Mexico crackdown on coastal development | Hacker News Reader

Mexico crackdown on coastal development

yucatanmagazine.com

123 pointsuntiledsource31 comments

Crackdown on unauthorized development.

Apparently the old way was to build in unauthorized locations and then pay the fines as part of the operating budget. The new plan is to enforce the existing regulations and try to have them demolished.

When a story about laws actually being enforced is news, it’s a good reminder that the weight of the law holds very different meanings in different countries.

It’ll be interesting to see if there are any holdouts, or developments let alone.

In the phrase "you _____ follow the law",

- Most of Latin America is 'should/oughta' - North America is more like 'have to' - Europe is 'need to' - And majority of Asia is simply 'WILL'

(disclaimer: I'm from LatAm)

What's the difference between those last three?

"have to": If I don't, they'll shoot me

"need to": It is a moral imperative for me to do this

"WILL": Because of course this is the case

I don't know of too many locales in the US that shoot people for unauthorized development.

I think people can use their critical thinking skills to understand my phrasing was to help make the point to answer the sub-question instead of being taken literally in the context of how legal authorities handle unauthorized development. Especially given the post to which I responded was referring to cultural stances on following laws in general and not this specific situation.

In much of the US if you continually refuse to comply the authorities it will very likely, at some point eventually, escalate to the point where a loaded gun is aimed at you. For civil issues it might take a long time, but at some point you'll probably be in contempt of court and if you then refuse to be arrested, the guns might come out.

When people say the government has a monopoly on violence, this is what they mean. Eventually, violence will be used to ensure compliance. Most people comply before that happens, under threat of it.

Should - I know it's the right thing to do, but nobody else follows the law, and doing so would put me at a competitive disadvantage.

Have to - I know it's the right thing to do, and if I don't, there's a good chance I'll get caught and fined heavily enough that it's not worth the risk.

Need to - rules are to be followed, and the alternative is massive fines and/or jail, plus disobeying might make me a social pariah.

Will - there is no alternative. (but I'm not sure that's actually true for Asia writ large).

I get the feeling that in Asia following the law is secondary to obeisance to superiors. Of course, where these align you get the nicest Asian societies (e.g., Japan, Singapore).

Where does "the system was cooked up by assholes a long time ago and far far away to the benefit of incumbent interests and the local enforcers will do literally anything so long as they can maintain plausible deniability and their paychecks" fall on this scale?

Because that's how this stuff works most of the time except in places where the incumbent interests dominate and everyone is rich enough to believe their own BS.

There's a tendency within certain filter bubbles to portray other parts of the world as blindly law following even including the spirit of the law as a means toward making some point to the tune of saying that people (presumably more local) who don't do that to their own detriment are wrong, bad, whatever. Nobody blindly follows the law to their own detriment unless they're indoctrinated to the point of ignorance. People comply just enough to keep the threats of violence away.

I think that's almost a universal truth, the must/should/will is all just shades of gray.

Africa: what is law?

in Africa small bribe is sufficient.

> And majority of Asia is simply 'WILL'

Nope. It's also "should/oughta" as well - even in developed Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan where bribery in development tenders is treated as the cost of doing business.

GAN Integrity [0] and the Yeun Yuen Ang's unbundled corruption matrix [1] is the best way to think about corruption and compliance risk.

To quote the 2016 remake of The Tick:

"Goat: I'm going to speed-dial the police.

Arthur: You pay organized crime weekly to protect your store and you say nothing.

Goat: At least the organized crime is organized."

LatAm isn't that different from much of Asia or Eastern Europe (or much of Southern Europe 15-20 years ago) - the only difference is the bulk of FDI that would have gone to LatAm shifted to Asia in the 1990s-2000s because of stronger linkages thanks to Japanese and Taiwanese financial partners. And European FDI in LatAm shifted to the CEE, Balkans, and Turkiye thanks to the EU expansion and the Eurozone crisis overimpacting LatAm oriented countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France.

One of my acquaintances at the HKS who's the goto researcher on anti-corruption (eg. Worked directly with national governments in Asia, the UNODC, and the OECD on corruption and compliance standards) has themselves argued that LatAm (especially Brazil) got overly penalized following Lava Jato due to the lack of intermediaries. For example, American FDI into Asia is usually done in conjunction with Singaporean, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese partners who take the legal and operational burden which acts as a liability firewall but American and European FDI into LatAm is direct, which increases liability and compliance risk.

[0] - https://www.ganintegrity.com/country-profiles/

[1] - https://oecd-development-matters.org/2020/06/25/unbundling-c...

Eh, this varies by European country. In Ireland, for a long time, there was an element of "seek forgiveness": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plaza_(Dublin)#History (built ten meters higher than they had planning for, got away with it)

These days, the authorities are somewhat less forgiving: https://www.archiwik.org/index.php/%27Archer%27s_Garage%27,_... (illegally demolished building, _forced to reinstate it_), https://www.thejournal.ie/diggers-begin-demolition-of-co-mea... (illegally built building, demolished).

(Ireland has become generally significantly less corrupt in the interim.)

> When a story about laws actually being enforced is news, it’s a good reminder that the weight of the law holds very different meanings in different countries.

I don't think the weight of the law holds very different meanings in different countries, so much as the weight of the law holds very different meanings for different capital levels.

In the USA like in Mexico, there's plenty of cases where companies will just count fines as operating costs.

>Apparently the old way was to build in unauthorized locations and then pay the fines as part of the operating budget.

Yes, that's called a "tax".

> In a bold move that signals a major shift in Mexico’s approach to environmental protection, the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa) has launched an aggressive campaign against unauthorized real estate developments along the picturesque Yucatán coast.

I would take this story with a huge grain of salt. There's illegal development everywhere in Mexico. Here's a story (one of many, and from an actual newspaper) about illegal development in Tepoztlán: https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2022/08/15/estados/edific.... This goes on in the open -- you can look towards the mountains from town and see fancy houses that are literally within the national park.

I picked Tepoztlán because it's very beautiful, very close to the capital, and is one of Mexico's most visited "Pueblos Mágicos" (the most visited so far in 2026). If the government isn't stopping obvious illegal development here then one would wager they aren't really stopping it anywhere. Insitutions are weak, so crackdowns are limited and temporary, and they're usually just aimed at developers that aren't properly "connected". "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law" and all that.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblos_M%C3%A1gicos

- https://www.infobae.com/mexico/2026/05/21/por-esta-razon-tep...

Yeah, this is much like when your alcoholic friend says he's decided to stop drinking for real this time.

It isn't unusual for an alcoholic to quit drinking for real. But the rate of failing is high enough that unless they are getting serious help in quitting you should assume failure.

Of course there’s corruption everywhere in Mexico but it’s not uniform. The state of Morelos is probably one of the worst.

Now do Florida coasts next (seriously). In many Florida counties here you can hire your own "private inspectors" at a high price-tag to replace city/county building inspectors. Once that's done, the county can't even legally step on your property to investigate a complaint.

This enables developers to proceed without government intervention through completion of the home, then if anything, they pay fines that are maybe 1-2% of the project cost.

Meanwhile, even protected wildlife preserves are fair game. One trick used often here is listing the wrong address on your permits so that neighbors don't receive notices, then later they update it to the correct address claiming a scriber's error. This is starting to get some more attention but not enough to compel our elected officials to enforce their own building and zoning laws.

There is a lot of cartel money on Yucatan resorts, it is way harder than it looks.

Yeah, and they tend to get a bit violent with people who try to oppose them.

Actions speak louder than press releases. Let's see if they demolish something owned by someone with connections. If they do, it's a real shift. If not, it's just theater

In other words, the government has determined the "bribery" line item on developers' expense sheets is not large enough.

As my ex boss used to put it. "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." The BSA didn't agree unfortunately.

<sarcasm> Now that's just wasted effort. Why save the rich from themselves? Let them build on coasts and see their investments slowly drown over the coming years. </sarcasm>

Seriously, it's refreshing to see an authority figuring out that fines are only a bar to make an activity exclusive to the wealthy.

Imagine, if Trump had not been bribed by the HEB's to start a war with Iran, the Mexican Cartels would have been his focus (closer to home and certainly more relevant to 99% of Americans).

An outright invasion of Mexico would have cost much less since it's right here next to us, clean up the Cartel mess, then slowly re-establish a lawful democracy (like done with Japan after WW II) with "payback", as in massive amounts of coastal beachfront land transferred to US ownership with Trump branded golf courses everywhere.

Americans could now retire in Mexico even cheaper and much safer.

Good.

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