## Facts

- Gamble-Skogmo, Inc. obtained a Santa Fe building permit to remodel a commercial building located in the city’s historic district.
- The permit was issued under the city building code and incorporated historic-district design requirements, including a limitation that window panes not exceed 30 inches square.
- The defendants initially installed wooden dividers (mullions) behind larger glass panes to give the appearance of compliance with the window-size requirement.
- After the remodeling was completed but before final city approval, the defendants removed the mullions, leaving large show windows that did not conform to the historic-district requirements or the approved plans.
- The City charged the defendants in municipal court with violating a Uniform Building Code provision requiring construction to conform to the plans and specifications approved with the permit.
- The defendants were convicted in municipal court and again convicted on appeal in the state district court, then appealed to the New Mexico Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether a criminal conviction could be sustained when the historic zoning ordinance contained no penalty clause, but the prosecution was brought under a penal building-code provision requiring compliance with approved plans.
2. Whether the city’s historic-district ordinance was ultra vires under the state’s general zoning enabling act.
3. Whether the ordinance’s historic and aesthetic design controls (including window-size limits) were a valid, constitutional exercise of the municipal police power as related to the general welfare.

## Decision

- The New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
- The court held that the absence of a penalty clause in the historic zoning ordinance did not bar prosecution because the defendants were convicted under a valid penal provision of the building code requiring conformity with approved permit plans.
- The court upheld the historic-district ordinance as within the city’s delegated zoning authority under the general zoning enabling act.
- The court held that historic and aesthetic controls in the district bore a sufficient relation to the general welfare, including economic and cultural welfare, property values, and tourism.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal conviction may rest on a penal building-code requirement to follow approved plans and specifications, even if the incorporated zoning ordinance lacks its own penalty provision.
- A municipality may create and regulate an historic district under a general zoning enabling act authorizing regulations for the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.
- Aesthetic and historic-preservation regulations are permissible exercises of police power when reasonably connected to public-welfare objectives such as economic benefits, cultural interests, preservation of property values, and tourism.
- A permit holder who obtains approval based on compliant plans may be sanctioned for materially deviating from those approved plans during construction.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Santa Fe’s historic-district design controls as a valid exercise of zoning and police power under a general enabling act and sustained the defendants’ conviction because they violated a penal building-code provision by removing features necessary to maintain compliance with the approved permit plans.


City of Santa Fe v. Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., 389 P.2d 13 (N.M. 1964)