Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
AMLO decreed Proclamation 2 (Bando 2) upon taking office as head of Mexico City’s government, which unleashed real estate speculation that continues to this day. Twenty-two years later, this speculation has created very wealthy real estate speculators, especially those of the ADI, and a brood of wealthy corrupt PRD-Morenista public officials, all of them owners of multiple properties but of course, not as many as the super-rich.
Overnight the rules on the application of land use regulations were declared null and void. Mexico City entered a stage of collusion between local government officials and the interests of developers who knew how to take advantage of the gift AMLO gave them and understood the hunger of officials to get rich as soon as possible.
Two vignettes illustrate this phenomenon. It was recently discovered that the Ackerman couple “received” property in Mexico City as a donation. The “donation” was never explained: from whom and why? Does the capital’s government give away properties in the City? Apparently, among friends with political complicity, yes. The relationship between the Argentinean builder Carlos Ahumada and the PRD-Morenismo of that time, especially with Bejarano, Padierna and Sheinbaum, is also documented. Once AMLO published the decree of Proclamation 2, two days after taking office, real estate speculation in the then delegations of Benito Juarez, Venustiano Carranza, Cuauhtemoc, and Miguel Hidalgo was unleashed on legal grounds. This occurred between 2002 and 2003, when the foundations were issued for constructing what was said to be low-income housing.
At that time, the Secretary of SEDUVI, Laura Itzel Castillo, published a white book trying to convince people of the project’s benefits in its supposed promotion of social housing, which was a lie. Then the Secretary of Environment, Claudia Sheinbaum, displaced the Secretary of Works, César Buenrostro, who was against the imminent real estate boom, arguing that there was not enough water for a downtown repopulation project because it was going to be occupied by the middle classes, not for social “interest”. Sheinbaum became the helmsman of the real estate boom that continues to this day, now in her capacity as head of government.
The discredit of Proclamation 2 forced Ebrard to change the figure’s name to Norm 26. Still, the damage of the “PRD-Morenista urban model” of complicity and corruption had been done, and the citizen perception of the link between corrupt developers and capital officials had been consolidated. Faced with this new credibility crisis of the party in power, Mancera tried to split the regulation into two: Norm 30 and Norm 31.
All the real estate development unleashed several long-term consequences for Mexico City. Housing development in the City has been, in these 22 years, for medium and high income, in a proportion of 95% against social interest, which has been 5%. In other words, the urban model of the so-called “left” has been the gentrification of the City on a grand scale. Consequently, Mexico City has become the entity in the country that has expelled the largest number of inhabitants in these 22 years. Why? Because the value of land has become so expensive due to speculation of real estate, many families have had to migrate to the States of Mexico and Hidalgo, turning these territorial reserves into “dormitory cities”. They work in Mexico City but live outside of it due to the rising cost of housing.
Real estate developments in the City have been stimulated and supported by successive central governments that do not think of a sustainable and rational urban development model. Developers think about the cost-benefit gain from development, and central officials think about the money they need to live well and finance their next election. That is where the perverse intersection of interests occurs.
Centralization directs corruption in one clear direction: toward central government officials. And the system of corruption because, over time, the central government has assumed all the substantive functions of approving real estate developments. A recent case? Mitikah, on the Circuito Interior, in the Municipality of Benito Juarez, negotiated with AMLO, supported by Ebrard and Mancera and now concluded by Sheinbaum. It is the construction of the tallest building in the City, approved and supervised by the central government, where millions of dollars flowed in all directions. And it has all the problems of a building constructed in an urban space unsuitable for a building of that size, violating all established norms and with neighborhood opposition.
The same could be said of the megaprojects approved by the current central government since 2018, such as the Gran Terraza de Coapa, Artz Pedregal, Paseo Hipódromo, and Parque Las Antennas, many of them already in operation.
The General Development Plan is subject to real estate interests and complicit officials, not from a vision of building, in the long term, a sustainable city for all. The earthquake of September 19 uncovered the corruption of parties and officials at all levels. The feast is over. Either an inclusive and planned development model for the long term is proposed, or no one will be able to govern the City.
Now Morena is accusing the PAN of being the promoter of the real estate Cartel. As we have shown here, the Cartel started with AMLO, Sheinbaum, Bejarano, Castillo. Morena attacks recent officials of Benito Juarez and threatens officials with jail. Curiously they do not mention Fadlala Akabani, brand new secretary of economic development in Sheinbaum’s cabinet when he is the one who started the real estate boom in Benito Juarez. Morena, and especially Sheinbaum, will be shooting themselves in the foot with this “pretense” of distancing themselves from the gigantic animal they created. If there are PAN members guilty of crimes, let them be punished. But also the massive brood of Perredistas-Morenistas who have enriched themselves with the real estate boom.
The City Congress will demonstrate its usefulness to the City by creating a commission to investigate the criminal process of unplanned urbanization that Mexico City has experienced since the decree of Proclamation 2.
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