Better Access to Agricultural Lands
Otates y Cantarranas is the small rural farming town, population 829, which is the historic center of population closest to Playa Las Tortugas. According to the 2000 census approximately 65% of the employed persons of Otates y Cantarranas worked in agriculture or ranching, and in fact well over 90% of the land of the community is parceled for agricultural or grazing uses.
One of the basic necessities for the agriculture and ranching industry is access to their farming and grazing parcels. In the past many parcels in this area were not easily accessible due to a lack of road material such as gravels to stabilize the mostly dirt roads, making it difficult to plant, till, and harvest crops or feed and water livestock.
In order to have year-round access to Playa Las Tortugas, from 1998 through 2002 the developer made a number of road improvements to the primary agricultural road including construction of a small bridge which also aided access to some 25 farming parcels.
In April of 2003, the Playa Las Tortugas developer, in conjunction with the community of Otates y Cantarranas, entered in to the first of several agreements with the Municipality (county) of Compostela for joint road improvement projects. In Mexico funds are sometimes made available to communities by municipal and state governments for infrastructure improvements, however the community must pay a portion of the overall improvement cost in order to receive the balance of the funding. Typically the cost of participation for the community is 10% to 20% of the project total. During 2003, 2004, and 2005, the developer of Playa Las Tortugas paid the participation cost of several projects, of which at least 50% of each project was destined solely to benefit roads not used to access the development.
For the April 2003 road project, access to 13 farming parcels was improved via the installation of over 2 kilometers of road material in secondary crop roads, that connect directly to the farming parcels from the primary road. Another 1.5 kilometers of material was layed on primary roads through the agricultural areas. Then between July and November 2003 the developer invested in an additional 174 truckloads of road base in the primary road, without participation of other parties in the costs.
In 2004 approximately 12 kilometers of primary and secondary road were re-graded, and road base material added as needed for leveling of the roads.
During July of 2005, there were about six kilometers of road material shared equally between the primary road and a number of secondary crop roads, and some 10 kilometers of roadway was re-graded, with the developer of Playa Las Tortugas sharing in 25% of the overall project cost.
In 2005, several property owners of Playa Las Tortugas also participated with funding for road improvements and in 2006, the developer again repaired and graded approximately nine kilometers of the primary road without financial participation of other parties.