Oshara Village in Santa Fe County, New Mexico,

Oshara Village in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, was approved in June, and what a difference a dozen years makes in terms of permitting, according developer Alan Hoffman. Aldea, the county’s first traditional neighborhood development (TND), was designed in 1993 and took 6.5 years and 17 variances to get approved, according to Hoffman, a development partner for Aldea, which is under construction and successful. Oshara, slated to break ground in 2006, took nine months and no variances. “In 11 hearings, not a single citizen spoke against it,” he says. The 470-acre project will have 1,100 residential units and 600,000 to 800,000 square feet of commercial, Hoffman says. Half of the site will remain open space. Lorn Tryk, the town’s urban designer, is working with Hoffman to create a pattern book. Seventy-two builders have signed up; eighteen will be selected. Oshara will be organized around three mixed-use plazas withing walking distance of houses. The first plaza, on a road used by 12,000 cars a day, will be in the first phase. A key to Oshara’s smooth approval process was the establishment in 2001of the Community College District, a 28-square-mile zone that fosters traditional development patterns, says Jack Kolkmeyer, the director of planning for the county. The district, centered on an existing community college, calls for mixed-use centers based on three kinds of patterns — plazas, main streets, and crossroads. Rick Chellman of TND Engineering helped to create the street standards. Another large project, Rancho Viejo, designed by Design Workshop, is underway in the district.