Planning board rejects text amendment to allow outdoor storage and drive‑up restaurants in Rio Rancho’s Business Park zone

The Rio Rancho Planning and Zoning Board voted to deny a proposed text amendment to the city’s Business Park (BP) zoning rules that would have allowed outdoor storage as a primary use and removed a ban on drive‑up service windows for restaurants.

City planner Chris Benson told the board the amendment would add a permissive primary use for outdoor storage to chapter 154.33 and remove the existing prohibition against drive‑up or drive‑through restaurant service in the BP district. "The department recommends denial of this," Benson said, citing the BP district’s original purpose to promote campus‑style employment centers and the code’s existing restrictions that separate storage from those employment uses.

The application, submitted by a private developer and presented by Jim Scrocher of Consensus Planning, argued the narrowly drawn changes would help activate the Los Diamantes business park and supply a service gap for RVs, boats and other vehicles that neighborhood lots do not accommodate. "These amendments, hopefully, would help that effort," Scrocher said, adding the applicant would accept design standards (screening, shade canopies, landscape amenities) intended to keep the use high‑quality and visually compatible.

Panel members pressed both sides on the amendment’s broader implications. Commissioner comments emphasized the BP zone’s original goal to attract larger employers. One commissioner noted that storage and drive‑up restaurants typically employ few people and asked whether allowing those uses would undermine the district’s job‑generation intent: "Storage facilities... typically have a very small staff operating those," a commissioner said. Planning board member comments included practical concerns about allowing a change that could permit many acres to convert to outdoor storage unless the ordinance included limits on percentages or acreage devoted to those uses.

Supporters and opponents also debated alternatives. The applicant said a site‑specific rezoning to M‑1 or C‑2 had been considered but would lose the higher design standards the BP label provides; staff noted that variances to allow specific uses are not an available path because the city does not grant variances for uses. Mike Skolnick, who helped write the BP zoning, told the board he acknowledges the district’s origins but said market realities have shifted since the zone was created and the proposed language would better allow appropriate, well‑designed businesses to locate there.

After roughly two hours of testimony and commissioner discussion, the board called the roll on the motion to approve the amendment; the motion failed. City staff told the board that any further changes to the BP ordinance would require the formal text‑amendment process, including a legal ad and public re‑notice, and likely more time for staff analysis.

The applicant may return with revised language or pursue other planning paths, but for now the BP zoning remains unchanged and retains its existing restrictions on primary outdoor storage and drive‑up service windows.