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 News from Around Banderas Bay | June 2005 
Park Conflict puts Vendors, Ecologists, Businesses and City Hall at Odds
 David Agren - GuadalajaraReporter.com
| | Approximately 100 police officers cleared out Parque Hidalgo during the early morning hours of March 10. |
David Mendoza, a vendor in Puerto Vallarta's Parque Larzo Cardenas, knows his small business is living on borrowed time. From a stall bursting with merchandise, he sells an eclectic range necessities like broad-rimmed hats and woven swimsuits for sun seekers heading to the nearby beach at Playa los Muertos and souvenirs like necklaces, hand-stitched dolls and sol y luna ceramic items for those about to return home.
But city officials disincorporated his park last December, paving the way for an underground parking garage to take its place and jeopardizing his modest livelihood. "(City officials) are going to put us in a place we where we won't be able to sell our products," Mendoza said, while lunching on pollo asado in the shade beside his business with his wife and three children.
With tourism booming on the Jalisco coast - both foreign and domestic - Vallarta city hall unveiled construction plans last year for four new parking garages, placing the structures on or beneath four of its parks, including Parque Lazaro Cardenas. "We're not eliminating the parks," said a city tourism official. "It's simply a modification."
While some residents and business owners have welcomed the development and ensuing gentrification, vendors, who face displacement, and environment groups have opposed it. Grupo Ecologico de Puerto Vallarta (GEPV) accused the city of paving over paradise, potentially turning the fast-growing, but somewhat typical Mexican community into another Acapulco or Cancun - charmless cement-covered locales, which offer few opportunities for foreign tourists to interact with the local population.
The group expressed concerns the new parking garages would aggravate existing traffic problems by luring more cars into the Centro Historico's narrow, cobblestone streets and questioned the tender process, in which a firm with connections to a former mayor, won the project.
"They're taking the public parks and handing them over to a private company for parking," Marina Perez Villorado, secretary of the GEPV, said succinctly of the proposal. "It's a mistake to destroy those places for parking lots." Construction has already commenced on two of the sites.
Approximately 100 police officers - many brought in from Guadalajara, the state capital - cleared out Parque Hidalgo, a former cemetery, during the early morning hours of March 10. Several protestors suffered injuries in the melee and five people were arrested. By daybreak, construction crews had ripped up the park, uprooting all of its trees.
When asked about the police actions on March 10, Puerto Vallarta Mayor Gustavo Gonzalez Villase–or quipped: "Nothing happened." Investigators from the state human rights commission are investigating the incident. Parque Benito Juarez, a beachfront park near the Malecon, was closed on May 21 to make way for a five-story parking garage. Parque Larazo Cardenas in the Zona Romantica and the Plaza Pitilla are scheduled to go next.
Puerto Vallarta tourism officials defended the plan, saying that the parking garages' designs will conform to the town's unique architectural style and that new parks will be replanted on top of the underground lots proposed for Parque Hidalgo and Parque Lazaro Cardenas. City Hall's design for the new Parque Hidalgo, which was recently made public, includes fewer trees, less grass and a lot more concrete, according to the GEPV.
"We're not eliminating the parks," said Laura del Villar, an official in the tourism office. "It's simply a modification." Tourism grew by more than 20 percent in the last year. Many tourists are now arriving by car. Parking is at a premium during the winter high season and the Semana Santa break.
Surprisingly, the city does little to discourage vehicle use in the town center. Motorists may park for free in virtually any designated area on a public road as no parking meters are used in the city. On a typical evening, hundreds of vehicles cruise Puerto Vallarta's famed oceanfront strip, which is home to many bars and chic shops.
"We have a serious parking problem in the downtown," said Paulina Mendez, a spokeswoman for the city government. She added that the city previously had installed parking meters, but retired them due to poor results. A January press release promised the new parking structures would "be in a style that reflects the local architecture, in harmony with the surroundings."
To accommodate the parking crunch and easy the recent traffic surge, GEPV proposed a series of parking lots outside of the historic center. A fleet of shuttle buses would transport tourists into the city. Although cheaper and in its estimation better for the city, Gonzalez Villase–or has refused to even acknowledge receipt of the alternate proposal, according to the group.
In one of his few meetings with opponents of the parking plan, the mayor pointed to the shabby condition of the parks slated for redevelopment. Vendors, operating in areas now cluttered with stalls moved in from the two closed parks, complained that city hall had issued too many business permits. The GEPV said the public works department failed to properly maintain the parks, providing an excuse to develop the green spaces.
The tender process for the parking development also raised eyebrows. Discovery PV, a development firm represented by Luz Maria Torres Gonzalez, won the contract unopposed, receiving a 25-year concession as part of the deal. Perez Villorado of the GEPV said Torres Gonzalez was previously a business partner of former mayor Fernando Gonzalez.
Parque Lazaro Cardenas, a small park near in the Zona Romantica with patches of balding grass, tall trees, a gazebo and statue to its namesake, who nationalized the Mexican oil industry, is most likely next on the redevelopment list. The local business association supports its redevelopment, hoping it will both gentrify the area and add additional parking.
"The number of cars in this area is really big," said Leo Garza, president of the Emiliano Zapata Associacion de Vecinos, adding that many employees in Puerto Vallarta now drive to work. "I think it's going to help us a lot. ... We're going to have a better park."
Others disagree and point to an undeveloped lot adjacent to the park, which has sat vacant for more than a decade, as a better location for a parking garage. Some business owners also want the park stay as in tact, saying the area's appeal as a less-polished tourist zone is under threat.
"I love Old Town, that's why I'm here," said Lynnda Lucas, owner of Que? Pasa, a restaurant less than a block away from Parque Lazaro Cardenas. "The people who live here live here for a reason: They don't want it to be [another] L.A." |
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