Enclave at High Desert in Albuquerque, NM

The Enclave is one of eight gated villages inside High Desert, the master-planned community that climbs the Sandia foothills between Tramway Boulevard and the Cibola National Forest on Albuquerque's east side. Its declarations were recorded in 1999, part of a build-out that High Desert Investment Corporation and the Albuquerque Academy planned around the terrain: streets cut into the hillside instead of mass-graded pads, native planting left in place, street lighting held to intersections and cul-de-sacs. Two vehicle gates open off Imperata Street, one for general traffic and one for residents alone, with three pedestrian gates for people on foot.

Governance runs on two levels. The Enclave keeps its own village association and sends two voting members and two alternates to the High Desert Residential Owners Association board, while HOAMCO handles day-to-day management, gate keys and access codes.

The village assessment pays for gate operation and repair, parking rules, trash coordination and reserves set aside for work such as street resurfacing. Residents come and go with a clicker, a magnetic card or a personal code; guests use a short code at the entry box, and trucks are routed through the north gate.

High Desert as a whole covers about 1,067 acres and kept roughly 62 percent of its pre-development drainage as arroyo corridors and conservation land, which is why the village streets bend with the slope rather than run straight across it.