 |
|
|
 News from Around Banderas Bay | May 2005 
Another Puerto Vallarta Park Closes
 David Agren - GuadalajaraReporter.com
| | Antonio Rubio sweeps in front of Parque Benito Juarez the morning after city officials cleared playground equipment and vendors' stalls from the park. (Photo: CR) |
Puerto Vallarta officials closed Parque Benito Juarez last Friday night, clearing out the vendors' stalls and playground equipment to make way for a three-story parking garage. The closure followed the destruction of Parque Hidalgo in February, which is also being converted into a parking garage. Two additional parks will undergo similar changes if the city's development agenda goes ahead as planned.
Early Saturday morning, the police escorted approximately 40 vendors from Parque Benito Juarez to new locations on the nearby Isla Rio Caule and on a side street next to the Hotel Molino de Agua.
The move, however, infuriated existing vendors and business owners on the island, who scuffled with the police during the relocation.
"They came in the night like a bandit," said Pedro Cervantes, a salesman who works on the leafy, narrow island.
"If it was legal, why didn't they come during the daytime?"
He complained that sales, which were already poor, have plunged since the new vendors arrived.
City officials also had vehicles towed away from a street beside the Hotel Molino de Agua - without informing any of the guests or hotel management - to accommodate the rest of the vendors.
Meanwhile, workers circled the beachfront Parque Benito Juarez with a chain-link fence and removed the playground equipment. Construction also continues on the new parking structure at Parque Hidalgo.
Members of Grupo Ecologico de Puerto Vallarta (GEPV) condemned the development in both parks, questioning why the city would lure more vehicles into the congested center with parking garages.
"It's a mistake to destroy the parks to put in parking," said Marina Perez Villorado, secretary of the GEPV.
Her group also expressed concern that Parque Lazaro Cardenas in the Zona Romantica could fall next.
Many business owners near Parque Lazaro Cardenas - and their business association - support paving more parking spaces in the Zona Romantica, pointing out that many employees now drive to work. Most of the vendors - who most likely will face eviction from Parque Lazaro Cardenas - oppose redeveloping the park, however.
Laura del Villar, a city tourism official, justified the construction, saying that an increasing number of Puerto Vallarta visitors are bringing their vehicles and tourism grew by more than 20 percent in 2004.
She called the redevelopment, "A modification."
Some residents are indifferent to the development scheme, including Antonio Rubio, the caretaker of a strip mall adjacent to Parque Benito Juarez who cynically pointed out: "The government just wants the money from the park to put in its pocket." |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us