In a move that underscores just how deeply some neighborhood associations fear accountability, three major coalitions have filed a lawsuit against the City of Albuquerque — not to demand more housing or transparency, but to protect their ability to block development with as little friction as possible.
As reported by Downtown Albuquerque News, The plaintiffs include the North Valley Coalition (representing the Near North Valley and Wells Park NAs), the West Side Coalition, and the District 4 Coalition — all claiming that a new ordinance passed in January (O-24-69) unfairly limits their power to appeal land use decisions. Their lawsuit argues that the city should have used a more drawn-out process to pass the ordinance and claims that the bill conflicts with state law.
What the ordinance actually does:
- Makes it harder for small, often unrepresentative groups to derail development on procedural technicalities
- Opens more of Greater Downtown and the UNM/Nob Hill area to multi-unit housing
- Ensures the appeals process doesn’t become a weapon used to delay or kill housing
For many of these groups, this isn’t really about process. It’s about control.
Neighborhood associations have historically operated like civic gatekeepers — often unelected, sometimes exclusionary, and largely unchecked. When they oppose a zoning reform or development, they rarely claim to oppose housing — just this project, that location, those units, those people. Over time, the pattern becomes impossible to ignore.
This lawsuit comes at a moment when cities across the country are dealing with similar challenges:
- In New York, lawmakers and community groups are suing to undo Mayor Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” zoning reform package.
- In Connecticut, residents sued to block a 99-home project near a pond.
- In Colorado, state legislators are now debating whether neighborhood groups should be penalized when they weaponize appeals to stop housing because of issues like this.
- And in California, cities like Lafayette, Cupertino, and even Los Angeles are being sued for blocking housing, not building it.
That’s where this leads. When cities allow NIMBY obstruction to shape policy, they don’t just stagnate — they eventually face legal and financial consequences. California’s housing lawsuits aren’t an outlier; they’re a preview.
Albuquerque, unlike many places, is actually trying to move forward. O-24-69 didn’t eliminate public input. It didn’t cancel appeals. It just added some accountability — including the possibility that groups who file bad-faith appeals might have to share in legal costs if they lose.
That’s what these neighborhood associations are really fighting: not the erosion of “community voice,” but the erosion of unchecked privilege.
They’ve long claimed to speak for the community. But when given the chance to include renters, unhoused neighbors, small businesses, or young families, they often choose silence — or hostility.
This lawsuit is not about protecting neighborhoods. It’s about preserving power. And it’s time we start calling that what it is.
And behind the scenes, these groups have been preparing. At tense, recent meetings of the District 7 Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, members were asked to contribute funds to support this legal challenge. At the City Council hearing for O-25-73 — a follow-up bill that would have removed the possibility of requiring unsuccessful appellants to pay the other party’s legal fees — representatives from the Near North Valley NA objected on procedural grounds. But neighborhood meetings, neighborhood members against the lawsuit, and organizer commentary suggest the real goal was strategic: to preserve a legal pathway for the lawsuit, since the fee-shifting provision was seen by their attorney as one of the most legally vulnerable parts of the ordinance.
In other words: the rhetoric is about fairness. The strategy is about sabotage.
O-25-73 passed anyway though with amendments, with a provision to protect low-AMI neighborhoods from the penalty.
This lawsuit isn’t just about individual associations — it’s being driven by coalitions, many of which are even less accountable than the neighborhood associations they claim to represent. As we explored in Neighborhood Coalitions Are Blocking Albuquerque’s Future—Here’s How We Fix It, these coalitions often operate with no clear structure for resident input, no meaningful transparency, and no requirement to reflect the demographics or interests of the broader neighborhood(s).
In practice, decisions are made by a small handful of board members — often the same people cycling between association and coalition leadership — while renters, younger residents, and others are left out entirely. These coalitions are recognized in Albuquerque’s Neighborhood Association Recognition Ordinance (NARO), but that recognition grants them access, legitimacy, and city attention without requiring them to be democratically representative.
Rather than amplify neighborhood voices, many coalitions subvert them.
Take the Westside Coalition of Neighborhood Associations — one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit and among the most frequent users of the development appeal process in the entire city. As documented in city appeals filings, Its members have filed appeals against projects not just on the Westside, but in areas like UNM and Nob Hill — neighborhoods miles away, with entirely different urban character and needs.
This kind of intervention isn’t neighborhood stewardship — it’s jurisdictional overreach. It further reveals how coalitions, under the pretense of civic engagement, often act opportunistically to obstruct housing, subvert local input, and preserve a suburban status quo far beyond their own footprint. If neighborhood coalitions want to play citywide politics, they should be treated like lobbying groups — not granted special rights under the guise of community representation.
Legally, there’s something else worth noting: these types of appeals — where neighborhood groups challenge land use decisions — fall under the City Council’s purview. There is no inherent right for neighborhood associations to have special standing in these processes. That deference was granted in the post–urban renewal era, when cities (rightfully) sought ways to include community voices after decades of destructive top-down planning.
But instead of creating structures that meaningfully expanded civic participation, many cities — Albuquerque included — ended up giving disproportionate influence to a narrow subset of residents: often homeowners, often older, often whiter, and often deeply invested in preserving the status quo. In practice, the harm of urban renewal was followed not by inclusive rebuilding, but by decades of defensive anti-growth politics and suburban entrenchment.
This isn’t how it works in many peer countries. Cities in Japan, Germany, or even parts of Canada don’t center land use decisions around small, hyper-local gatekeepers. Instead, they approach planning as a shared responsibility — balancing citywide needs, housing supply, climate goals, and economic opportunity through systems of democratic input that actually include everyone, not just those with the time and resources to attend evening meetings.
Neighborhood associations were supposed to be a remedy. In too many cases, they became a rerun — just with a different cast, and the same exclusionary results.
In public forums, online discussions, and even comments submitted to this blog, it’s clear that many coalition leaders and longtime members don’t like being put under a lens. They bristle at the idea that younger residents, renters, or those outside their circles might want neighborhood coalitions to be more democratic, more accountable, or restructured entirely. That’s a fair opinion to hold — but it’s not the only one.
When public opinion is shifting toward support for zoning and appeals reform, when younger residents and those with young children or long work hours feel shut out of neighborhood governance, and when lawsuits are launched in the name of “the community” without ever asking that community what it wants — should we really be surprised that so many Burqueños are calling for change?
Neighborhoods are not the enemy. But neighborhood gatekeeping is. And this lawsuit is a perfect example of why more and more Albuquerque residents want to reform — or replace — systems that claim to speak for them, but never ask what they think.
The Future Belongs to Those Who Speak Out
Albuquerque deserves a future shaped by transparency, abundance, and trust — not delay tactics, fear, and procedural gamesmanship.
O-24-69 is far from perfect, but it’s a meaningful step forward toward a city that works for all of us — renters and homeowners, newcomers and longtime residents, young families, aging neighbors, and everyone in between. A city where housing is a right, not a fight. Where neighborhood groups amplify community voices, not override them.
This lawsuit doesn’t just challenge a bill. It challenges that vision.
But something is shifting. A new generation of Burqueños — from across the city — are tired of being sidelined. They’re showing up to council meetings, organizing, speaking out, and asking hard questions. Not because they want to tear Albuquerque down — but because they believe it can grow into something better.
Neighborhood associations can choose to evolve, share power, and help lead that change. Or they can keep clinging to control, no matter the cost.
Either way, the future won’t wait.
Reimagining Albuquerque 