Seeing is believing: new software tool helps secure zoning changes. (Visual Clue).(Community Viz)

A NEW DEVELOPMENT ABOUT TO GET UNDER way just south of Santa Fe, N.M., Rancho Viejo--a 21,000-acre ranch that was used as grazing land for more than a century--represents a major change in local zoning, thanks in part to a new type of software.

Tempe, Ariz.--based SunCor Development, which owned about 10,000 acres of the land, wanted to build clustered villages with mixed-use housing and commercial buildings, leaving plenty of open space. But the region's zoning codes specified 2 1/2-acre, single-lot homes. To help garner support for a zoning change, the developer hired Design Workshop, a Santa Fe landscape architecture and planning firm, to show how the site would …