Cancun urban planning regulation suspended

Cancun, QR. The Second District Court based in Cancun granted the provisional suspension of the Urban Development Program (PDU) of the Benito Juárez municipality, which implies the suspension of construction licenses and other permits that affect mangroves and wetlands issued by the municipal authority, based on that document approved a little less than two months ago.

This was announced by the association Right to a Healthy Environment (DMAS) –the same one that promoted the injunctions that temporarily paralyzed Section 5 of the Mayan Train–, according to which the injunction against the PDU should also paralyze the works of the Nichupté Bridge, another project of the federal government that is currently being built in Cancun.

However, the mayor of Benito Juárez, Ana Patricia Peralta, assured that the suspension of PDU does not have the scope that environmentalists refer to, since the city council has no interference in federal works, that is, that the local authority did not issue permits that authorize the construction of the bridge, so it must go ahead.

The general secretary, Jorge Aguilar Osorio, assured that the amparo has no effect, since the city council has not issued construction licenses on mangroves or wetlands, since it is not a municipal authority, so there is no construction license that must be suspended. as an effect of protection.

The facts

The Nichupté bridge is included in one of the 11 action areas into which the suspended PDU is divided, which the DMAS organization assures is one of the reasons why the work must be suspended, since the bridge also crosses a wide mangrove area that is in fact a protected natural area known as Manglares de Nichupté.

“The consolidation of the Nichupté Bridge and the impact generated by its construction requires integrated urban actions, which is why two action polygons integrated into a single action system are established with the intention of intensifying the uses and urban parameters of the adjoining properties. To the bridge. This, with a vision of the equitable distribution of burdens and benefits that this project will generate for the city”, reads the PDU-2022, provisionally suspended by a judge.

On this point, the judge’s ruling refers verbatim: “in the case of land use licenses, construction licenses and/or expansion of buildings, based on the PDU 2022, which, where appropriate, the responsible authorities have granted and that affect wetlands, mangroves and cenotes, the Karstic ecosystem and the Mesoamerican Reef System (SAM), activities related to civil works are suspended”.

The judge’s ruling goes further, since it asks the Benito Juárez city council to specify the “official sources” that it used and to specify how it used them, whether they were documentaries or field studies, economic impact, environmental biological impact or impact social, for the issuance of the 2022 Urban Development Program, that is, the court will analyze the foundations of the municipal authority to verify the validity of the entire document.

Prior to the protection, not only environmental organizations, but also the Cancun, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres Hotel Association spoke out against the PDU, because in one of its sections the door is left open for the construction of up to 3,000 accommodation units in the Cancun hotel zone, specifically in the exclusive Pok Ta Pok development.

The objections to the document also refer to the fact that it was not socialized with the inhabitants of Cancún and that in addition to the overdensification that it allows in the hotel zone, it lacks an urban resilience index, load capacity studies in the face of the lack of water infrastructure, drainage and electrical energy.

Its detractors also assure that it lacks information on High Risk that protects wetlands, mangroves, cenotes and, therefore, the population, as well as mobility studies, among others.

estados@eleconomista.mx