In the last four years, only three multifamily housing projects, according to data from the Guatemalan Chamber of Construction (CGC). A sample is a project of several one and two rooms apartments, 21 m2 and 45 m2. Its average cost is Q350 thousand.
From 1995 to 2015, the data of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CEUR), of the University of San Carlos, indicate that in the category of multifamily housing only 28 projects were built. Instead, the single -family had 3,859 construction licenses issued and serial housing, 1,778.
The municipal income to authorize construction licenses, of all kinds, passed in the last four years of Q5.6 million to the Q16.8 million, while the Single Tax on Property Tax (Iusi) was Q22.5 million in 2021 and closed with Q27.2 million in 2024, according to the Portal of Local Governments of the Ministry of Public Finance.
Villa Canales, in addition, is one of the many municipalities in the country that do not have Territorial Planning Plan (POT), although the Mayor’s Office claims to have one. However, only one monograph from the municipality, of 2015, is online.
Although the occupation of space has been gradual, this is one of the municipalities that have absorbed the expansion of the metropolitan area, as it is 24 kilometers away from the capital. Part of the diagnosis is the lack of planning instruments that allow orderly growth, which limited its development, according to its monograph.
Population dynamics
Villa Canales, known as “Pueblo Viejo” in the colonial era, formed from two communities: Santa Inés Petapa and San Miguel Petapa.
CEUR studies reflect that the change from rural to urban population occurred in a period of half a century, due to internal migration. By 1950 he reported 20,057 registered rural inhabitants. While the 2002 census registered 103,814, of which 72% was urban population.
The architect and researcher of the CEUR Luis Olayo attributes to the remoteness of this municipality that has a little more slow population than its residents of the Metropolitan South. In addition, he points out that his relief is abrupt and not all areas lend for mass urbanizations. By 2024 a population of 169 thousand 534 inhabitants was projected.
The southern part of the municipality is composed of farms and many forests. It still offers areas for urbanization, so urban growth is slow and vertical housing even more, says the researcher. In addition, it has vulnerability conditions, due to its proximity to the volcanoes of Pacaya, of fire, of water and acatenango.
One of the main problems facing the municipality, like San Miguel Petapa, is the overflow, every year, of the Platanitos and Pinula rivers, which cause ravages and losses of housing for people living on their banks.
After five years of studying the wastewater in the metropolitan area, Olayo indicates that the water crawls from the neighboring municipalities located in the highlands. It is a complicated approach, since the mayors have filed extensions, for 19 years, to approve the Government Agreement 236-2006, which regulates the discharges and reuse of wastewater. “It plays many private interests,” says Olayo.
Mobility and waste
The mayor of Villa Canales, Ramiro Rivera Hernández, says that the urban expansion experienced by the municipality is regulated by the Department of Construction Licensing, a key unit that applies a regulation and a land use plan, among other regulations.
He acknowledges that the ravages for river overflows in each winter are due, in part, by excessive population growth in places of risk, as well as erosion of dreams, but the most obvious, he maintains, is the accumulation and drag of garbage and solid waste that, as an end point, affect the residents of Villa Canales. He states that his response has been preparing planning cleaning days before the rainy season and reforestation campaigns, among other measures.
The mayor indicates two day -to -day problems. On the one hand, road mobility, for which it has a monitoring center, in charge of the Municipal Traffic Police, which allows to implement regulation strategies and improve vehicular fluidity.
The other is the problem of solid waste, which addresses from the eradication of clandestine landfills to cleaning operations at critical points and promoting adequate waste collection, such as cleaning trains.
Part of the final reflections posed by the CEUR study on the municipalities of the southern department of Guatemala is that, until the first half of the twentieth century, urban growth did not imply a planning problem for the government authorities, both at the municipal and national level, due to the little dynamism of the cities and an economic system based on agro -export activities.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the population growth that almost all municipalities experienced neglected urban planning. To date, some remain without adopting territorial planning plans, he warns.
