Motel Conversions Petition

Editorial: Oct. 13, 2022

The City of Albuquerque is involved in another City boondoggle where people living in the area, including the businesses affected, are living in the dark—not having been notified of the project, nor does the City plan to notify the public for fear of losing the deal that is pending at this time.

It is a Tiny Homes-type public project (but many times larger) with an impact that could stand to destroy an entire business district near I-40 with repercussions that will be amped-up for additional purchases. Lisa Huval, Director of Housing for the City, said specifically, the city’s efforts will be “scaled up.”

Since last fall, the City of Albuquerque, and the Real Property Division, has been interested in purchasing the Sure Stay Hotel on Hotel Circle, a private hotel business directly across the street from the Econolodge and Days Inn hotels. These for-profit hotels are bordered by other for-profit businesses in the largest shopping area in SE and NE ABQ near I-40. These businesses comprise restaurants and big box stores that attract large numbers of clients and tourists to the area such as: Sadies, the Owl Café, and Applebees, along with Target, Office Depot, Best Buy, Home Store, PetCo the Mattress Store and others, businesses critical to the healthy economic welfare of District 9 and surrounding communities.

Prior to, and to be able to make the purchase, the city needed to create an amendment in the IDO (formerly the zoning plan) which would allow for this type of purchase and conversion. Thus, the creation of the loosely crafted “Motel Conversion” IDO amendment, which the City Council voted for (with some opposition), which allows for a commercial structure, not originally built or intended for permanent housing of individuals, to be converted into a structure without a “full kitchen” (microwave and dormitory-style frig). With this change in zoning code, the city could then purchase various commercial-type buildings for the use of Family & Community Services for permanent public housing projects. Anyone staying in a motel room for longer than a week, knows first-hand how insufficient these units are for permanent living conditions, especially for a family without a freezer for other than immediate needs, no oven, and very limited space.

A “sister” amendment made during this same IDO process established the creation of “Safe Outdoor Spaces,” where as many as 40 to 50 individuals could live on one lot in tents and/or vehicles. That amendment garnered more public, press, and media attention than the “Motel Conversions” with more units because of the back-and-forth battles between the City Council and Mayor over the S.O.S amendment (it passed the Council, then then Council passed a moratorium that the Mayor vetoed, and the Council could not override his veto). And so, the City’s first “Safe Outdoor Space”, went forward on land the City purchased on Menaul, facing a major car dealer near I-25. When the surrounding neighborhood and businesses learned after the fact of the City’s purchase and intent, there were major public objections. Seven different appellants, many hiring attorneys, at no small cost filed an appeal with the Land Use Hearing Office (LUHO) to stop the process from going forward. Each of the complaints sounded similar: loss of business income, expensive cost of private security, and threat of the location becoming even more unsafe and ill-suited for business purposes. The fact of the matter was, that the City’s location of the S.O.S on Menaul violated the City’s own goals “to situate similar businesses  together“ (the City’s justification  for allowing multiple cannabis stores in close proximity). But the outstanding legal fact at the LUHO Hearing was that the City never notified any surrounding/bordering business that the City intended to put inferior residential living spaces next door to their businesses. The General Manager of the Crown Plaza testified to the LUHO Officer that the hotel had been losing business due to the large number of homeless loiterers and high crime in the area. Since the announcement of the tent location, the Crown Plaza had over $750,000 of repeat convention contracts cancelled, all for reasons that the area had become unsafe.

The City’s modus operandi repeats itself with regard to the new and pending Motel Conversions. Not a single business along Hotel Circle, from Lomas to Eubank has been notified of the City’s year-long plan to buy the Sure Stay Hotel for Family & Community Services to provide permanent public residential housing, using tax-payers’ federal tax funds through HUD for the purchase.

On Sept 23 of this year, the City buried a request in the Journal’s Gov’t Legals from Dept. of Family & Community Services (Director Carol Pierce) to HUD to: use funds: from $3,059,662.12 Community Development Block Grant; $2,443,724.00 from Public Facilities monies; and $615,938.12 from Foreclosure Prevention to purchase the Sure Stay Hotel. This “rob Peter’s funds to pay Paul’s property purchase” shell-game totaled $6,119,324.24.

BUT, six days later, on Sept 29, 2022, the ABQ Journal printed in Govt. Legals: Notice of Finding of No Significant Impact and Notice of Intent to Request Release of Funds from HUD, stating: “on or after Oct. 17, 2022 the City of ABQ, Dept. of Family and Community Services will submit a request to the HUD ABQ Field Office for the release of CDBG CARES and HOME American Rescue Plan (HOME_ARP) funding to the Sure Stay Hotel Acquisition and Renovation Project for the permanent housing with supportive services….” The total Hud funding is estimated at $7,559,662.12.

There are 3 problems with this: 1) The HUD request for release of funds increased by almost a million and one-half dollars from one document to another, over 6 days; 2) No businesses were notified and still have not been notified in writing or in person, as of this writing, by any public or elected official, and 3) the request now states the purpose for the purchase to include “supportive services.” What is that, and how much will these “services” cost the taxpayer over the years? (When asked that question, Monica Montoya, Manager Community Development Program, reported back to me that these “supportive services” include such things as the delivery of vaccines and food boxes.

This seems like another flawed Tiny Homes Project ramped up by over 50 or more units? And what additional business properties does the City intend to purchase? The vacant Ramada next to Sure Stay, perhaps? Who are the sales agents for these sales? How many reputable businesses will be put out of business when these projects pop up? Will you see one of these ill-planned projects springing up next to you?

Although this is the City’s first purchase of a Commercial Property or Motel Conversion, it certainly plans others. Oct. 2, 2022, the ABQ Journal pg. A8, Jessica Dyer reports, quoting Dir. Lisa Huval: “The city’s newest initiatives include buying and converting hotels into affordable efficiency apartments, something made easier by a recent zoning change (IDO). The city plans to start with one property and “scale up,” Huval said. It currently is working toward buying the Sure Stay Hotel at 10330 Hotel NE, but the deal is not done and a city spokeswoman said she could not yet provide additional details about the plan.”

Isn’t this process backwards? Shouldn’t the City be asking the businesses in and around Hotel Circle how this public housing project will affect their businesses and economic well-being first? It appears the City is running rough-shod over everyone. There is no comprehensive plan for these commercial take-overs for permanent public housing projects. Until the City can provide a plan, the public should be wary.

In the City’s bid for fire-sale purchase of commercial buildings, according to the Journal article by Jessica Dyer, Lisa Huval justified the “scaled up” purchases by saying, “The City Council also this spring approved borrowing $20 million as part of a $100 million gross receipts tax bond package for affordable housing, which Huval said can go toward creating new units or acquiring and rehabilitating property.”

What she did not say was that for over a year now, the City has been planning to buy the Sure Stay Hotel on Hotel Circle, planning to change the IDO to make this and other purchases possible, to use one-fifth of the tax bond package for “inferior housing” and then that the City would turn these City purchases over to Not-for-profit entities to run them, all plans and actions that fail to notify the public or the businesses imminently affected. Is this what we voted for in the bond election?

All of the businesses I personally visited across the street from the Sure Stay or in the shopping center at Lomas and Eubank are 100% against the City’s purchase of the Sure Stay hotel for low-income, possibly no-income (before benefits), permanent residential public housing project.

The city has now made a formal offer on the Sure Stay property and it remains to be seen if the owner of the Sure Stay Hotel will accept the offer. The question remains: Is this the way to run a City?

If your answer is “No, this is NOT the best way to run a city or a public housing program, by buying up commercial properties willy-nilly, without a plan, anywhere the administration wants, without proper notification to the public, and failing to justify their drafts of HUD money then you need to push back against the City and HUD funding.

If you want to voice your opinion against the City’s purchase of the Sure Stay Hotel or any other motels for conversion into insufficient housing for permanent public “Projects” for low-income, homeless, or any other individuals, please add your name to the petition requested by the surrounding businesses on Hotel Circle.  Please support these businesses by urging the City’s Planning Dept. to amend the IDO by repealing and rescinding the “Motel Conversion” amendment.

Colleen Aycock