The Jalisco state government wants to relocate the fall fair from its current home at Zapopan’s congested Benito Juarez Auditorium to a plot of land four miles east along the northern city Periferico (beltway) where the abandoned city Planetarium gathers dust.
The land and the Planetarium are owned by Guadalajara city hall. Last month, councilors – aware of the benefits the municipality will gain from hosting the annual month-long extravaganza that attracts thousands of visitors – voted to sell the 15-hectare-plot to the state government.
Valued at 262 million pesos, the land adjoins the Guadalajara Zoo and the Huentitan park and is surrounded by several low-density residential neighborhoods.A parallel project would see additional land earmarked for high-rise residential development. An ambitious Spanish-backed plan (called Puerta Guadalajara) to build 5,000 apartments in as many as 11 tower blocks on the site was scrapped last year but rekindled by Mexican entrepreneurs and is now moving ahead under the name Iconia.
A factor that may eventually spur this project to fruition is that the municipality of Guadalajara is hemmed in on all its sides and its population is actually shrinking. With federal funding dependent on population figures, city councilors see Iconia as a way of repopulating the municipality and recovering some much-needed income.
Some locals have voiced their opposition to the residential housing project, as well as the relocation of the October Fiestas and a group of 50 recently staged a small demonstration at the busy intersection of the Periferico and the Calzada Independencia.
Jesús Becerra Cárdenas, president of the Colonia Panorámica de Huentitán El Bajo neighborhood association, said the zone’s traffic infrastructure could not support 20,000 new residents and that the city needs to conserve its green areas not destroy them. He also pointed out that the land located between the zoo and the Periferico has traditionally been a favored spot for athletes training for important events.
City hall has promised to hold discussions on both projects with “true representatives of the neighborhoods concerned” within two weeks. They have already carried out a survey in 50 Guadalajara colonias regarding the Fiestas project and say that 95 percent of 2,584 respondents would like to see the fair returned to the Guadalajara municipality.
The fate of the abandoned Guadalajara Planetarium (Centro de Ciencias y Tecnologia) has largely been lost amid the debate but one man is making sure it is not forgotten.
A lawyer who was instrumental in the 1980-82 Guadalajara municipal administration that developed the Planetarium has sent a petition to Mayor Ramiro Hernandez, pointing out that the “cultural rights” of Tapatios would be “violated” if they sold the facility.
Fernando Espinoza de los Monteros says he will take legal steps to revive the Planetarium based on articles in the Mexican Constitution – and international law – that safeguard the “cultural rights of the people.”