Puerto Morelos Moves to Regulate Cenotes Route Development

Puerto Morelos. Municipal President Blanca Merari Tziu Muñoz announced that with the support of the Secretary of Government, Cristina Torres Gómez, an important step has been taken to advance the regulation of the Cenotes Route and provide legal certainty to current landholders who are engaged in various land uses in the area.

She detailed that the meeting, led by the Secretary of Government, included participation from federal agencies such as SEMARNAT, PROFEPA, SEDATU, CONAGUA, the Agrarian Attorney’s Office, the National Agrarian Registry, COFEPRIS, and the representation office of the Ministry of the Interior in Quintana Roo; as well as authorities from the State Government—SEMA, the Environmental Protection Attorney’s Office, Sedetur, and the State Civil Protection Coordination—in addition to the Puerto Morelos City Council and the executive committees of both agrarian nuclei.

Furthermore, she indicated that as a result of the meeting, working groups will be established with the participation of authorities from all three levels of government, agrarian executive committees, and landholders, with the objective of defining a clear path for the regulation and oversight of the various economic activities currently being carried out in the area.

“We are going to put an end to the real estate frauds that have generated friction with municipal authorities, because it is argued that only federal authorities can intervene in that zone,” she emphasized.

For his part, Rolando Melo Novelo, Secretary of Urban Development and Territorial Planning of Puerto Morelos, highlighted that the importance of taking advantage of the fact that the municipality is working on its urban planning instruments was also addressed: the Municipal Urban Development Program and the Population Center Program, as well as the Local Ecological Planning Plan, which constitutes the environmental instrument.

“With these planning instruments, we will be able to analyze all the developments, lodging centers, ecotourism parks, and businesses that have proliferated in the area, for their probable regulation,” he added.

In general terms, it was a meeting in which the three levels of government presented to the agrarian executive committees the need to have regulation and oversight, but above all to stop real estate frauds, since people are currently being invited to buy and invest without offering legal certainty, through transfers of rights and private contracts on common-use lands.