Thick rolls of paper development plans still circulate in the Santa Fe Planning and Land Use Department, even after many other cities have shifted to the convenience and speed of digital software.

Santa Fe, home to Southwest mountain charm but also stringent aesthetic standards in some corridors and neighbors averse to change, isn’t always an easy place to build housing.

But efforts are underway to make the land use office more efficient — in part by shifting the process online with newly purchased technology — in what many see as a crucial time. A housing affordability crisis is a fact of life now in a city where the average rent cost rose an estimated 74% between 2017 and 2024 and remain stubbornly high.

It is against this backdrop that city officials are aiming to modernize the Plann

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