After I got the council’s approval letter to split my land in 250 plots last week, things have been really weird. The council still seems to want to have a say in what we are going to do exactly, but when I went to the national cadaster’s office, they said this particular council has no say whatsoever in what I can build there.
The council has no say in our works apparently!
As a matter of fact they didn’t care about my approval letter and all the sweat it cost to get it. They said there was no decree for that village stating one should ask permission to do anything on one’s private land. Which is why there has been so much abuse with no green areas, lakefront areas sold by corrupt officials to private owners instead of leaving the village a public beach access, and so on.
What are they afraid of? That after splitting the land, we start selling random plots to people that will then turn to the council and demand electricity and water access. That would be very costly for the council. But they have no way of stopping us, just pretending that they can. We have let them know of our intentions at the end of April, and have only heard rumors back. That the mayor and his counselors were meeting about us about every week, but we never got the minutes saying what was discussed. I asked the mayor’s secretary for a meeting, but since she is my old handyman’s sister, I bet the mayor never got the message.
The guy I stalked to get my approval letter is the director of public works. He says we should provide the council with an environmental study to see our impact on the land. The architect quoted $3,000 to do it and even the guy who requested it said the mayor would not read it, just file it in case the council suddenly starts to care about the environment and they need proof that they weren’t careless back in 2013.
one of the new roads
When I told that guy we would dig a well (estimated cost to us $50,000) and would give it for free to the council in exchange for its administration and maintenance, he was very eager to get a free well since it would provide water to a third of the village that only has water for a few hours per day at the moment. Then he came back to us saying there would be a well digging fee, and they would impose a technical requirement sheet, bla bla bla. Oh and why do we wanted to have an underground water tank, harmoniously integrated in the landscape, he wanted a huge water tower that one would see from a 10 miles radius, and was not concerned anymore about his environmental directives of 10 minutes earlier.
Did he not get in the first place that NOTHING is legally obligating us to provide a well? We can just sit and wait until our buyers pressure the mayor enough to give them a well? Our plan is to wait and see now that we have the power. We can easily buy water from our neighbor who is a friend and has an elevated tank if we have just a few buyers at first, or build a small tank that will collect rain water instead of digging 100 meters to maybe find water and pay the well fee.
Same thing about the football field we had offered to the council for free in exchange for maintenance and cleaning. There are now rumors that one of the counselors bought a $7,000 piece of land and is trying to sell it back to the council for $10,000 to put the football field there. He is the same guy who sold the public beach that wasn’t his to sell and we don’t want him to win this one. Our workers are exhilarated about the field so we have sent them to tell the mayor again that he will have the same costs making a field here or there, save for the buying cost, ours is free…
To add to the mess, the architect was supposed to give us the individual maps of 260 plots for $3,000. But apparently the cadaster only accepts maps from people who were trained by them, which he is not. So we reduced his work to 100 plots so he can share his fee with the other guy who would just sign off the maps, he said yes, and raised his rate another $750. We accepted on the condition that any error on the maps that would be rejected by the cadaster was his responsibility and he would have to re-apply and pay the processing fee. He quit the next day. BF says it is because of the condition I put about the errors, I offended him and he doesn’t want to see my face again. When has asking people to do their job well for the price they want become so offensive, I don’t know. On the next day I had hired another guy happy to do the job for the same rate under the same conditions. He starts this week.
All is well at home, except the new handyman’s girlfriend, who came to clean on a few days, burned her foot and says she can’t walk nor work. It was quite some time ago and we saw her walking around in the village. BF says I gave her too much work and she won’t come back, unless we have her work less and for more money. I didn’t want a maid in the first place, so not a big loss.
The animals are slowly recovering from their month of food deprivation when we were gone, but still dying at a high rate. I am taking tips from the ladies in the village, we should not let the little chicks out for at least two weeks until they are strong enough to face the mud or they will get a leg infection, stop walking, and die. We need to build them a nursery.
What happens when you lovingly build 12 nests for your birds?
they cramp up to share one (feat. Mrs Turkey and The-hen-who-looks-like-an-ostrich).
How is life going in your neck of the woods?
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Wow, sounds like the Council is a handful! What do you want to do with the 250 plots? Subdividing?
I want to sell as a residential compound.
I find it so funny how open the locals seem to be about money and work. They really seem to know how much their work is “worth” (to them at least) and are pushy to get it.
it is normal to negotiate everything, so you get overquoted, then offer 40% below asking, the guy walks away pretending to be offended, then comes back a day later accepting your offer. I hate negotiating but hate being ripped off even more. It is hard to know the real price of some of the work.
Seems like there has been a lot of obstacles to develop this land. Sure looks like a beautiful place from your pictures.
Yes, it is pretty neat! So natural and quiet.
Looks beautiful but it sounds like they want to make it a giant pain! I hope that you get everything worked out!
thanks, I hope so.
Wow, who knew that trying to do something good would be such a pain in the a$$?! It just goes to show you that politicians are the same anywhere you’re at. Hope it all gets worked out at some point!
it will, at some point. How far is that point… well… pretty far at the moment.
Wow dealing with the council seems like a heach ache and a half! Looking forward to seeing how this all gets worked out!
yeah, they are a piece of work, but I am stubborn too!
Looks amazing out there Pauline. Time to catch up on last weeks Little house in Guatemala, I want to know exactly what’s going on with these 250 plots.
haha not much at the moment, I am neck deep in the bureaucracy 🙂
Sounds like a neverending maze of bureaucracy. At least it also sounds like you guys are a little closer to being able to begin development. If they don’t have any real power, what’s stopping you from just going ahead with things? It seems hard to believe that any of the agreements you’re hoping from them now will have any real staying power, given how difficult the road has been to this point.
Looks like the cadaster now needs approval from the ministry of forestry and environment because we are next to major Maya ruins and some pristine jungle. Now that application is stuck on a pile on some desk.
Ah, what a headache! Sounds like the project is inching forward though. One day, you will be able to sit back and look out at 250 lots with homes and be happy you were able to bring it all together.
One day… some far far away day. Yes, eventually it will work out and I have hope sooner than later but if you don’t oil the system they sure don’t make it easy.
Oh man bureaucracy kills! Honestly this is the perfect case study of how government quickly becomes inefficient and abuses their power. It’s really too bad the city isn’t more concerned with partnering with you. They obviously are gaining extraordinarily from your efforts, so why not partner and make sure that the development goes efficiently and to the highest of standards? It would pay off long-term. Anyway I hope things get easier from here on out.
Everything has been just fine here in Minnesota, still living the dream 😉
haha. They want to earn now, and earn for themselves. Power is corrupt, you don’t want the public good, you want your own good, and you want it now. They don’t see the long term benefits.
Wow $50,000 is a lot to drill a well. Sounds like certain things can be pretty expensive down there while others are not nearly as much.
Anything that needs importing (car, heavy machinery, etc) is more expensive. And to get a decent engineer you almost pay US prices too. This is the price quoted by the council to get their well, but I don’t know if that includes their own bribes and that is what they billed to the taxpayer of it was the real cost of the works.
Sounds like a major headache! I always love your Guatemala updates.
it is haha but thank goodness other things make up for it.
Wow, sounds like you’ve been busy and had some nice little drama there. Hopefully the plots of land all end up working out okay and that your animals get healthy again!
Don’t want to assume…but does the council want a kick back or a bribe?? My wife who was born and raised in Honduras tells me about the corruption there and that everything has a price…with the governmental agencies. Not sure if it’s like that in other parts of Central America.
Yes, everything has a price and they do want a bribe. One of the corrupt guys even browsed the land “to see where he’d like to buy”… for free. My game is to pay exactly $0 in bribes and for that you just have to be more stubborn. Like when the police stops you for no infraction, if you don’t pay after 15 minutes, they’ll let you go to stop losing time. So far I am losing time until they let me keep going.
You have a beautiful piece of land Pauline! Sounds like quite a project you got going on over there. I look forward to hearing what happens next!
Thanks Joshua, it is a beautiful place indeed.
Wow. It’s a good think you are both persistent and patient, Pauline. I am persistent but patience isn’t one of my strongest virtues. 🙂 Your land is so beautiful and hopefully sooner rather than later you’ll be able to sell those plots and build the community you want. It just makes me shake my head sometimes since you’re trying to do something good for the community and they can’t see it. (well, maybe they can but want a handout too)
I have zero patience as well but trying to learn… Today I went to pay my taxes and the guy said I owed X but was unable to locate my property and confirm it was indeed X. Two hours later, I just paid and went away.
All about the benjamins/pesos whatever you want to call it no matter where councils are. You are trying to help and give them things they wouldnt have to worry about and they say no. Well you don’t have to help them but then they will try to make your life miserable. Wishing you the best on getting this taken care of as soon as possible. And then the girl wants more money for doing less work. Whatever find another job.
money here is called quetzales, from the name of the most beautiful bird, who is so wild it would die in captivity. I love that name. The girl hasn’t said so openly, that is BF imagining things, because she is foreign he wants to pay above market for less work, I buy my peace and go along with the decision.
Always interested in hearing the newest developments. At least you are headed in the right direction even though it’s slow.
slow and steady wins the race!
Pauline, good luck with all this; one day life will be so organised and clear cut that you’ll find yourself wishing for the excitement of today back :).
thanks Maria, you always want what you don’t have, that’s right. I’ll stock up on busy for now then.
When I read that I felt like I was stepping back into the 1800’s or something…what with what this town needs as far as basics and the council running it with their heads up their asses. I don’t know how you have the patience for all of it!
Well there isn’t much else to do. I learn from my neighbor she has been there 15 years and is so patient and resilient it is admirable.
Sounds like Little House in Guatemala should be a night time soap opera! We’ve always had separate beds when we had multiple dogs, but they always seem to want to cram onto the same one. You’d think it would be hot with all the fur or feather, but maybe they just need some love.
I thought they were fighting to hatch the eggs, but it may be that they just like each other’s company!
You know what, I bet you never expected all of this to turn out the way it has been going but you knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. Take it in stride, step by step and eventually you will see your dream a reality. Red tape sucks.
Maybe I give them back a % of the blog income in royalties to pay their bribes haha. No, I knew it would be no picnic and it doesn’t bother me too much. For now.
And people wonder why third world countries remain third world countries. With so much corruption it’s almost comical. I hope everything works out for you, it’s ridiculous you have to go through everything you do.
I looked pretty seriously at developing a neighborhood at one point. We discovered that “bribing” the city council with a contribution of land – in this case for a school – greased the skids quite a bit. Anything that a developer can contribute to the general public infrastructure is greatly appreciated, except, of course, in Guatemala. That’s surprising to me. You have the power, as you mentioned, so play hard with them. Don’t give in!
We offered the football field, plus another patch of forest the same size to make a park, and whatever land they need for a school, health center, library or anything that would benefit the community.
They don’t care, they just want plots for themselves to resell for a profit once the development launches, rather than looking for the benefit of the people who elected them.