Articles on the Hillside Construction

Told you so and I told you the construction would go on as usual. You all argued that it wouldn't and didn't believe me, now you have the facts. I told you this is Mexico, so no matter what small group fights it, it doesn't matter.

Obvious corruption in this deal. I can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to invest their money in building in such a location. For sure, you won't want to be living below it. Just a matter of time before major landslides will occur.

John:

Would you go back through the four pages of posts on this topic and quote anyone who indicated the project wouldn't happen?

Mainecoons wrote:Obvious corruption in this deal. I can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to invest their money in building in such a location. For sure, you won't want to be living below it. Just a matter of time before major landslides will occur.

But no matter where the money comes from, it will be insured. Right

Dan please share with us where your information comes from IE: the corruption and the mountain falling down. It should be interesting.

Read the articles and think about what happened at San Juan Cosala. The corruption is obvious, a development that does not meet standards for construction on slopes was approved anyway. The rest comes from understanding what happened at the Racquet Club and realizing the geology is pretty much the same here. These mountains are not solid rock, they are piles of rock mixed with dirt with high clay content. Look at the material on the sides of those cuts--same stuff.

Warnings of Civil Protection imported little: the Municipality of Chapala yesterday approved changes to municipal regulations that will build a tourist development in the hill country crossbar, an area not only suffer environmental impact, but has also been identified as hazardous to urbanization, landslides and earth movements.

The City rejected the diagnoses of the Civil Protection Unit of Jalisco (published by this newspaper on 7, 8 and 9 March). The Director of Urban Planning of the municipality said even based on a separate study commissioned by the City Council that the area where work is "highly stable".

The decision was taken by 11 councilmen Chapala with only two votes against, during a session in which the mayor said no plans to build any casino and that the media spread that they had "bad information".

Clay turns to grease when it gets saturated. These fools have just put great scars on very steep mountain sides which will admit a great deal of water behind the slopes.

See if you can figure out the rest. BTW, I'm not the only one predicting this.

Marty, would you buy property below this development?

I have notice that there hasn't been any activity up on the mountain for about the last week.
I live right below it and there hasn't been the steady stream of dump trucks hauling stone off the mountain and the jack hammers have been silent. I look up several times a day and haven't seen anything going on.

juanrey:

Could it be that things may have been halted waiting for the decision that was passed down yesterday?

Dunno, we'll keep you posted. They've already done enough damage to open up the very real possibility of major landslides this rainy season if, for example, we have a June like we did in 2010. You may recall that we got a couple of tropical depressions mixed in with the normal atmospheric flow of moisture and we had days of steady rain a couple of times.

johninajijic wrote:Hi all,
Follow this all you want. Foreigners have NO say in Mexico.

FYI, the above construction WILL CONTINUE to completion. No one will stop it.

You don't know how things work here. Wait and see if I am correct.

raqueteer - what news? no one cares.

As always John Foreigners have No say in Mexico EXCEPT if they are rich.
Foreign companies do fine here.

Z

Agreed, Zed.
IMO, this is a particularly gross case of "Follow the money".

One thing is for sure, if they don't get some sort of covering with cement, where they cut into the mountains, they will have problems during heavy rains. I'm not saying landslides because you need enough rain first that can't get absorbed into the ground any longer, then you get water runoff and possible slides.

Even during our summer heavy rains, our Arroyo rarely runs. It gets absorbed into the mountains first, so even several days of rain at 2 - 3" or more a day doesn't make the Arroyo run.

The land over there, at least from looking from the Carretera is a different color soil than in SJC and most likely has far less clay content, if any. The land on the hillsides below Chula Vista going into Chapala is clay.

There are developments on the Libriamento that are built on clay soil.

INFORMADOR has a new article today that seems to indicate that the fight over the hillside development may not be over:
"Chapala, Jalisco (24/MAR/2012). - With the approval of the Urban Development Program in the municipality of Chapala, and consent of the City Council intrinsic to ecotourism projects and housing that are built on the hill The Transom continue in march, the Doctor of Environmental Law, Raquel Gutiérrez Nájera, seek a rapprochement with the Technical Secretariat of Ramsar, for representatives of the convention made a supervisory visit.

According to the specialist, the construction in that area violent work which, for years, developed multiple instances to make the Lake Chapala receive international distinction as one of the required wetland preservation in the country. .........

Spanish Link: http://www.informador.com.mx/primera/2012/365521/6/pediran-intervencion-de-ramsar-por-construcciones-en-el-travesano.htm

Translated Link: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.informador.com.mx/primera/2012/365521/6/pediran-intervencion-de-ramsar-por-construcciones-en-el-travesano.htm&usg=ALkJrhhIIMNPNbO0iksUVtw5XT_8k1vqpw

No surprises there...

You won't have to go far to find an enviormentalist or scientist to tell you excavation around a lake will cause erosion damage.

It will....

Question is, at what point, which developement, will they choose to begin the excavation?

Is a Casino worth the developemental or enviormental risks?

When the applicant is a residential developement... there will be much stronger support to go ahead....

You can't stop Progress

That mess is "Progress"? The word is "Profit".

They might be smart to attack this project on the basis that there are already plenty of available homes for sale and the building of more doesn't make economic sense?

From today's edition of INFORMADOR apparently construction was stopped on March 9th:
"Chapala, Jalisco (30/MAR/2012). - To expand a road that goes to the highest point of the hill the crossbar, in Chapala, without proper environmental or land use change, the Federal Environmental Protection (Profepa) works closed on 9 March. This site aims to build a large hotel and a subdivision............

Article in Spanish: http://www.informador.com.mx/primera/2012/366801/6/suspenden-obras-en-cerro-de-el-travesano-en-chapala.htm

Translated article: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.informador.com.mx/primera/2012/366801/6/suspenden-obras-en-cerro-de-el-travesano-en-chapala.htm&usg=ALkJrhhyIfdM0IKr97abWl4ICTLyZ2UhUA