State authorities, Guadalajara city hall and civic organizations have all vowed to prevent a planned residential development inside an area they say pertains to the Bosque de los Colomos, one of the city’s most treasured green spaces.
Last weekend, state officials set up booths in various parts of the city to collect signatures to accompany an amparo or “injunction” designed to stop bulldozers moving into a proposed subdivision on the fringes of the park.
Earlier this month, Governor Aristoteles Sandoval promised to “defend Colomos to the final consequences” after the state’s Administrative Tribunal (TAE) ordered Guadalajara city hall to grant a license to a group of developers seeking to build a new subdivision in an 11,000 square-meter privately-owned plot bordering the parkland. Similarly, Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro said he would resign rather than allow a single house to be built in the zone.
State authorities gathered 22,000 signatures over four days, from January 21-25. They submitted the injunction against the TAE’s decision on Wednesday.
Only 123 hectares of the Colomos Park are legally protected against development. The state government says it will use all the resources in its power to increase that figure to 203 hectares and expropriate land if necessary.
The threat to Colomos has been constant for the past 40 years, ever since Avenida Patria was extended from the Autonoma University to Zapopan in the 1970s. Subdivisions, tower blocks and shopping malls now encircle the park.
The area developers hope to build on is known as “Chochocate,” and includes water tables that are vital to the health of the entire zone, according to Jalisco Environment Secretary Magdalena Ruíz Mejía.
While some applauded the initiative to obtain signatures, others were skeptical, including columnist Diego Petersen of El Informador, who wondered if the move was really “a symbolic act capable of mobilizing society or just a populist action … What use is having 100, 1,000 or 10,000 signatures on a injunction if there isn’t a proper legal defense in the first place.”
Petersen urged Sandoval and Alfaro to join forces and work out a cohesive strategy to safeguard Colomos in the longterm.
Meanwhile, the civil organization Defensa Colectiva lost no time in making its voice heard and, preempting the Jalisco government, earlier this week presented its own collective injunction with a federal judge that seeks to temporarily prohibit any immediate deforestation and construction in the Bosque de Los Colomos.
In other related news, Alfaro has increased the cost of using Colomos’ parking lots from five to 20 pesos. The aim is not to raise money, he said, but to discourage the use of motorized transport. He also intends to reduce the number of parking spaces by half and plant trees in the recovered area.
Home to hundreds of pine trees, flora, fauna, an attractive Japanese garden, ponds and walking/running paths, the Colomos Park is considered one of the city’ most important environmental commodities. The wooded zone is frequented by hundreds of families at weekends, and park employees host frequent ecological and cultural activities.