believes these potential types of cluster development fit with the “vibe of Edgewood” and what residents wish to see when they look out their windows.
“Our open spaces have beautiful views, but they also allow for more efficient use of utilities infrastructure,” she said. “It does help to build community in a different way, because people are closer together.”
Burke said as Edgewood plans for inevitable growth, ADA compliance is another top priority when planning new projects or maintaining existing spaces and structures.
“The town does want to focus on [having] our public parks and spaces accessible to everyone to some degree,” she says. “And that everyone in the community of all ranges and ages can enjoy the public spaces that we have.”
