Cancun, Q.R. — Urban Development of Benito Juarez says they have found nearly a dozen new irregular settlements in the area behind the Cancun International Airport.
La Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano de Benito Juárez says they have discovered 11 new irregular zones in areas behind the Cancun airport that connect with federal roads to Merida.
The secretary of Municipal Urban Development, Armando Lara de Nigris, explained that these developments were already closed since they were built without any permits or basic services such as water lines and proper waste drainage.
“The area where we recently acted was in the polygon that forms a triangle between José López Portillo Avenue, Huayacán and the highway that runs past the Cancún Airport, which joins the road to Mérida and Playa del Carmen.
“This is the first polygon that we chose to investigate, and we have detected that there are several settlements and informal or irregular developments. So far, there are 11 developments and they are closed giving legal follow-up,” said the official.
The municipal director of Urban Development explained that the main affectation when finding these 11 new settlements is that they are contaminating the water table due to the lack of proper waste drainage. He also says that where they have set up is a territorial zone near the International Airport of Cancun, and that there are laws from the Ministry of Communications and Transportation that prohibits the construction of housing or developments.
He reports that the Secretariat of Municipal Urban Development gave notice to the State Attorney General to conduct investigations into the 11 irregular settlements.
Lara de Nigris says that another area with the same problem is the inter-continental zone of Isla Mujeres that adjoins with Cancun. “They arrive with a tractor, dismantle, open a gap, and start selling land,” he noted.
In Cancun, he says there are 125 irregular settlements that have been officially detected, 13 of which are suitable to allow regularization, however, he acknowledged that it is a process that will take a long time since it has been difficult to find the developers of the zones.
“We have detected 125 irregular settlements of which there are already 13 that could have the physical or legal conditions or characteristics to be able to regularize. Physical means that a drainage pipe or potable water passes by with hydrosanitary facilities because physically, it could be connected.”
He added that in the newly found 11 irregular settlements, three could have the physical and legal conditions to carry out a regularization process.
