Neighborhood groups, collectives, and activists defending the land and fighting real estate corruption warned that real estate companies are using a modus operandi to evade court rulings through administrative acts by the mayor’s office. For example, in the Miguel Hidalgo borough, the city, by placing suspension seals on the Be Grand Alto Polanco Phase III project due to civil protection concerns, prevented a court-ordered environmental inspection from taking place yesterday.
One of the most common tactics, explained lawyer Arturo Aparicio of the Claudia Cortés Collective, is precisely the issuance of civil protection reports, which warn the jurisdictional authority of a supposedly greater risk from leaving a suspended construction project unfinished.
The Suma Urbana organization and the Verónica Anzures Neighborhood Observatory, formed by the residents who filed the injunction, stated that there are many similar cases and, in fact, announced that they will document them.
They recalled that even in 2022, the Comptroller’s Office suspended César Mauricio Garrido López, the Director General of Government and Legal Affairs for the Miguel Hidalgo borough, for 90 days for the unjustified lifting of a suspension order and the removal of seals from an irregular construction project at 86 Francisco Murguía Street in the Escandón neighborhood. However, he was reinstated by court order.
Aparicio cited the case of 28 Coahuila Street in the Roma Norte neighborhood as an emblematic example. There, the then-Community Participation Commission successfully obtained a ruling from a collegiate court specializing in administrative matters in Mexico City declaring the real estate project of GDC Desarrollos, headed by Santiago Morales Broc, son of the former Mexico City Attorney General and notary public Ignacio Morales Lechuga, illegal.
Among the complaints made by the neighborhood representative body, in addition to irregularities in the public consultation processes, was a geological fault identified in the National Risk Atlas.
The real estate company obtained a civil protection report from the mayor’s office warning that leaving the project unfinished posed a greater risk, after which construction was allowed to resume.
The company warned that this could be used to revive the Be Grand Alto Polanco project, but mentioned that the ruling by which a collegiate court granted a permanent injunction due to probable environmental damage following the removal of 112 trees and the loss of permeable soil, refers to urban heat islands that have caused a 4-degree increase in the city’s temperature compared to the beginning of the last century, and that by 2050 it will exceed 5 degrees in the Miguel Hidalgo borough, which could make a difference when a final ruling is issued.
Source: jornada
