Issues

Safe and dynamic spaces to play—as parks, playgrounds, sports fields, City-run recreation facilities, and family-oriented entertainment businesses—are crucial for Santa Fe children to grow up physically and mentally healthy, engaged, and happy. But the options available in Santa Fe are notoriously deficient.

Numerous parents and caregivers have voiced concerns about the lack of cleanliness, safety, shade, and facilities in playgrounds and parks. Shade structures cover bare ground but rarely the actual playground equipment. It is common to find needles and other drug paraphernalia nestled in the playground wood chips. Most Santa Fe playgrounds lack basic amenities (like toilet access, adequate lighting) and were purposely designed to be uniform across the city (rather than utilizing modern, diverse, exciting features at different parks). 

Seasonal activity venues are unreliable or nonexistent. For example: The ice-skating rink is often closed for repairs. There are no large affordable performance arts centers in the city for youth extracurricular programs to use. Available soccer fields are too small in number and poorly maintained, often succumbing to mud and goat heads.

Many popular types of family-centered entertainment businesses—for example, trampoline parks, mini golf courses, and other activities for youth and their families—do not currently operate in the City.

Families looking for swimming pools across the city have faced a disappointing cycle of renovation closures, sudden maintenance shutdowns, and severely reduced operating hours. For a city that experiences sweltering hot summers and relies heavily on indoor recreation during the colder months, the lack of swimming pool access has left a void felt deeply in the daily lives of Santa Feans. At the heart of the issue is a compounding mix of long-neglected aging infrastructure, inadequate budgets, and a persistent shortage of lifeguards.

Santa Fe is the only major city in New Mexico without a splash pad, an alternative / additional ammenity which would provide easy relief from summer heat and safe waterplay for all ages. While Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and even much smaller towns across New Mexico boast vibrant, safe splash parks for their residents, Santa Fe remains stuck in the past. Local families are forced to choose between packed, unreliable public pools with restricted hours, or packing up the car to drive an hour or more out of town just to find a decent place for their kids to cool off.

Santa Fe famlies are ready for a splash pad. Modern splash pads utilize closed-loop, recirculating filtration systems specifically designed to recycle water and minimize waste, making them highly sustainable even in arid climates. Furthermore, they don't require the lifeguards that Santa Fe's public pools are constantly lacking, making them a cost-effective solution to the city’s ongoing water recreation shortfall.

High-quality childcare is a recurring and often expensive necessity for families. The State of New Mexico has recently provided more support, by funding free childcare for families and universal free PreK (ages 3-5). Additionally, in 2022, the City passed an inclusive zoning ordinance permitting small (6) and large (12) home-based childcare in all zoning districts except industrial. However, significant barriers for Santa Fe families remain.

Families struggle to find childcare providers with space to care for their children. There are not enough providers and wait lists are very long. It is not uncommon for parents to need to return to work long before a childcare spot becomes available. 

Families with infants and young toddlers who cannot receive income-qualified financial aid, and cannot find placement with a provider registered to provide state-funded free childcare, often still struggle to afford the full cost charged by providers, frequently upwards of $20,000 per year per child.

Residents report that City staff are confused about how to implement the new zoning ordinance and permitting processes—which delays or blocks new home-based daycares and early childhood education programs from opening. If the supply of childcare providers does not increase, Santa Fe working families will remain underserved, facing decisions to leave the workforce (due to lack of childcare) or to pay unaffordable childcare and preschool admission rates.