Los Alamos County housing update: What's in the pipeline and where projects stand
County details extensive housing pipeline during work session, addressing ongoing community concerns about availability
Whenever I’m around town, and people stop me to ask a question, it’s about housing. It’s on everybody’s mind. I have some people who are very adamant about the needs that we have in this community, and … there are a lot of people that are suffering, regarding housing. They’re desperate for housing. And so I was just wondering, do you have like an updated flyer that you’re distributing to people, so that they have some idea what’s going on? - Los Alamos County Councilor Melanee Hand, June 17, 2025
I hear you, Councilor Hand. Consider this an experiment1: I don’t know that I’ll have the energy to keep up with all of LA County Council’s goings-on, but on Tuesday, June 17, there was an extensive update on Los Alamos housing that seems worth covering. I’m combining Tuesday’s information with another extensive update from County Manager Anne Laurent last December to give readers a clearer picture of what’s happening with housing in our county.
At the June 17 work session, Los Alamos County officials detailed a “housing pipeline” that includes 134 completed units and hundreds more in various stages of development, ranging from shovel-ready projects to some that have been stalled for years.
Completed projects
Completed projects include the fully occupied Canyon Walk Apartments, with 70 income-restricted units, and The Bluffs Apartments, a 64-unit income-restricted development for residents 55 and older that is currently leasing. Both projects are Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments made possible by county land donations on DP Road. (I wrote extensively about these projects here.)
The county is also nearing completion of an affordable housing preservation project involving 87 deed-restricted units at the Ninth Street Apartments, scheduled to close this month. These units will remain affordable for residents earning less than 45% of the area median income. (“Affordable” is a technical term meaning housing costs are <30% of gross income. And “affordable” also commonly means “subsidized,” see more about that here.)
“We’re getting really close to that, and then we’ll get that program moving forward as well,” said Housing and Special Projects Manager Dan Osborn of the Ninth Street program.
Officials said they believe the county has absorption capacity for another LIHTC development if suitable land becomes available, and developers have expressed interest in coming to Los Alamos, said Osborn.
Projects in progress
Projects currently under construction include the Mirador Subdivision with 161 units, of which 106 have been completed, and the Hill Apartments near the hospital, with 149 units estimated for completion in the fourth quarter of 2025. (Worth noting: “estimated completion” might be taken with a grain of salt, as estimated completion times for most projects in town have come and gone, repeatedly.)
Construction on the Hill Apartments, which has inched along slowly for years, has resumed after resolving contractor disputes, according to the Los Alamos Daily Post. Mirador and the Hill Apartments are both market-rate: meaning, regular unsubsidized housing.
Approved but awaiting financing
An additional 676 units have received Planning and Zoning Commission approval but await financing and construction, said Osborn. These include the 322-unit LA Center development (more commonly known as Mari-Mac) and the 160-unit Cañada Bonita Apartments project.
Mari-Mac, where the old Smith’s has become home to LANL storage, was formerly owned by Kroger but purchased by Columbus Capital in 2023. This parcel has encountered multiple obstacles over the years. Cañada Bonita, planned near the Jewish Center on Canyon Road, has also reportedly run into financing issues. The property owner is Transcor Development, Inc., more about that project (at least, as of 2023) here.
Despite the robust-sounding pipeline, officials admitted that private developers are running into challenges that continue to hamper actual development. “The cost of money continues to go up, and it’s just hard to finance these projects,” Osborn said.
County land strategy drives development
“I’ve been on Council for six and a half years,” said Councilor Randall Ryti. “I believe that the Arkansas Place [housing] might be the only development that has broken ground that is not on a land-transfer parcel.”
Land transfer has indeed been a cornerstone strategy for getting housing developed in Los Alamos. When the county owns land, they can sell it to developers for a discount or provide other incentives to get over some of the financial hurdles associated with developing in remote, hilly, pricey Los Alamos. Los Alamos County is landlocked on all sides by federal and tribal lands, but the Department of Energy occasionally forks over a land parcel—and many hope they will continue to do so. DOE officials have indicated in numerous meetings that this is unlikely, and that this particular source of land may be tapped out—which means the County would have to pivot to other strategies.
In December 2024, County Manager Anne Laurent detailed the county’s extensive land disposal strategy that has enabled much of the current housing development. Over the past 10 years, the county has sold or donated over 32 acres of land for private development, including Mirador, Canyon Walk, the Bluffs, and the Hill apartments.
The county maintains almost 27 acres still available or pending for private development. Properties include the A-8-A site south on DP Road with almost 22 acres appraised at $5.25 million, where the County is working on a development agreement for affordable housing. The county also owns property at 1000 Sombrillo Court adjacent to Aspen Ridge by East Park, though it has “access challenges,” according to Laurent.
Three properties at 20th Street and Trinity, totaling about three acres and appraised at $1.77 million, are under development agreement in the final stages and should come back to Council this year for a mixed-use project that is largely residential with some planned retail space, said Laurent. For readers trying to picture where this is: These are parcels south of Trinity, across from Ashley Pond, near the Los Alamos Schools admin building. The County has been discussing how to leverage the property it owns on 20th Street for a long time.
North Mesa infrastructure challenges
County officials provided updates on housing efforts on North Mesa, where community design sessions have informed plans for new residential construction. The County recently received a draft transportation and infrastructure study for the site near Los Alamos Middle School—also a parcel that has been discussed for many years with little forward progress.
Osborn said infrastructure upgrades to this parcel are more extensive than initially anticipated, with costs estimated between $5 and $8 million. The improvements span everything from the water system to pressure-reducing valves and water towers, as well as ensuring redundant systems to avoid impacting downstream users.
“We've got capacity for one more development up there, which is the Arbolada development that we’re anticipating coming online here in the next little bit,” Osborn said. “But beyond that, the infrastructure is 50- to 70-year-old pipes that are literally bolted to the cliffside out there.”
Funding strategies and state priorities
The County’s Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan for 2027-2031 ranks housing infrastructure as its No. 1 priority, requesting $12 million for roadway and utility development to support affordable housing projects. The plan will be submitted to the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration for potential state funding consideration.
The funding would support some of the housing already discussed: North Mesa housing, the 20th Street project, that A-8-A development on DP Road, and other initiatives like the recent deed restriction purchase at Ninth Street.
The county’s recent budget guidance, dedicating one-quarter cent of gross receipts tax to a housing fund, will provide necessary assistance for future projects, said Osborn. “It goes a long way to helping create that funding source that we need not only to do projects, but to leverage that money to help fund projects,” he said.
Regional collaboration expanding
Economic Development Administrator Shanna Sasser updated Council on efforts to expand partnerships with tribal communities and neighboring jurisdictions to address workforce housing challenges.
The county has engaged in discussions with Santa Clara Pueblo, Buffalo Thunder, Pojoaque Pueblo, and the cities of Santa Fe and Española about potential LIHTC projects and RV park development, Sasser said.
“We’ve met with their economic development people, their housing people, and we’ve had discussions about how can we collaborate, how can we partner, and how can we work together,” she said.
The regional approach gained momentum when the state’s housing office requested a list of shovel-ready housing projects. $110 million in housing funds has been earmarked to distribute quickly, and the regional collaboration resulted in multiple area projects being included in the submission.
“We’ve really been working collaboratively well and starting to build relationships with our neighboring partners to see how we can work together to crack this workforce housing issue that we’re all facing,” Sasser said.
Land use reform?
Ryti raised questions about local regulatory barriers that may be hampering housing development, focusing on areas within the county’s direct control rather than external market forces that County leaders can do nothing about.
Ryti questioned current parking mandates and accessory dwelling unit (ADU) restrictions in Chapter 16, the County’s development code. “I know that there’s been some discussion about parking and how parking minimums add to the cost to housing,” Ryti said. “I think that’s something worth looking at if we’re talking about things that might help with affordability of housing.”
Ryti also wondered if ADU density limitations may prevent neighboring properties from both having accessory dwelling units (also known as granny flats or casitas), even when they meet other requirements. County data shows no ADU applications or permits have been issued despite the County allowing them in many (though not all) neighborhoods.
(The American Planning Association has an explainer on barriers to ADUs here.)
Elias Isaacson, Los Alamos County’s new community development director, said the County is currently doing some minor amendments of Chapter 16, working on changes coming this fall. However, those are primarily clarifications and small adjustments rather than substantive changes.
“Those [bigger] changes are coming later, and that would be the appropriate [time] to look at things like minimum parking standards, ADU density requirements, things like that, to make any necessary changes to make housing both more affordable and easier to develop in the community,” Isaacson said.
Ryti said that with the County so dependent on land-transfer parcels, regulatory barriers may be preventing development on privately owned land. Although staff had informed Planning and Zoning in March 2023, when Chapter 16 was last seriously discussed, that developers were walking away from projects due to regulations that made building fiscally impossible, Osborn responded to Ryti that getting through the County’s entitlement process isn’t typically the challenge developers face—rather, it’s securing financing after approvals are obtained.
Ryti’s questions reflect a broader concern that the County’s development code may be out of sync with its stated goals around affordability and housing supply. Even as the County makes progress on speed of its internal processes, other factors play into feasibility. Rules that limit density, require set amounts of parking, or impose large minimum lot sizes can make housing financially unworkable.
Some scattered updates:
Ponderosa Estates (near cemetery)
Phase III: 48 units with site plan approved years ago
Current status: Infrastructure constraints preventing progress—needs utility infrastructure upgrades to meet County development standards before construction can proceed
Issue: Existing infrastructure wasn't properly engineered/constructed to County standards; requires video inspection of pipes and engineered drawings before County will accept utilities into their system
Arbolada Subdivision on North Mesa (across from apartments)
Updated details: Received sketch plan approval for 137 units
Project layout: Split between single-family homes on the west side and 114 rental townhouse units
Recent progress: Went through first of several Planning and Zoning Commission approvals just last week
Status: Moving forward through entitlements process after resolving previous private equity and financing issues that nixed the earlier approved plan—has different developer
Arkansas Place (North Community/Conoco Hill)
Scale: 44-unit development
Current status: Only 5 units completed (2 occupied, 3 for sale) out of 44 total planned
Stalled reason: Developer needs enough sales interest to fund each building phase - trying to use revenue from one building to finance the next
Approach: Attempting a phased construction strategy to manage cash flow
County role: Limited - this is private development where County provides support but has no direct control
Significance: According to Ryti, this appears to be the only non-land-transfer development that has broken ground in recent years
Also, periodic reminder that I am a Planning and Zoning commissioner, but I only speak for myself and not for the commission.
If you found this useful, please do let me know—it will help me judge whether to do this sort of reporting again.