Thoughts on Edgewood from locals, please! (Albuquerque, Santa Fe: skateboarding, crime, mortgage)

[Homewardbound66]

Would really love to hear from the locals about their life in Edgewood. We recently purchased a home there and will be moving VERY soon. We are so excited to be in horse country and believe it or not, the road we are moving to is the same name as my first horse. The seller's nickname is the same as our last name and our mortgage company is the same name as our home town. Too many signs to ignore. Anyways, please either p.m. or just post what you love or dislike about your community. Thanks!

[Homewardbound66]

I'm really not doing this to bump the thread back up, but its amazing there's 20 some views and no one replies. Maybe Edgewood people are more outside and not on their computers as I am here in Cabezon. I bet that's the reason.

[abqsunport]

Well Edgewood is beautiful, but it can get very snowy and icy in the winter so I would advise a vehicle with 4WD. Other than that, Welcome to the Land of Enchantment!

[rotorhead]

Edgewood has had a bit of a reputation problem to live down. In the past, it was one of the places where you pulled your single-wide to when you could no longer afford to live in Albuquerque. It's made a lot of progress since then, has some relatively new schools, lots of "real houses" instead of a sea of trailers.

On the positive side, you do get a more rural experience in Edgewood, there's no denying that. While winter conditions can be harsh for livestock (better build a decent horse barn if you're gonna keep 'em) at least you CAN have a horse there if you have the acreage. Most areas are also still cheaper than you can buy in town as well. Edgewood has a more open feel to it as well, there's not that sense that the Sandia are "looming" over you like in some parts of ABQ.

On the negative side, a lot of the roads there are still dirt and can get very muddy at times, especially in the spring if there's been heavy snow. Since most of it is in Santa Fe county instead of Bernalillo county, don't expect the first priority when it comes to snow removal either. Many folks in Edgeworld think that the areas nearer to the city of Santa Fe get the lions share of the county road crews attention when the white stuff falls in quantity. Whether it's true or not, the general feeling is that Edgeweird is sort of the "red-headed stepchild" when it comes to spending road money and such.

If you live in Edgewood and work in ABQ, you'd better have a backup plan for the inevitable day when you're trying to get home and snowfall closes the freeway. Just about every year theres a couple of storms that surpass the states feeble efforts to keep the roads through Tijeras pass open, and the state police respond by just stopping ALL traffic. Sometimes it goes on for quite a while, there's been times in the past where they've kept I-40 and Rt. 66 closed for two or three days at a time. If you're stuck in ABQ and the kids are getting out of school in Edgewood, you've gotta have some friends or neighbors who you trust and are willing to step in, and they've gotta be there on the E. side as well. If one parent usually stays at home anyway, you've just gotta be proactive about second-guessing the weather. Be prudent about when you go shopping and such in ABQ, you don't want both parents caught at the same time.

And then theres the biggie....water. Edgewood has a patchwork of private and community wells and several commercial water systems. The aquifer there was inadequate to the needs of the community years ago, and the population has exploded since then. It's not unknown for a "good" well to suddenly run dry because a neighbor drilled his well deeper, or somebody somewhere nearby started pumping more, or for no apparent reason at all. The water situation there is highly variable, but can get pretty bad in the dryer years since so many people have relatively shallow wells and there is no unified, underlying aquifer to recharge the local strata. If you see a lot of folks in the area with big, domed plastic tanks in the back of their trucks it's usually a bad sign as per the well situation. If you end up hauling water yourself or paying a commercial firm to do so for you, you'll find that the land out there is suddenly a lot less attractive regardless of the low price.

[nm_photojournalist]

There really isn't much to the "town" of Edgewood at present, but I'm sure we're going to see that change over the next 10-20 years.

Rotorhead, or I should call him "Mr. Rotorhead" after such an informative (and true) posting in response to your query. He has just about said it all.

I would just add that in the area from Tijeras, east to Edgewood, the land south of I-40 is more hilly, and "scenic" with a lot of pinons, and lone oak still around. North of I-40, it is pretty flat, so correspondingly, you get more land there for the same money as a smaller piece on the south of I-40.

The east side of the Sandias & Manzanos does get much more snow during a "wet" winter than the Albuquerque side. Last winter, it was a real mess in the Edgewood/Moriarty area...the year before we had a very mild winter, and almost no snow. If you were buying or building around Edgewood, I'd want to be very close to a paved road...maybe 1/4 mile maximum! As the former responder said, it wouldn't hurt at all to have at least one 4x4, just in case. On some of those roads, even a 4x4 can't get through when the ruts in resulting mud gets too deep. If your propane delivery truck can't get through...you're in for some very cold nights too!

When the weather is nice, it's a great area to "escape" the freeways, and other urban hassles though.

Adios!

[6 FOOT 3]

Here's a good article on the Mountain Journal (9/1/07) about Edgewood Booming....

Mountain View Telegraph: Edgewood Development Is Booming

[concernedforedgewood]

The town council and the Planning & Zoning Commission, under the guise of business development, are currently engaged in a campaign that is destroying much of the rural character of the town. Large swaths of prime residential neighborhoods are being sold off to the highest bidder for commercial development. Despite the town's original plan to commercially develop along historic Rt. 66 (where there is ample commercial space and the preponderance of the town's businesses) the town council and the zoning commission have continuously voted to permit commercial development along the previously residential Rt. 344 corridor as well as other areas. In complete disregard of often unanimous public opposition to checkerboard zoning and ill-advised development, both the town council and zoning commission routinely disregard such overwhelming public sentiment and change the zoning designations of large areas. When current regulations prohibit their agenda, they have been known to simply rewrite the regulations. It is widely rumored that many of these same officials routinely benefit financially from their development decisions and appear to be answerable to no one. It is very much a wild west and good ol' boy government structure.


The largest and most obvious example of this out of control government is the town's decision to allow the building of a Wal*Mart Supercenter in the middle of a prime residential area along Rt. 344. Representatives of the town readily admit being aware of numerous reports that show that most Wal*Mart's take more from a community in services than they give back in revenues but they approved it anyway and severely impacted the property values of hundreds of homeowners by its placement. Though Wal*Mart will occupy less than 50 acres of a 300 acre lot, rather than confine commercial development to that area, the town voted to approve residential zoning for the balance of that lot and rezone other residential areas to commercial use. Since there is apparent logic applied to this agenda, speculation is that such decisions are driven by the personal financial gain of the individual government members.


Most zoning commission meetings are missed by half of the members of the commission but the mayor consistently refuses to replace these no-shows with any citizen that is likely to disagree with his agenda. Therefore most decisions are made by half the appointees or less. In a typical scenario, a developer offers a residential property owner double what his land is actually worth (and half of the prevailing commercial property rates) if they can convince the town to rezone. The commission rarely refuses such a request. Most commercially zoned areas remain empty and other residential property owners are literally robbed of their home values.


The council has incessantly annexed large areas adjacent to the town while unable to provide basic services to even existing parts of Edgewood. Many roads through town are not maintained and are virtually impassable in heavy rain or snow. The only park facilities consist of approximately 1/4 acre of mostly skateboarding ramps, is located in the heart of the most crime-ridden area and is typically used by these criminals. They have no police department and a severe property crime and drug crime problem.


On its current track, Edgewood is becoming one of the least desirable towns in New Mexico.

[Homewardbound66]

Well we are moved into Edgewood and WE love it! I do live off of Route 344 and am very aware of the Supercenter being built. I think Route 66 would have been a better idea, but so what! I would not call Edgewood werid or anything derrogative. We enjoy the down to earth people, the BEAUTIFUL sky, the open feeling (2 acres), and the incredible mountain views. We could have bought in the mountains, but I am extremely happy with this community. My son is enrolled in a wonderful school 3 days a week and we joined a Moms' group. We're starting to meet neighbors and plan on joining a church very soon. Life is what you make of it and as far as the commercial development - oh well - my house just went up in value because there may be a hospital built soon. I may even work at Wal-Mart to pay for my son's schooling next year. I am glad we're on 2 acres and all our neighbors are because we will never be boxed in again. If anyone's considering Edgewood and like rural life as we do, come on out and be happy and at peace.

[nm_photojournalist]

I'm so happy that you've found Edgewood to your liking. No place is perfect of course.

I wasn't even aware Edgewood was getting a Super WalMart. Was this always planned I wonder, or did it occur after Moriarty turned it down? I wouldn't be surprised to see Edgewood grow to near Moriarty's size within ten years. With more, and varied businesses, Edgewoodians (what else?) will in the near future, not even have to go to Albuquerque for their basic shopping needs.

With a couple acres, you'll always have some room to stretch out! :-)

Welcome to New Mexico! It doesn't sound like you need too much convincing that this is a great place to live. CYa.

[6 FOOT 3]

Originally Posted by Homewardbound66

Well we are moved into Edgewood and WE love it! I do live off of Route 344 and am very aware of the Supercenter being built. I think Route 66 would have been a better idea, but so what! I would not call Edgewood werid or anything derrogative. We enjoy the down to earth people, the BEAUTIFUL sky, the open feeling (2 acres), and the incredible mountain views. We could have bought in the mountains, but I am extremely happy with this community. My son is enrolled in a wonderful school 3 days a week and we joined a Moms' group. We're starting to meet neighbors and plan on joining a church very soon. Life is what you make of it and as far as the commercial development - oh well - my house just went up in value because there may be a hospital built soon. I may even work at Wal-Mart to pay for my son's schooling next year. I am glad we're on 2 acres and all our neighbors are because we will never be boxed in again. If anyone's considering Edgewood and like rural life as we do, come on out and be happy and at peace.

I just went out to Edgewood this weekend and wow its growing especially on RT 344. The new supercenter and the widening about 5 miles or so of RT 344 off I-40 as its starting to look like a town now. Its still very rural out there as you look east to Moriarity with miles and miles of nothing but Plains as far as the eye can see. Glad your happy out there Homewardbound as i like it out there too.....