Cabezon in Rio Rancho, NM

Cabezon is a master-planned community in southeast Rio Rancho, laid out between Unser Boulevard and Golf Course Road with Southern Boulevard along the north and Westside Boulevard to the south. Club North, Inc. planned it, and construction ran from 2004 into 2018 with nine builders working across its named neighborhoods. Most of what stands here is single-family, with a smaller run of townhomes. A city community center, a seasonal pool and a park anchor the middle of the community, and a network of smaller parks and pedestrian trails ties the neighborhoods back to it.

The city formed a public improvement district over Cabezon in 2004, covering roughly 700 acres, to finance a drainage channel and related public work. Its boundaries follow the same four roads that frame the community.

Named neighborhoods make up the whole. Astante at Cabezon, Toscana at Cabezon, Corazon at Cabezon, Yucatan at Cabezon and Yucatan Del Este all sit inside it, and the developer's plan also lists Las Brisas, Arbolera de Cabezon, Arbolera del Este, Rancho Oro and Rancho Plata, plus a townhome group beside Astante.

There is no single homeowners association. Several operate side by side, each responsible for the parks and common areas of its own neighborhood, so rules and dues vary from one street to the next. What they cover generally runs to common areas, road maintenance, the pool, the clubhouse and security.

Recreation concentrates at the park off Cabezon Boulevard, where the community center sits beside a swimming pool that opens on a summer season. The same grounds hold two multipurpose fields, a volleyball net, a playground, shade structures, grills and a short walking loop. More than ten smaller parks, a linear park among them, thread through the rest of the community.