Our History

For the past two decades, Commonweal Conservancy has pursued an ambitious vision of conservation-based community building in the northern portion of the Galisteo Basin. Drawing on the skills and experience of staff previously affiliated with the Trust for Public Land, Commonweal embraced the challenge of a conservation development project encompassing more than 12,000 acres.

Conservation Development Business Model

During its first years of practice, the organization carefully assessed the viability of its conservation development business model. With the benefit of a multi-year option contract negotiated with the property’s legacy owner, the Thornton family, Commonweal staff planned and developed two small conservation homestead projects, known as the West Basin Preserve and the New Moon Overlook. The success of those projects prompted Commonweal to establish a third neighborhood in 2007 known as the Southern Crescent.

Master Planning Effort

While developing the Southern Crescent neighborhood, Commonweal launched a master planning effort for a 300-acre mixed-use, mixed-income eco-village, known as Trenza. Painstakingly planned with assistance from nationally acclaimed architects, land planners, and engineers, Trenza was showcased by the Urban Land Institute as a model of environmentally responsible development. The plan won recognition for its commitment to protecting 12,000 acres of open space, as well as for its innovative housing program, urban design, stormwater management, and wastewater engineering, among other attributes.

Building on the success of its conservation homestead projects, Commonweal anticipated that Trenza’s residential and commercial lot sales would repay its land acquisition and infrastructure loans and private equity investors over a ten-year period, while helping to underwrite the preserve’s long-term stewardship.

Effects of the 2008 Recession

Notwithstanding strong support from funding partners, community members, public agency staff, and elected officials, a deep and protracted recession beginning in 2008 rendered the project infeasible. After nine years of creative financial interventions and protracted lender negotiations, by 2017, Commonweal’s financial prospects had become dire.

An Angel’s Intervention

With no foreseeable means of being repaid, the organization’s creditors filed for foreclosure in early 2017. A front-page story in The Santa Fe New Mexican in February 2018 forewarned the community of the preserve’s imminent demise. Unexpectedly, the article also served as a call to action: one that attracted the attention of the president of the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.

Judging the preserve an irreplaceable open space and trails resource, the Thaw Charitable Trust pledged $5.0 million toward the creditors’ release of mortgages. Augmented with $950,000 from Commonweal, individual donors, and property investors, the organization negotiated a buy-out of a $11.0 million debt in July 2018 – setting the stage for the preserve’s permanent protection and, eventually, Commonweal’s financial renewal.

Conservation Easements

By the terms of its funding commitment, the Thaw Charitable Trust acquired the promissory notes and mortgages associated with Commonweal’s credit obligations. In exchange for the debts’ forgiveness, Commonweal committed to overlay the preserve with fully restrictive conservation easements. Over the next four years, Commonweal worked with the Santa Fe Conservation Trust to fulfill its conservation easement responsibilities – an effort that ensured the land’s permanent protection and extinguished the organization’s community development ambitions.

After Commonweal fulfilled the terms of its credit agreement in June 2022, the Thaw Charitable Trust chose to withhold its debt forgiveness obligation until concerns it held regarding Commonweal’s long-term financial viability could be addressed to its satisfaction. 

A Challenge and an Opportunity

Over the course of the late summer and fall of 2022, Commonweal and the Thaw Trust negotiated an agreement that extinguished the Trust’s credit claims. Under the terms of that agreement, the Trust challenged Commonweal to undertake a $2.5 million endowment campaign: one that would fortify the organization’s finances and ensure the preserve’s long-term stewardship.  

To encourage potential donors, the Trust pledged $1.0 million toward a permanent endowment if Commonweal could raise $1.5 million before October 1, 2028.  As a condition of the Trust’s debt forgiveness, however, it retained a right to take ownership of the preserve if Commonweal’s $1.5 million endowment campaign fell short.

Given this reversionary right, Commonweal’s intermediate-term ownership and future stewardship role can best be characterized as conditionally secure.  The organization’s standing as the permanent owner and caretaker of the preserve’s open space and trails is dependent on the endowment campaign’s complete and timely success. 

If the Thaw Trust were to exercise its right to reclaim the preserve for its own management, the deep knowledge, community partnerships, donor relationships and friends that have long distinguished the culture and spirit of the preserve would likely be lost.

In the opinion of Commonweal’s staff and board, the preserve and the organization that created it are inextricably intertwined.  Accordingly, Commonweal’s fundraising efforts cannot be allowed to fall short.  The regional conservation initiatives and community programming planned for the preserve in the coming years will require the generous support of local philanthropists and community members.