Playa del Carmen Infrastructure Crisis: Experts Warn of Imminent Collapse

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — Specialists and environmentalists have blamed government officials for the infrastructure lag plaguing the city, following decades of tolerating violations of construction and environmental laws.

Consulted by POR ESTO!, architects and engineers denounced that official omission allowed for disorderly growth that is now collapsing services and the natural environment.

Additionally, real estate developers have taken advantage of legal gaps to overdensify the city, which has been lagging in this aspect for over 10 years.

Meanwhile, the municipal government authorized changes in land use from residential to commercial lots to construct buildings outside the Construction Regulations, reaching up to eight and twelve stories, overloading the capacity of basic services that—according to biologists and architects—is concerning given the possible collapse of the sanitary drainage network.

According to a member of the College of Architects, Playa del Carmen has a population of over 400,000 inhabitants, with serious social problems regarding drinking water and sanitary drainage networks, roadways, parking spaces, electrical energy, deterioration of urban image, signage, as well as ramps for disabled individuals.

Saturation of Services

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), from the last Population and Housing Census in 2020, Playa del Carmen has 304,942 inhabitants, while the municipal government maintains there are 333,800.

Inegi has not updated its data and states that the annual growth rate of Playa del Carmen has been estimated at 7.5%, largely driven by tourism and real estate investment, but a population growth of 110% was reported between 2010 and 2020.

Municipal government personnel indicate that the annual growth rate is 6.80%, with 3.37% natural growth plus 3.43% social growth.

Demographic Explosion

The tourism boom in Playa del Carmen accelerated urban growth in a disorderly manner. Residential plots in the city center, Gonzalo Guerrero, and the Zazil-Há neighborhood ceased to be popular neighborhoods by becoming zones for vacation rentals with the construction of overdensified buildings of eight and ten stories high.

In this context, environmentalist Jorge Fuentes Gómez opined that thinking about green cities is a utopia because at least the first block of the city is overdensified, there are no trees, nor spaces to reforest with regional trees; only ornamental plants might be planted.

He described that Zazil-Há is composed of around 400 lots inhabited by three to four people on average, mostly by workers.

However, they have now become commercial lots where an average of between 30 and 32 people live, overloading the capacity of water and sewer networks, electrical energy, solid waste collection services, saturating roadways with more vehicles due to lack of parking spaces.

Excessive Density

For biologist Gabriel Robles, the infrastructure of basic services has been lagging for over 10 years and has been overloaded by changing land use from residential to commercial. The serious issue is that the government has not invested in expansion and optimization of improved infrastructure in 20 years.

“The government must urgently conduct an analysis and evaluate the first block of Playa del Carmen to determine investment amounts with the purpose of expanding infrastructure and optimizing basic services, guaranteeing the supply of drinking water, as well as the safety of the sanitary drainage network to prevent spills and cause environmental and public health damage,” stated the biologist.

Additionally, the government became a collector of income by authorizing land use changes, but there is no transparency regarding income from those procedures, and that money could be used for urban improvement, explained Gabriel Robles.

“Since land is very expensive, real estate developers take advantage to build on the entire plot to recover their money quickly, however, basic services are not guaranteed to buyers of houses or apartments, as until now the concessionaire Aguakan has not invested in its infrastructure and this has caused problems of drinking water shortages,” stated the biologist.

“Developers seek to take advantage of every meter of land to build and recover their investment, the problem is that there is an impact on the environment, in addition to the demand for services that has exceeded the capacity of government authorities,” added activist Jorge Fuentes.

Environmental Impact

The interviewee emphasized that housing developers devastate the jungle with heavy machinery to carry out illegal constructions, attempting to compensate for the damage by planting a single tree, which is useless. He warned that the proliferation of residential areas lacking green spaces aggravates global warming and evidences lack of regulatory compliance.

“Quintana Roo is a young state that has had successful growth as a tourist destination, but at the cost of damaging natural resources, while more hotels are built to offer to tourism, simultaneously more housing was built which meant more demand for basic services,” said environmentalist Fuentes Gómez.

“A problem is that there has been uncontrolled urban growth, today the demand for services has exceeded governmental capacity, and the government has omitted seeing the severity to prevent serious problems in the future,” commented environmentalist Fuentes Gómez.

The city center is saturated with buildings up to eight stories high, the construction of condominiums has exceeded densities established by the Construction Regulations, this generates greater demand for drinking water services, electrical energy, drainage and sewer networks, parking, mobility is slower and cyclists are exposed to circulating in chaos.

Obsolete Laws

Investors have taken advantage of this legal gap, of the Construction Regulations, the Urban Development Program (PDU), and the Local Planning Program (POEL), which being obsolete have built under the protection of corruption and impunity, stated Fuentes Gómez.

For architect Manuel Barrero Gutiérrez, president of the College of Architects of Playa del Carmen, urban growth should not continue as public service infrastructure must be guaranteed and authorities must adhere to and comply with guidelines so that development is sustainable.

“When updating the PDU, the municipal government must simultaneously update the Construction Regulations and the POEL, as both documents must be valid for the authorization of any real estate development,” said Barrero Gutiérrez.

“Those of us who live in Playa del Carmen want a viable, sustainable, and safe city, that’s why services must be improved,” recognized architect Manuel Barrero, acknowledging that the social problem is serious and has generated invasions of private property lands, however, all problems must be solved.

Barrero Gutiérrez said that Playa del Carmen does not have a problem of where to go, because with the four Urban Environmental Management Units there is enough for the city’s growth.

He explained that of those four UGAS there are around 20,000 hectares of land where the city is settled and only about 7,000 hectares are occupied, leaving 13,000 hectares for the growth of Playa del Carmen and it is urbanized land.

In that sense, the architect emphasized that there is land for growth without the need to expand the city. However, we have the problem of “irregular” human settlements that are outside these 20,000 hectares.

Official Position

However, in December 2024, the municipal president of Playa del Carmen, Estefanía Mercado, assured that she will not allow the “overdensification” of buildings to continue, and that only the construction of 75 houses per hectare would be permitted. In contrast, in the Quintas del Carmen subdivision, investors have destroyed the area.

According to the Mayor, developers who want to invest would only be allowed 75 houses per hectare and that they bet on vertical rather than horizontal construction, as in the long term it is not sustainable for the environment, nor for the urban image of Playa del Carmen.

However, in the Quintas del Carmen subdivision, investors have taken over portions of green areas by constructing outside the law, “overdensified” buildings, they cut down trees to build and do not have parking spaces, so day by day they are choking the roadways, saturating the city with rooms without considering service capacity, added biologist Gabriel Robles.

“Investors build with total impunity, cut down trees and without anyone stopping them, choke roadways without prior social and environmental impact studies,” commented activist Guadalupe de la Rosa, president of the MOCE Yax-Cuxtal association.

Despite constant complaints from neighbors of the Quintas del Carmen subdivision about illegal works, no municipal authority has taken action, so they seem complicit not only in tree cutting, but in overdensification, she accused.

The city center lacks parking spaces that guarantee security, businesses such as grocery stores, lunch counters, or restaurants do not have sites for loading and unloading products for supply, in addition to there not being adequate signage for the population with any disability, stated Guadalupe de la Rosa.

For engineer Ramón Cárdenas González, president of the Business Coordinating Council of the Riviera Maya, it is urgent that the government invest resources in infrastructure in the first block of Playa del Carmen to optimize services.

The engineer recognizes that drainage and sewer networks are obsolete, prone to sewage spills, and that capacity was designed at the time for residential and not commercial zones, today we see that many people sold their house to be transformed into vacation rental buildings.

Additionally, it is necessary to change the face of the city itself that over the years has deteriorated, therefore, the Council has proposed the creation of a Municipal Planning Institute to evaluate urban development, he indicated.

“The accelerated urban growth has exceeded government capacity and having obsolete regulations has caused the construction of buildings outside the law, currently there is a serious mobility problem and constant reports of deficient drinking water supply and electrical energy service, parallel to that, sidewalks are obstructed by CFE poles, telephone poles, and street vendors, in addition to the lack of parking for tourists staying in vacation rental buildings and this is already critical,” emphasized Cárdenas González.