{"id":7481,"date":"2009-10-07T11:45:54","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T17:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=7481"},"modified":"2009-10-07T11:51:09","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T17:51:09","slug":"land-office-may-be-open-to-right-of-way-swap-with-philippou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/land-office-may-be-open-to-right-of-way-swap-with-philippou\/","title":{"rendered":"Land office may be open to land swap with Philippou"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Philippou,<\/p>\n

The State Land Office says it may be open to a right-of-way swap with developer Philip Philippou that\u2019s part of a settlement between Philippou and the City of Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s as long as it\u2019s a good deal for the land office, general counsel Robert Stranahan said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy to try to help them out. As long as we get paid, I\u2019ll find a way to do it,\u201d Stranahan said.<\/p>\n

City officials announced the settlement<\/a> with Philippou last week, months after bringing a lawsuit against him for failing to complete millions of dollars of required infrastructure in neighborhoods he built.<\/p>\n

As part of the settlement<\/a>, Philippou agreed to either give the city a right of way along Weisner Road that he owns, or, if he could get it from the land office, a right of way along Mesa Grande Drive that the city is more interested in.<\/p>\n

The Weisner right of way is larger, at 70.9 acres, than the 47.3-acre Mesa Grade right of way. Philippou agreed to try to make a trade with the land office so he could give the Mesa Grande land to the city.<\/p>\n

Stranahan said Philippou has inquired to Assistant Land Commissioner Jerry King about making the swap in the past — long before the lawsuit was brought by the city — but he said he hasn\u2019t heard of attempts to make such a deal in at least a year.<\/p>\n

The land office would have to consider how much, if anything, Philippou still owes on the Weisner right of way. When measuring that and the value of the two parcels against each other, Stranahan said Philippou would have to pay any difference that exists.<\/p>\n

Because Philippou\u2019s right of way is larger and more expensive, the swap might be possible without Philippou owing extra money, Stranahan said.<\/p>\n

He said which right of way the land office owns is irrelevant, as long as it\u2019s getting paid. The area around both roads on the city\u2019s East Mesa is in the path of future development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to look into figuring out how to do it,\u201d Stranahan said. \u201cIt really doesn\u2019t make any difference to us one way or the other which one we have, because eventually someone is going to purchase the other right of way too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The State Land Office says it may be open to a land swap with Philip Philippou that\u2019s part of a settlement between the developer and the City of Las Cruces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[138,145],"class_list":["post-7481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-growth-and-development","tag-las-cruces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}