NEIGHBORS VS CONSTRUCTION CRANE: ROUND ONE
Determined Residents Walk into UMA office
Tuesday morning, a group of about 20 Amapas neighbors descended on Vallarts’s ‘New City Hall’ in a show of unity and determination to have a long-idle construction crane above Calle Hortensias removed from its perch.
Neighbors have complained for years about the huge green construction crane which has loomed over the unfinished foundations of two condo towers planned to complete the Villas de la Colina II project, since construction stalled around 2008-2009.
For the past five years, the crane has stood as both a monster local eyesore and a monument to a changing real estate market. Repeated promises that new funding was on the way and construction would soon resume have remained unfulfilled. And previous requests to the developer, and to the City to have the crane taken down have gone unheeded.
In April, concerned about the crane’s maintenance and stability, and their own safety during the high winds of the coming summer storms, more than two dozen neighbors signed a petition to Director of City Planning Ing. Francisco Altamirano to have the crane removed.
On June 26, concerned neighbors noticed that, after five years of immobility, the crane’s long, erector-set arms and thousands of pounds of counterweights had begun to spin, swinging in the wind. Our ANA Administrator quickly filed a petition requesting an immediate inspection, and City inspectors served a citation to the architect in charge of the development, Sr. Manuel Orozco.
Events culminated on the following Tuesday, when neighbors representing the Hortensias and Gardenias areas converged on UMA (the City’s new administrative offices), and an official warning was delivered to Sr. Orozco: the crane must be taken down within 30 days. If the crane is not down by then, a fine of $30,000 pesos will be levied.
The 30 days are definitive, and compliance is mandatory. If another 30 days passes without the crane’s removal, an additional $30,000 peso fine will be imposed.
The Amapas neighbors have been promised that the crane will come down, even if the City itself has to accomplish the removal.
The developers have a right to appeal the City’s order, and the final decision may be left to a municipal judge.
Check our website – www.amapaspv.com – for updates on this, and other neighborhood news and ANA actions.
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