public works

Green areas shrink in Cinta Costera’s updated plans

An "evolution" in the plans for the Cinta Costera project will replace park space with parking spaces

MOP reports offer conflicting information on the acreage to be allotted to an "urban park"

LA PRENSA/Edwards Santos

contradictions: More of the new beachfront property will go toward expanding the city´s parking.1019854

The Ministerio de Obras Públicas (MOP) has released computer-generated images depicting the proposed Cinta Costera project as a large park with lush vegetation, and describe it as "the green lung of the city." The actual plans, however, paint a different picture.

Just under half of the roughly 35 hectares currently being filled in will allotted to park area. The total number of hectares the contractor Norberto Odebrecht intends to fill, varies from one MOP report to the next.

The other half of the Cinta Costera will be devoted to road expansions, parking lots and an area reserved for members of the Club de Yates y Pesca. In other words, the new beachfront zone will consist of a long narrow strip of parking lots, flanked by two highways.

As MOP´s Benjamin Colamarco explained it, the project has evolved. "The design is not the same. It is much better, because they have incorporated important elements," he said.

Colamarco´s figures, however, don´t match either the original or the updated plans. In an interview last week with deputies of the Comisión de Obras Públicas, Colamarco said that 26 hectares, or 74 percent, would be park space.

Also included in the new plans are 1,500 public parking spaces, plus an additional 300 spaces, to which guests of the Intercontinental Miramar Hotel will have exclusive use, as conceded by the State.

Apparently, Colamarco does not see anything wrong with replacing parks with parking lots, and has justified the changes by recalling that at a public meeting last year in which the plans were discussed, many people had requested more parking. "They asked us for 3,000 parking spaces," he said.

According to architect Boris Aguilar, one of the landscapers hired by Norberto Odebrecht, "the intention was not to create a forest, but an urban park. Urban parks are large squares of concrete, devoid of trees."

As for the 3 hectares of land that has been granted to the Club de Yates y Pesca, Colamarco insisted that the club must submit their designs to the MOP and the landscaping companies for approval. These designs, he said, could "under no circumstances conflict with the theme of the coastal strip." So far, the commitment is only verbal.