“Oxygen is not for sale,” said one of 300 neighbors who protested the project last weekend.
Many residents are upset at not being consulted about the project, which proposes the development of 62,000 square meters in a wooded lot located immediately to the right of the main entrance road.
The area has been used for many years by residents as a recreational park but was fenced off five months ago after development plans were submitted to Zapopan authorities.After this weekend’s protest, Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval backed residents in their fight, vowing that “not a single leaf” in the park would be harmed.
Zapopan’s ecology department later issued a statement saying that the city’s legal department would defend the area and not allow any trees to be felled.
Despite this kind of heavyweight support, experience shows that developers are rarely put off by such stumbling blocks and are able to use every legal resource at their disposal to push their projects through.