Things are heating up here in Hound Dog's favorite whipping boy town: beautiful downtown El Chante. A lot of horizontal condos are springing up (by a lot I mean thousands, predicted to be 10,000 units in one newspaper report). The local municipality apparently approved an illegal zoning change in the dead of night, having sent the diputados away on an all expenses paid vacation, according to the scuttlebut. The federal government issued a stop work order and put up "clausurado" ribbons and the municipality refused to enforce it. The yellow tape came down. The feds are threatening to imprison the authorities in Joco. Now they have found an archeological site on the premises of the building that is being damaged and another federal agency has thrown its hat into the ring.
You are absolutely right. The only pleasure I will get out of it will be Hound Dog's comments about the blight in El Chante. Althoughl, if they really do put the city fathers in jail I want to go watch the "perp walk." Good for an afternoon's entertainment.
I expect that the first time the houses are occupied and toilets are flushed it's going to take everyone's breath away. Our little sewage treatment plant can not handle that volume. Word is, the construction company is going to expand the plant, but I don't see any evidence of it yet.
There are two main developments there. I'm told the westernmost one is connecting up to the Jocotepec sewage treatment plant. That leaves the eastern one connectiong up to the local sewage treatment plant-which doesn't appear to be that large.
Sounds like this may be the classic demonstration of the "fertilizer hitting the ventilator".
I was wondering how the infrastructure was going to deal with the issues of water, sewage and other facilities. Unfortunatley, it looks like it was about enhancements to someone's wealth instead of civic planning. Those who invest in those houses may be in for some very unpleasant surprises.
One thing we all know: the carretera will be gridlocked. I noticed that the bicycle lane is disappearing. So now, the bicycle commuters will go ...where? Dangerous.
The westernmost developer, Carlos Jimenez, is the same guy who developed Rancho San Jorge. In order to do the first one (San Jorge) he was required to upgrade the entire sewer system to the sewage treatment plant at the eastern part of all the development. He did that. Plus he had to cede some of his land to the town, which was also done. I don't know which way to sewage will flow from this second development, whether it will go to the treatment plant in Joco or the one in El Chante. All of the new developments have their own deep wells and they pay Conagua annually for the use of the underground water. The sewage bill is paid to the municipality of Jocotepec. It is about 400 pesos per year per house. The biggest difficulty as I see it, apart from the sewage from the huge development at the east is electricity. El Chante's electrical service is .... um ..... capricious.
Further rumor has it that part of the plan of widening the carretera and building the new libramiento around Joco and widening route 15 that goes north to Lopez Mateos Sur, is related to the desire of Guadalajara either to build and auxiliary airport or move the airport over to the flat area between Los Potrillos and El Molino, thus turning the west end of the lake into a suburb of Guadalajara overnight. I haven't seen anything in El Informador about this brilliant plan, but I keep watching. Time will tell ... as it, and "progress" march on.
Five or so years ago, I was at a meeting when big development plans were announced for this part of Jalisco. The man in charge of the meeting rolled out great proposals for new housing, new recreation, new hospitals, a new golf course, and other so-called 'progress'.
At the end of his talk, he asked for questions from the assembled. I asked about plans for new infrastructure to support all the 'progress'.
"Hmmm..." he hmm'ed, leafing through his stacks of paperwork. "It doesn't appear that anyone has thought of that."
This is a flat stretch of land on Route 15 going north from Jocotepec towards the intersection with Lopez Mateos Sur which goes directly into the western end of Guadalajara via Zapopan. These flats occur just south and a little west of the mountains that divide the metropolitan area from the lakeside areas.
Well, the orginal zoning plan (which was changed one night last December right before the former Presidente del Municipio resigned in January... hint, hint) called for touristic development not intense housing development. What has happened here was never envisioned years ago. It was supposed to be for tourism purposes and enjoyment of the lake. That would have presented far fewer infrastructure problems than will now present themselves.
Re: [Georgia] Building in el Chante, Mun. of Jocotepec
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Well, the orginal zoning plan (which was changed one night last December right before the former Presidente del Municipio resigned in January... hint, hint) called for touristic development not intense housing development. What has happened here was never envisioned years ago. It was supposed to be for tourism purposes and enjoyment of the lake. That would have presented far fewer infrastructure problems than will now present themselves. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I remember when a BBC reporter was interviewing a Mexican woman in the DF about the great train service, and she said "One day the trains just disappeared" I can envision the BBC coming to el Chante to do an interview in the future and a woman saying "One day these weekend homes just appeared"
See the little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes made of ticky-tacky. Little boxes, little boxes. All the same. Thereīs a green one and and pink one and they all look just the same.
A turd is a turd no matter if you paint it pink or green.
And gays often refer to straight people as breeders.
Rolly
Rolly:
You amuse me endlessly.
When I lived in San Francisco for so,many years, Harvey Milk was an extraordinary fellow and community leader among gay San Franciscans and the famous line from the movie MILK that I remember was when some butthole told him:
For developments of this magnitude there are quite a number of requirements of different types. To start with the local zoning laws. The development also will have to meet many other requirements depending on how it is classified according to the population density of the project. Plans have to be filed with the state's Secretaria de Desarollo Urbano, an environmental impact statement filed with Semarnat, Jalisco state law requires a 15% donation of the land in question, feasability studies for all of the utilities etc.
There would have to be some very large amounts of pesos changing hands to get all of this in order if there are indeed legal impediments to developing this property. And it wouldn't involve solely the ex-presidente but a majority of the municipio's regidores and the jefe of the Planning Division.
These projects don't just spring up out of nowhere. Adequate infrastructure is required. It is usually after the permits have been issued that noncompliance begins and is much easier to avoid.
(This post was edited by Manuel Dexterity on Nov 9, 2009, 2:18 PM)
The major requirement is money. Clearly, you didn't read all the other posts: the diputados were all sent off on a junket while a privileged few did this in their absence. The privileged few promptly resigned their posts and headed for parts unknown after that. There was nothing legal about any of it. That's been the point of the articles over the last month in El Informador and why the federal government is threatening to imprison the present administration.
There is what is supposed to happen and what does happen. Sort of like government contracts for the military in the US.
What has happened between El Chante and Jocotepec is disgraceful and shouts corruption. Countless thousands of mini-boxes to house weekenders where community infrastrutcure is at best inadequate. No skin off my back. I grew up in terminally corrupt Alabama in the 1950s as did Georgia in New Jersey about the same time. You folks can lie in the bed of your own making. Dawg is out of here. Stew in your own juice. Dawg is off to Chiapas and you talk about corruption!
(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Nov 9, 2009, 3:00 PM)
New JERSEY!!!!! First of all, you assume I "grew up." Wrong. Secondly, not New Jersey. Everywhere: New York City, Mexico City, San Antonio, Long Beach, Ca; Memphis, Tulsa, Buffalo, Madrid, .... etc. Now, about that corruption: whereever you have government, you have corruption. Count on it.
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