Court Opinion

ID: 9628011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:04:45.186113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:35.433301
License: Public Domain

SOSA, Senior Justice, special concurring. I concur only in the result reached by the majority opinion. I agree that, under the facts of this case, the City of Santa Fe had no zoning ordinances applicable to state property. This is true, however, not because they lacked the requisite authority to enact historical district zoning ordinances applicable to state property, but because they lacked a valid ordinance with which to do so. The City’s 1973 recodification was not a reenactment of the City’s zoning ordinances enacted in 1957 pursuant to the statutory predecessor of §§ 3-21-1 and 3-21-2, which did not apply to state land. If the City had reenacted its ordinances subsequent to 1961 when the state authorized, in broad and general plenary language, the power of municipalities to regulate all lands, the City’s ordinances would apply to the State Land Office. Once the Santa Fe City Council reenacts the ordinances, they will apply to state land pursuant to the Historic District Act. Section 3-22-2 of the Act makes it very clear that municipalities have full and complete power to regulate historical districts in furtherance of the historical heritage of this state. The legislature of the state of New Mexico hereby declares that the historical heritage of this state is among its most valued and important assets, and that it is the intention of Sections 3-22-1 through 3-22-5 N.M.S.A. 1978, to empower * * * municipalities * * * with as full and complete powers to preserve * * the historic areas * * * as it is possible for this legislature to permit under the constitution * * *. (Emphasis added.) There is nothing in the statute which limits its applicability only to private land. Indeed, had the Legislature intended for municipalities to be able to zone only private land, there would have been no need to enact the Historic District Act, because §§ 3-21-1 and 3-21-2 already enabled municipalities to zone private land. “Full and complete powers” includes the power over state land lying within historic areas.