Playa del Carmen to Regularize Two Ejido Neighborhoods Gradually, Aguakan Role Undecided

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — Playa del Carmen will urbanize the neighborhoods currently moving through the land-regularization process in stages, drawing on a mix of public funding sources to pay for the work, city officials said.

Alberto Farfán Bravo, the city’s director of Housing and Regularization, said that installing drinking water and drainage will not necessarily fall to the private utility Aguakan to finance.

San Judas Tadeo and In House, both in the Ejido zone, will be the first neighborhoods to be regularized. While progress has been made, officials have not yet scheduled the installation of the basic services required by law, including Article 4 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to decent housing and to access, availability and sanitation of drinking water, and Article 115, which obliges municipalities to provide basic public services.

Those services include:

• Drinking water
• Drainage and sewerage
• Public lighting
• Garbage collection
• Streets
• Parks

Farfán Bravo acknowledged that the city has not yet estimated how much it will cost to invest in all of those services.

Although Aguakan has the budget to invest in a project of this scale, the housing director said the work does not necessarily fall to the company, meaning the two sides will have to reach an agreement once the amounts are set. The investment, he said, could end up being shared.

Electricity service will be defined once the distribution of blocks and the number of lots is settled, so that crews can carry out the work with precision, he added.

As for public spaces such as parks and sports facilities, Farfán Bravo said the city cannot yet provide specifics, but that officials will try to salvage what exists. In the case of In House, recreational areas were designated from the start of the failed subdivision, he noted.