Sorry real estate developers: The era of gated communities in Cotacachi comes to a screeching halt

In a clear rejection of the predatory real estate development practices that have radically altered Cotacachi over the last five years, the Municipal government has outlawed all future construction of gated community-style developments.

Spurred by dozens of complaints from residents of the city, indigenous communities (especially El Batán where the biggest concentration of gringo mansions are located), and a formal letter signed by all ten presidents of the Parroquia of Apuela in Íntag, the municipal government  suspended all constructionofconjuntosprivados (current and future) in early 2012, while the new Plan de Desarrollo y de Ordenamiento Territorial del Cantón Cotacachi was being elaborated. This county-wide development plan was release in May of 2012 and states that the following activities are no longer permitted in the City of Cotacachi, surrounding communities, and the Íntag sub-tropical zone:

Construcción de urbanizaciones, complejos turisticos, planes urbanizacionales

and

El tamaño mínimo de los lotes para la zona será de 2000 m2…

For those of you who don’t read en Español, what this means is the legal impossibility of the further development of housing developments in Cotacachi, surrounding communities, and the Zona de Íntag.

After years of complaints from locals regarding skyrocketing land prices, lack of planning for water and basic services, culturally insensitive conflicts surrounding livestock and living styles, etc., the Municipio has finally acted decisively to prevent Cotacachi from becoming another Vilcabamba (a beautiful town colonized by Americans who control the local economy and create their own new-agey exclusive sub-culture).

Speaking of which, many of Cotacachi’s recent transplants still insist the world is ending in December based on the culturally transformed idea that a Mayan prophecy predicts it. Maybe for the spiritually enlightened real estate peddlers the end has truly arrived!

In the last few months, cultural conflict has been especially strong in El Batán where the gringo mansions have taken away irrigation water and the new residents havearmed law suits because they don’t like to hear their neighbors roosters crow! Why move to another country if you want everything to be like where you are from. Isn’t this cultural imperialism? I recently heard an American man yelling at the women working in the bank because she couldn’t speak English! In a recent community meeting in El Batán a “no more gringos” policy was discussed.

Finally, in Íntag many community leaders are permitting themselves a sigh of relief. It is common knowledge that the real estate peddlers have targeted the region as a next paradise to develop for foreigners as soon as the new road is paved. With gringos already distorting the local economy by paying up to twenty times the market value for land, communities are unanimously dedicated to prevent the negative cultural, economic, and environmental effects that have so quickly transformed life close to Cotacachi. Many communities are incorporating new rules into their bylaws stating that any land sale to a foreigner must be approved by the community government.

Now Íntag has the legal backing to control its own development vision instead of having it be imposed by foreigners like in El Batán.

Cotacachi and the Apocalypse: Ex pats worry the end is near! Locals worry about being priced out of their homes.

As the foreigner invasion continues full-steam in Cotacachi, many locals are identifying a curious trend: behind the walls of their private compounds many new residents are worried that the world will be ending on December 21, 2012.

The end is near….for locals getting priced out of their communities by predatory real estate developers.

A good portion of Gringocacheños (gringos living in Cotacachi) have, from the start, suprised locals with their unorthodox beliefs and delusions of grandeur. Examples are numerous. A few:  Many ex-pats believe humans are aliens placed on Earth by a master race.  An American real estate developer compares his helping Americans buy cheaply-made, cookie cutter homes to helping Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Self-proclaimed gringo “spiritual teachers” abound. I could go on and on.

Now, we may be aliens and real estate development may be the most morally ethical occupation in the world, but one thing I can assure you is that the Maya did not predict that the world will end on December 21st!

Settle down everyone. Listen, the Maya Apocalypse theory has gotten way out of hand. The entire idea that the world will end is based on an extremely subjective interpretation of a single hieroglyphic tablet found in El Tortuguero, Tabasco, Mexico in the

1960s. The hieroglyphs from El Tortuguero represent a small sampling of the religous beliefs of a small city that prospered between 644 and679 AD. The Maya were never a centralized empiric society like the Inca, rather a extra-regional group of competing miltary city states that shared  linquistic and cosmological similarities. The Maya florished throughout what is today southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras over 1500 years.

The Tortuguero hieroglyphs say: “The thirteenth calendar ends on the day 4 Ahau, the third of Uniiw, when there will occur a spectacle and the God

of the Nine will come down to the red.”

The thirteenth calendar refers to the 5,126 year Maya long count calendar which resets itself on the Winter Solstice. The God of the Nine could be any of the pantheon of Gods from the Underworld, which has nine levels. Red represents East, the direction of the sunrise, and blood, the elixir of life (life comes from death).

The passage wasn’t even fully translated until 1996 and served as the spark that has exploded into the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy. Where does it say the world is ending? I could just as easily mean an Underworld god will be pulled back down in the direction of the rising sun. Maybe it means the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. Who knows?

Western culture has always loved a good doomsday scare. You can book your doomsday vacation on any number of Mayan temples right now online!

For anyone interested in a fact-based history of the Maya, their religous beliefs, and the inaccuracy of Mayan Doomsday Prophecy I highly recommend 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse by Matthew Restall and Amara Solari:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10381319-2012-and-the-end-of-the-world

apocalyptic retirement?

Hey, if so many newly arrived foreigners think the world is ending in a few months, why are they investing in shoddily built houses and condos and driving prices up to the point where locals can’t afford to buy land?

Back on Earth, for many poor Cotacacheños 2012 really has marked the beginning of the end.

Spectacular Cotacachi Housing Developments with Beautiful Views of an Open Air Sewer: the latest real estate exaggerations

Thinking of retiring to Cotacachi? If you are lucky you might still snagg one of the units in the Tierra Firme or Balcones del Ambi developments.

In the latest gross exageration by Cotacachi Real Estate peddlers, these two retiree-targeting developments have been romanticized for their “magnificent” and “spectacular” views of the Rio Ambi (see examples below). I wonder if the people making commissions from the sale of these houses think that buyers might want to know (before dropping $160,000 on a home) that the Rio Ambi is the open air sewage system for the cities of Otavalo and Cotacachi (combined population approximately 60,000). Yes, these homes offer spectacular views of the untreated raw sewage of 60,000 people on a dialy basis (with the associated odor thrown in for free!).

Retiree complaints of shoddy construction, legally questionable land titles, and increasing crime in Cotacachi continue to grow. If you are thinking of relocating to Cotacachi please get the facts and protect yourself by reading:

https://retirecotacachi.wordpress.com/social-economic-and-environmental-consequences-of-foreigners/

If you still want to move to Cotacachi after informing yourself of the negative social, economic, and environmental impacts that the foreigner invasion is having, get the facts.

Remember, despite the picture of paradise painted by the real estate vendors, they are making a ton of money and selling units is the bottom line. Don’ t get duped.

Clayton Black’s Tierra Firme Sets the Standard for Cotacachi Developments

Pro-Ecuador is proud to offer this first-class Cotacachi real estate development loced about two kilometers outside of Cotacachi on the Pan-American entrance. All lots have been sold check for resales. Views are simply incredible, with a magnificent overlook of the Ambi River gorge.

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New Cotacachi Housing Project

Dec 6th, 2011 by Gary

A new Cotacachi housing project has started and is called BALCONES DEL AMBI.

The houses will be colonial style on 10,000 square foot lots and Patricio Falconi houses from 1,500 to 1,800 square feet.

Site preparation has begun.

There are views in all directions to…

to Mohanda, Mt. Imbabura and Mt. Cotacachi.

Mt. Imbaura.

There is also a spectacular vista and…

and view of the Ambi River.

There will be 28 houses total.

Prices will range from $130,000 to 160,000.

Retirees tied-up, robbed at gunpoint in their condos: Demand that the mayor of Cotacachi guarantees their security

In the wake of the May armed robberies of several American retirees in the Primavera condominums in Cotacachi, the gringo community was clearly shaken from its false sense of security. Several retirees were robbed at gunpoint and tied up in broad day light.

Although normal citizens of Cotacachi and its surrounding villages (read mostly poor Indigenous campesinos) are robbed, attacked, raped, kidnapped and murdered on a weekly basis, the ex-pat community never seemed concerned until the deliquency directly affected its own members.

The day after the robberies the ex-pat community demanded a meeting with the mayor and a representative from the US Embassy. Some demanded of the mayor that he tell them his plan to “guarantee our safety.”

Although the poor denizens of Cotacachi (who are most affected negatively by the gringo invasion) suffer from the narco-crime wave affecting all of northern Ecuador on a daily basis, it wasn´t  until  foreign retirees were robbed that “Cotacachi´s crime problem” became an international crisis involving the US government. At the meeting, a person involved in real estate development here threatened that if more robberies happen the foreigners will leave and the local economy will collapse without the foreigners spending money. Note to real estate developers: the economy was doing well before you showed up and there is a lot of evidence that the gringo presense here is actually hurting the average person (see “Impacts and Responsabilities” page).

These are just more examples of the arrogance and sense of entitlement continously displayed by the ever growing retiree community here. If people come to another country to live they should accept that they must adjust to the culture of the place they have adopted. They must learn (or at least attempt to learn) the language. People come here because it is a pretty and a cheap place to retire but that doesn´t give them the right to impose their culture or assume everything should adjust to them.

Everyday you can here the gringos laughing and sharing jokes about how Ecuadorians are stupid and that´s why nothing works here. This elitist and colonial attitude is earning the Americans a lot of resentment. Don´t think there were many tears spilled for the victims of these robberies. The sentiment on the street is: What did they expect? You can´t live in luxury surrounded by poverty and think nothing will happen. It was just a matter of time.

The egoistic reaction of the foreign community (demanding “our” security while not talking about the security of the people who are actually from Cotacachi) didn´t help either.

The question that is most being discussed amongst locals is: WHY DO THE GRINGOS THINK THEY HAVE RIGHTS THAT SUPERCEED THOSE OF THE LOCALS? It´s an excellent and disturbing question for which I have no answer.

Yours, Peter

Comments welcome.

What foreigners living here must know

Cotacachi, Imbabura

June 1, 2011

As a rash of armed robberies of American retirees is showing, Cotacachi is not the paradise pitched to the hundreds of foreigners who have recently arrived to live there, lured by too-good-to-be-true real estate offers (“Live like a king for $400 a month!”). As a dual citizenship American living, working and raising my children in Cotacachi since 1999 I have been extremely concerned with the brazen manner in which real estate developers have entered into the fray here, especially since 2008. Imbabura province is a huge conduit for the narcotics trade and is home to organized crime, drug cartels, thousands of gang members, and increasing levels of violence and delinquency. In fact, as of June, eight gangland murders had taken place in Cotacachi in 2011 alone!

Are the developers who paint such a pretty picture totally ignorant of the social instability that characterizes Cotacachi? Do the foreigners who choose to retire in Cotacachi (to stretch their retirement dollars) realize the negative social, economic, and environmental impacts of their presence? Do they care? Do new foreign residents realize that levels of resentment towards them continue to grow as they are increasingly seen as ignorant, arrogant, and culturally disrespectful?

The purpose of this website is to provide information to foreigners living in (or looking to relocate to) Cotacachi, Ecuador, specifically for the purpose of contradicting many of the falsehoods told by certain real estate companies aimed at selling real estate to American/European immigrants. The purpose of this website is NOT to dissuade Americans/Europeans who want to live in Ecuador from doing so, but simply to explain—more completely than many other sources of information do—what exactly making such a decision should entail to preserve the human, political, and environmental rights of native Ecuadorians in Cotacachi and the surrounding area.

This website has not been created with the purpose of discrediting any specific organizations or people. It is instead meant to be a source of information alternative to other sources that attempt to attract North American seniors to Cotacachi, created in reaction to much of the harm to Cotacachi’s people, economy, and environment that has transpired due to the irresponsibility—though often with innocent intentions—of North American or European immigrants.

This website has been written based on information from personal interviews and research of other, less honest, sources of information about retiring in Cotacachi, Ecuador. To protect the privacy of those interviewed as well as those giving out false information on the Internet, this website refrains from using any specific names or referring to specific enterprises. The creators hope that after being exposed to the information on this site, however, readers will be able to determine which sources of information must be regarded critically and generally avoided during their decision-making process.

Yours in good citizenship,

Peter Shear

 

May 2011, Double gangland murders in Cotacachi

Un doble asesinato obligó al COE a tomar la medida

El cantón Cotachi, en la provincia de Imabura, fue declarado en emergencia en el área de seguridad, pero no todas las autoridades están de acuerdo. Un doble asesinato ocurrido en las últimas horas obligó al Comité de Operaciones de Emergencia (COE) a tomar la medida.

Cuatro jóvenes están implicados en un doble asesinato ocurrido en la comunidad Tulibamba del cantón Cotachi. Fueron identificados como Lisandro Chiquillana, José Mario Lanchimba y dos menores de edad.

Se presume que el crimen fue cometido durante un enfrentamiento entre pandillas. “Ingieren licor y entre ellos se enfrentan. Problemas de poderío donde se enfrentan entre pandillas, resultando dos personas fallecidas”, dijo Geovanny Jiménez, fiscal de esa jurisdicción.

Las víctimas son Omar Guandinango, de 19 años de edad, y John Mauricio Laine Andrade, de 15, quienes recibieron varias puñaladas durante una fiesta.

“Les persiguieron atrás y no les dieron tiempo a nada y les empezaron a corretear y nosotros como no podíamos hacer nada, pues, prácticamente nos quedamos allí”, manifestó Marcelo Andrade, familiar de uno de ellos.

El juez segundo de Garantías Penales de Imbabura dictó orden de prisión preventiva en contra de los detenidos.

Este caso encendió la polémica en Cotachi, en donde ya se registran 8 muertes violentas en lo que va del año.

El COE cantonal declaró la emergencia en el área de seguridad, pero ni la Policía ni el COE provincial respaldan esta decisión, reportó el canal Gama Tv.

“Estamos pidiendo que haya mayor número de policías en Cotacachi, pero acabo de escuchar de que no hay personal. Incluso estamos pidiendo más patrulleros, pero igualmente no tienen”, dijo Alberto Andrango, alcalde del cantón.

Por eso, el burgomaestre adicionó que “no podemos quedarnos quietos, tenemos que asumir nosotros la responsabilidad” de tratar de solucionar el problema de inseguridad.

La respuesta vino de Edmundo Merlo, comandante provincial de la Policía de Imbabura. “Nosotros como institución policial tenemos que ser muy categóricos en esto, de que las cosas para declarar en emergencia a un cantón o a una provincia, o a determinada región deben cumplirse con ciertos requisitos y que sea evidente la problemática que existe en el cantón o cuando ya veamos que la delincuencia haya rebasado la capacidad operativa de la Policía Nacional”, dijo al canal local TVN.

http://www.ecuadorinmediato.com/index.php?module=Noticias&func=news_user_view&id=150841&umt=polemica_declaratoria_emergencia_por_inseguridad_en_cotacachi

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Las futuras generaciones nos juzgarán no solo por lo que hicimos, sino -y principalmente- por lo que dejamos de hacer.
Future generations will judge us not only according to what we accomplished, but- primarily- for what we left undone