Court revokes permits for controversial hotel project in Baja California

MEXICO CITY – A hotel project in northern Mexico has stalled amid a series of lawsuits alleging it fails to meet environmental standards that could protect coastal ecosystems and local fisheries.

The Tres Santos hotel project in Baja California Sur will have to carry out new environmental impact studies to obtain permits it failed to meet during construction nearly a decade ago, leading to the destruction of wetlands and clashes with local fishermen concerned about it. their livelihood.

“We want our rights and our interests to be protected and respected,” said John Moreno, a lawyer who has filed several lawsuits against the project. “We want the law to be strictly enforced and respect for the environment, and that requires them to respect the wetlands, that requires them to respect the dunes.”

The developers planned the hotel for the city of Todos Santos, where many residents make their living from fishing and tourism.

In 2014, Black Creek Group, a Colorado real estate company, began consulting residents on a multimillion-dollar development project that included three hotels, commercial properties, a 400,000-liter water tank and more than 4,000 residential units, capable of housing nearly everyone at the time. population of Todos Santos.

Negotiations between the two sides initially went well, Moreno said. But as construction progressed, residents saw that the environmental impact would increase. worst than what was originally described to them. Some wetlands were filled in and rivers and streams were diverted.

Fishermen have been displaced from the areas they traditionally used to fish. They began to worry that their nearly century-old fishing practices would be forever disrupted by construction.

Ares Wealth Management, which bought Black Creek Group in 2021, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

In 2015–2016, residents staged a sit-in at the entrance to the construction site of one of the hotels, temporarily stopping work on the project. In 2017, Moreno spent 100 days in prison due to his involvement in the case against the project.

Since 2015, Moreno and other residents have filed legal complaints with all levels of government in hopes of stopping the project or at least getting answers about what happens next. In many cases, they found that the company did not comply with the parameters of building permits, including encroaching on land not included in the building plans.

Earlier this year, the court found that the original environmental impact study did not justify the development. This should have been abandoned and repeated before construction began.

The decision is largely a symbolic victory for Moreno and others fighting the hotel, since the project was sold to a Mexican investment fund that has a different vision for the area that requires a new environmental impact study.

“I hope this was a learning process that not only the community learned, but also the authorities and the developer,” Moreno said. “Because if they did, they would know that they have a historic opportunity to rise up and create and make a better reality and make a difference for the entire community.

Banner image: Residents protest against the Tres Santos project. Photo courtesy of BajasurTv.

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