metro

Public is private

Carlos Lemos/LA PRENSA

Contradiction: Private concerns take up space in a public park.1006587

It's been 49 years since the Asamblea Nacional gave a prime piece of oceanfront property on Avenida Balboa to the Club de Yates y Pesca. The idea was to provide the club's members with a place to park their boats in the Bahia de Panamá, just to the side of Anayansi Park.

Some time later, the Autoridad Marítima de Panamá (AMP) granted the club an additional 2.06 hectares for its private use, for which it pays a penny per square meter a month.

Now the Ministerio de Obras Públicas (MOP) will give the club an even bigger present: $9.8 million in the form of three hectares of landfill in the Bay of Panama, which is nearly 10 percent of the total area to be filled in by the construction company Norberto Odebrecht in the course of its work on the Cinta Costera. That's to say that almost 10 percent of a project intended to create a park-like public space will be off limits to anyone who is not a member of the private club.

The deal has already been approved by the MOP.

But that's not the MOP's only questionable transaction with private tenants on the coast along Avenida Balboa. The Intercontinental Hotel Miramar has been given permission to construct its own transit lanes that will connect the city's coastal belt with the Miramar's private marina and heliport. The hotel has also been given permission to build underground parking for 300 cars on public land.