You can almost hear the gush as you read online descriptions about the Riviera Maya, a 130-kilometer strip of Mexico’s Caribbean coast between Cancun in the north and Tulum in the south, including Playa del Carmen and its access to the island of Cozumel. It is “Mexico’s hottest investment property,” seeing “explosive growth,” and is “nothing short of phenomenal.” The hype is not about the beauty of the Yucatan Peninsula’s shoreline with its spectacular coral reefs offshore and sparkling white sandy beaches. It isn’t about the Maya who live there trying to maintain their traditional culture. The way this area is being packaged is as a place to make money. It’s about “financial potential.”
If you were buying a home for year-round residency or vacations, you might combine goals of investment with aesthetics and amenities. In that case, you’d probably care about the quality of life for your neighborhood, which presumes a shared set of values with neighbors. It would matter if something important felt jeopardized: clean water or air, a valued landscape, the density of population, a sense of safety. On the Riviera Maya, however, the development of properties is driven by timeshares, ostensibly for that combination of investment with aesthetics and amenities, but with absolutely no voice or vote about quality of life by the “residents.” Timeshares do not create “residents.” The primary reason to own a unit is not because of some intrinsic value – say its location or its recreational or cultural opportunities – but because it can make you money. The sales pitch appeals to the greed factor. Once you buy in, you may or may not spend time there. This kind of absentee landlord status on the part of individuals allows the corporate owners of these resorts a kind of unbridled power. As long as they’re acting on behalf of financial interests, who could protest their policies? When a new development will stress local resources in a previously underdeveloped area with little infrastructure, who is going to be there in any credible way to argue in favor of – what? – underdevelopment? Native lifestyle, local agriculture, fishing, and other livelihoods, and wildlife habitats are all seriously, and often fatally, threatened. Even the Mexican government has sold out as protector or mediator for the area, creating laws that favor “foreign participation” and “bold, multi-phase projects” where once-strict land ownership laws prevented rampant development. Ironically, the few places on the Riviera Maya protected as natural environments are either eco-archeological theme parks or Mayan ruins where local culture and habitat are showcased for tourists.
This past March, my family vacationed in the area. We stayed on Cozumel, preferring an island base, but visited the mainland to tour the ruins of Coba and Tulum. As we drove along the coast, every driveway leading from the highway was newly carved through jungle, paved, fenced, gated with a security guard, and posted with a fancy sign. The Maya Riviera now boasts, cheek to jowl, resorts and condos financed through the ownership concept of timeshares. Sadly, it changes the meaning of “neighborhoods,” “residents” and even “quality of life.” One real estate pitch proclaims, “Investment opportunities in this area are indeed enticing.” When property ownership is driven by profit, some people will experience some benefit, but it seems to me that the profits will disproportionately go to the big investors and not the little guys. Meanwhile, the little guys’ investment is what has supported a stretch of amazing coastline being irreversibly changed, its resources eroded and polluted, its indigenous people displaced, traditional economies destroyed, and the very beauty of what enticed development corrupted. I find this approach frightening – maybe more for its absentee ownership than its profit motive. When we feel a responsibility to the place we live and both the short- and long-term consequences of our actions, not only are we the better for it as citizens, but our places of residence benefit as well.
Tina Cohen is a summer resident of Vinalhaven.