RIO COMMUNITIES — Three much-debated zone changes were approved by the Rio Communities Council at a special meeting Tuesday, April 16.

The final vote on the three requests came shortly after midnight after councilors heard from more than a dozen residents and spent a little more than two hours in executive session discussing the applications. Tuesday’s meeting was a continuation of an April 1 public hearing on the zone change requests.

The requests came from Playa Vista Group, which is comprised of property owners Cibola Land Corporation, Abo Viejo Investments and Felipe Sanchez, which have 60, 30 and 10 percent ownership interest, respectively.

Image courtesy of Dekker Perich Sabatini

The most controversial request was for a zone change from planned development to business manufacturing for 268 acres between N.M. 47 and N.M. 304 on the south side of the city. That was approved on a 3-2 vote, with Councilors Matthew Marquez and Tom Nelson voting against the request and Councilors Lawrence Gordon and Art Apodaca voting in favor. Mayor Joshua Ramsell broke the tie, voting in favor of the request.

Marquez said he was voting no “because of the overwhelming input from the city’s residents and the lack of information from Yates and the Playa group.”

Cibola is headed up by oil and gas producer Harvey Yates Jr. Cibola and Yates had brought an almost identical request to the city in 2023, asking for Industrial 3 and Commercial 3 on the properties.

After multiple public hearings with standing-room only crowds, Yates withdrew his application. Since then, the city has reworked it’s zoning code to eliminate heavy industrial and, instead allow for business manufacturing, which allows for a wide variety of light manufacturing, assembly, commercial processing, storage, packaging, compounding and wholesaling as well as distribution operations.

The two other requests were for 39 acres abutting N.M. 304 and 24 acres on N.M. 47 (Rio Communities Boulevard) to be rezoned from planned development to C-2. Both were approved on 4-0 votes.

Before voting on the property located on N.M. 47, Councilor Marquez said, “I’m not happy with where it’s at, but yes.”

Read the April 25 News-Bulletin for more details about the meeting.

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