The following design guidelines are provided to assist owners, designers, and builders in preparing plans that will be in compliance with the covenants. These guidelines are provided for guidance purposes only and compliance to them does not assure ACC approval. The ACC considers a number of site-specific factors such as the size of the lot, the size of the proposed project, the topography of the site, the buildable area of the site (which may be reduced by natural impediments such as arroyos), the context of the surrounding area, the potential for the obstruction of views, etc., along with the covenants and its Design Guidelines when considering an application. The guidelines provide general standards only and the ACC reserves the right to deviate from them, as it sees fit, as dictated by site-specific considerations.

Authority: The SHHA Board formally recognized and adopted the ACC Design Guidelines (as contained in the ACC Handbook and on the SHHA Website) as a "Community Document", thus becoming directly associated with the Sandia Heights Covenants (approved by Board motion, August 11, 2021).

Because each site and each project is unique, applicants are urged to submit their preliminary plans to the ACC as early as possible in the design process in order to determine if there are any compliance issues. This is especially important for new construction and other major building projects. For the same reason, no decision by the ACC on any one case may be used to establish a precedent for the decision on another.