The degree to which heritage is crucial for the tourism and commercial value of cities like Cartagena is highly debated. As this value rises, the real estate sector invests more heavily in buildings that clash with the historic urban landscape. Especially since Cartagena is a warm, Caribbean, coastal vacation city, massive high-rise developments like Miami are often used as benchmarks. How far can real estate ambition go?
The answer is likely: until the city's long-term interests override those of private developers. This is the case of the controversial Aquarela building, whose already advanced construction was halted following a statement by UNESCO warning that they would remove the walled city of Cartagena from the World Heritage list. Consequently, the mayor of Cartagena reaffirmed his commitment to demolishing the unfinished structure.
The walled city of Cartagena was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in November 1984 in Buenos Aires, highlighting its historic colonial architectural heritage resulting from Spanish colonization in the Americas. Since then, the city has been a vacation and tourism hub for millions of Colombians and foreigners wishing to experience firsthand the colonial setting of that era. However, the reality of this urban landscape is quite different, due to a lack of planning, resulting in inequitable urban growth, and the absence of an approved heritage protection plan.
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As a result, in October 2017, the site was shut down for exceeding construction limits and encroaching on 619 square meters of public space. This raises the question: how does a project imposing such bulk manage to progress just one block away from the iconic San Felipe Castle? The oversight of urban project licensing in this region of the country may have played a role. This was reflected in the dismissal and disqualification of the urban curator by the Inspector General's Office (Procuraduría General de la Nación) due to licensing irregularities in another project; nevertheless, it was also their signature that approved the Aquarela project.
Mayor Pedrito Pereira Caballero clarified to EL TIEMPO newspaper that Police Inspection Office No. 2 had ordered studies to determine the method for reclaiming the public space currently occupied by the project, following action by the same Inspector General's Office that disqualified the urban curator who issued the building permit. "First, the necessary procedure must be determined according to the tower's construction method in order to restore the public space. It must also be defined whether to conduct a consultancy or issue a service contract with the Colombian Society of Architects, which would be responsible for conducting the studies; however, the election law of guarantees has come into effect."
UNESCO set a deadline of 2021 for the complete demolition of the first and only tower built out of the planned five-tower project. In addition to this action, the city has the same deadline to approve two special heritage management and protection plans: the Special Management and Protection Plan for the Historic Center (PEMP) and the update of the Territorial Land-Use Plan (POT). These guidelines prevent building code violations; in their absence, coupled with corruption and real estate ambition, cases like this occur.
News via EL TIEMPO.
This article was written by Santiago Baraya. The translation is powered by AI.
