In October 2019, 6AM from Caracol Radio traveled to San Andrés and found that urban landmarksthe company of which he is a partner Alvaro Rincon, husband of the vice president Martha Lucia Ramirez, is building the Grand Sirenis, the most ambitious hotel complex on the island. In this multimillion-dollar project, Rincón is accompanied by the Gallardo clan, from Liberal Partythe most powerful family Saint Andrewand the Fiduciary Alliance.
Listen to the first part of this investigation
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Ehe Grand Sirenis project obtained a construction license with irregularities. The most serious of all is that the building exceeded the height limits. This anomaly comes from 2016, when Urban Landmarks obtained the license. This was explained by the Secretary of Planning of San Andrés, Felipe Bush, in 2019.
The Grand Sirenis It is a project of three towers that were built in two lots. One of the towers has a height equivalent to eleven floors, that is, five floors above the norm. According to Secretary Bush, the previous Planning Secretary issued the license appealing to the principle of neutrality, that is, if other buildings in Saint Andrew they have more than six floors, why not this one?
The problem with the license issued by the secretary of planning of Saint Andrew in 2016, which allowed the company to build buildings of more than six floors urban landmarks, is that it did not correct this irregularity with compensation areas. In other words, due to the principle of neutrality, Hitos Urbanos could build more than six floors in the Grand Sirenis if in exchange it compensated the island with some property. Generally it is a work that is delivered to the community for its benefit.
To compensate for the extra floors in the Grand Sirenis, Urban Landmarks He gave as a compensation area a field and the repair of the beach of the building where the vice president, her husband and the partners of Hitos Urbanos had an apartment. Quite a coincidence that the compensation area to correct the irregularities of the license of the Grand Sirenis will be right in front of another property of the vice president’s family Martha Lucia Ramirez. Until 2021 the apartment was still owned by the family Ramirez corner.
In addition to exceeding the height limits and compensating the island with a piece of land for the community right in front of the building where the members of Hitos Urbanos and the vice president had an apartment Marta Lucia Ramirez, andhe Grand Sirenis hotel project included a private beach in its offer. However, this portion of the beach was a public good that ended up in the hands of the Gallardo family.
The beach they claim as public
The other finding of this investigation has to do with a public beach that ended up in the hands of private parties, but not only that, those private parties, in this case Urban Landmarks, sold them to the investors of the Grand Sirenis that beach. How could they sell their investors a public good?
#ClearAccounts found that Urban Landmarks sold to its investors a hotel and real estate project consisting of three real estate license plates. One of them is the real estate registration of the public beach that is in front of the hotel.
For the authorities of San Andrés it is impossible that urban landmarks can sell a good for public use of the nation. She said it Everth Hawkings shortly before assuming the governorship of San Andrés in 2020. Felipe Bush, former Secretary of Planning for San Andrés, repeated it in 2019: “I would not understand how they could sell something that is public.”
But the news is that they did. They sold a public good to their investors. In this case, they were sold a public beach, as the officials of the Saint Andrewto the investors of the Grand Sirenis.
Juan Camilo Ochoa, manager of Urban landmarks, dHe said that there was no irregularity, since an agreement of the mayor of San Andrés in 1971 authorized the exchange of that beach to the Gallardo family and that is where the private right to that property was born.
Governor Hawkins maintains the position of 2019: the beach is public and will soon have to be restored to citizens, since the Gallardo family had the concession of that beach until 2014. That year, the concession expired and the General Maritime Directorate, Dimar, did not It has not been renewed, nor can it be renewed, according to the president, because an order from the Council of State prohibits concessioning beaches.
La Dimar, in response to a recent request, assures that this beach is public and that the family Gallardo It had a concession for this national public use asset until 2014 and currently does not have any permits.
you would notarize
The first deed of that beach is the 350 of 1966. That deed says verbatim that the National Administration of San Andres is the absolute owner of the land recovered by the landfill. That is to say, the beach that is in front of the Grand Sirenis and that is a public good, is a beach that did not exist, but was born from 1966 thanks to a dredging, a landfill contracted by the Municipality of San Andrés in 1964 for 26 million pesos, about 30 billion pesos to today’s silver.
Adalberto Gallardo Florez he was the intendant who contracted to fill in the swamp and then claimed the new land as his own. The Administration gave them to him in exchange in 1971 and today the Grand Sirenis is presented as the owner.
Tomorrow we go with the third part of this investigation, the tour of this public beach —as recognized by the governor of San Andrés— by several notaries. Today we are talking about the first writing, from 1966, but the last writing is from 2017.