Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs).

Since the dawn of civilization, man has looked at the stars and dreamt about their meaning. There's a primal need for man to gaze at the night sky, and to wonder about his place in the universe.

Dark, night skies have been an essential element in the collective growth of mankind, influencing the very idea of what it means to be human. Without protection of our night skies, it will be difficult, if not impossible for future generations to have, or even to imagine the experience that New Mexico Skies has to offer.

Without conscious action on our part, future generations will not experience the night sky as we, and our ancestors have known it. For the first time in human history, the world's dark night skies have become a rare and ever vanishing asset.

The star filled sky is a precious treasure for all of mankind, and we have a duty to preserve New Mexico Skies for generations to come.

M-33. - This is a SINGLE 5 MINUTE IMAGE
with a Takahashi 180 mm scope,
a "one-shot" Canon 20Da, DSLR Camera,
taken from New Mexico Skies
by a beginning imager.

Our Goal.

New Mexico Skies Astronomy Enclave offers extraordinary sky conditions, found no where else in North America. The 7,200' elevation, the exceptionally dark skies, the excellent seeing, the phenomenal transparency, the clean dry mountain air, and a micro-climate that's second to none makes New Mexico Skies so very remarkable.  

The purpose of these COVENANTS is to allow those uses that are compatible with and that will enhance New Mexico Skies distinction as North America’s premier location for amateur astronomy, and to prohibit those uses that would be incompatible with astronomy.

Our community is dedicated to the preservation and protection of the dark night skies, and we choose to subject ourselves to these Covenants in order to promote the proper use, the appropriate development, and suitable improvement of the community.

Highlights of the Covenants

We have over 50 pages of CC&Rs, all of which are designed to protect our night skies. We can't cover all the details here, but rest assured that between the CC&Rs, the HOA rules and bylaws, you'll be enjoying the DARK night skies for generations to come.

Why 50 pages?

Some folks have questioned why we need over 50 pages of CC&Rs, and the easy answer is:
"WE DON'T NEED THEM, WE WANT THEM."   

A somewhat more appropriate answer is:  
"WE WANT TO PROTECT OUR NIGHT SKIES FOR GENERATIONS TO COME."

We know that 99.999% of all amateur astronomers DON'T need the CC&Rs to tell them what to do. The honest and honorable amateur astronomers will read the CC&Rs once, they'll say to themselves: "That makes sense", and then file them away. Good neighbors will protect our night skies because it's the right thing to do, and they'll protect our night skies because they want to.

Decent people already know how to be good neighbors, and the CC&Rs won't impact them at all. But, unfortunately, there's always a chance we might get a "bad-apple". That's why we have 50+ pages of CC&Rs. If it ever becomes necessary to enforce the CC&Rs, we'll have the ability to do so.

Think of the CC&Rs as being the rules or the "laws" of our community. You've probably never read all of the Federal Laws, State Laws, County Laws and City Laws that apply to your present homesite. But when things go wrong, you're sure glad they're in place. In all honesty, we're only interested in having neighbors who don't need rules, regulations and laws to tell them how to act.

Our developer, Tom Simstad, has personally developed over 700 residential lots, and numerous commercial properties. He's never had to enforce the CC&Rs in any of his communities.

Simply stated, good people want to live in a community that has good, common-sense rules that protect their common interests. Voluntary compliance is what makes good communities GREAT.

It's sad to say, but no one should seriously consider moving into any community without adequate CC&Rs. In many areas, the CC&Rs offer the only real protection for the common interests of the community.

Interesting Facts:

New Mexico Skies Astronomy Enclave is located in the Sacramento Mountains, which is in a fairly remote part of southern New Mexico. We're located on a privately owned mountain top, surrounded by the Lincoln National Forest. The valley immediately to our north is known as James Canyon and it's approximately 400' below our mountain. State highway 82 runs through James Canyon from Alamogordo, east to the Atlantic Ocean.

Over 99% of the surrounding land is part of the Lincoln National Forest, so we're assured that our excellent dark skies will be around for a very, very long time....