What are the construction standards in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc?

I’ve got a story about the construction standards in Yucatan, Mexico. I’m an industrial designer by education and I’ve done a lot of construction in my life as well. So when I got down here, I decided that I was going to do my own drawings and do my own general contracting for the property I purchased. So I asked my lawyer what I needed for building permit.
 
 He said, “Don’t worry about it.”
 
So I didn’t worry about it....

I’ve got a story about the construction standards in Yucatan, Mexico. I’m an industrial designer by education and I’ve done a lot of construction in my life as well. So when I got down here, I decided that I was going to do my own drawings and do my own general contracting for the property I purchased. So I asked my lawyer what I needed for building permit.
 
 He said, “Don’t worry about it.”
 
So I didn’t worry about it. Almost exactly one year later, we were still doing heavy construction (you can see everything going on from the street) and somebody from city hall showed up and said, “Where’s your building permit?” 
 
I panicked. I called my attorney again and explained what happened and he said, “Don’t worry about it.” 
 
The next day I had permit that was good for a year. My attorney is an ex-mayor and one of the reasons why he’s an attorney is because he knows how city hall works. If I had gone down to city hall and tried to do whatever I had to do, I would probably have been three days in various lines until I got to the right line.
 
This was 10 years ago. I think they may have tried to upgrade the system, but I never had a building inspector come and say, “Okay, that’s not the code,” or anything like that.
 
Both engineers and architects here typically supervise.  They not only do the drawings and design, they also act as general manager of the construction. There are half a dozen who I know that they’re really ethical and they try to deliver the best job possible, both from the design standpoint and the execution standpoint. 
 
Because of my background I felt that I could do it myself.  I worked with the plumbers, electricians and masons.
 
While designing a second floor on the house, the mason said, “We have to make this a little fatter here to support everything.” It was very informal way of doing it. It was all done by his experience rather than by calculations. 
 
In Merida and in Cancun, they’re trying to be a little bit more professional, particularly in Cancun, which is very vulnerable to hurricanes, so they are attempting to make their construction standards more rigorous. I don’t think everybody’s first thoughts are “let’s make this very good,” that is, until another hurricane comes in and knocks down stuff that is substandard.
 
Basically, everything here in the Yucatan is constructed with concrete block. You cross the border into Belize and everything is wood, which I don’t understand. I can almost count on my one hand the wooden structures I know in northern Yucatan.  The Belizeans and the English came and took all the good wood in Yucatan,. That’s a part of Yucatan history with the Caste War and the British supplying guns from Belize to the Mayans in exchange for hardwood. The Caste War was, in very general terms, the last uprising of the Mayans against the Hispanics. A lot of the furniture that ended up in England in Victorian times either was from Belize or southern Yucatan.

 

(Picture: Casa Hamaca Guesthouse, Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico.)

The construction standards in the Yucatan Peninsula are completely different from American standards. Everything here is made of brick. It is very strong and could withstand strong winds. We don’t use sheetrock. The construction standards here are very good and very consistent. 
 
When you are trying to restore a house that has been downtown for 200 years, it is difficult to change some of the things that are already in there such as the plumbing, wiring, and things...

The construction standards in the Yucatan Peninsula are completely different from American standards. Everything here is made of brick. It is very strong and could withstand strong winds. We don’t use sheetrock. The construction standards here are very good and very consistent. 
 
When you are trying to restore a house that has been downtown for 200 years, it is difficult to change some of the things that are already in there such as the plumbing, wiring, and things like that but I have seen wonderful work. In terms of architecture and building, Merida (a colonial city in the state of Yucatan) is very well known. It has a good reputation and the architects here are very well-known. In Cancun (an extremely new city in the state of Quintana Roo), they are used to building these huge hotels with very nice standards. They look very good.
 
In order to build in the Yucatan, you have to have zoning permits, the project has to be approved, and there are ecological restrictions, mostly on the coastal areas. Yucatan has seen the problems of growing without any control. Some of the laws, at least in the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, are now very stringent. They now look a lot into the conservation of the environment. They try to avoid building in some areas because they don’t want the migration of animals in the areas to stop. This is being applied in the past 10 years and I think it is very good as it helps and it is working. There has been some erosion in the Yucatan but that is now being fixed. Things take time to get fixed but they are being addressed. So I think we are heading to the right direction.

 

(Beachfront condo in Peten Seaside Community under construction with brick, Sisal, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)

In the Yucatan Peninsula, there are professional construction standards and there are construction regulations both on the local and in the state level requiring builders to get permits. There are officials from the city that authorize the design of the project so there are good checks and balances in the system. Licensed engineers need to sign off on your project before you are permitted to start building.
 
For new construction, the first owners of the house do have guarantees...

In the Yucatan Peninsula, there are professional construction standards and there are construction regulations both on the local and in the state level requiring builders to get permits. There are officials from the city that authorize the design of the project so there are good checks and balances in the system. Licensed engineers need to sign off on your project before you are permitted to start building.
 
For new construction, the first owners of the house do have guarantees as the law mandates guarantees for hidden defects on all new construction. This construction standard includes the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo; the whole Yucatan Peninsula. It’s a mature system. There’s not a large risk of having a building that’s going to collapse or be built to poor standards. 
 
One of the things I noticed when I first moved to the Yucatan Peninsula is that around 95% of all construction here is made of cement blocks, which is one of the least expensive construction materials to be utilized here in Mexico. Cement blocks also do very well against strong winds. When a hurricane goes through Florida or even in the Caribbean Islands where they build using lumber, you will see quite a bit of destruction. You won’t see that happen as much in the Yucatan. Building with cement blocks is a big plus.
 
There are different sizes of cement blocks. When you go into the low-income areas of Yucatan, sometimes it’s a shame that you will see some construction made of small blocks that absorb the heat and you can feel the heat radiating from the blocks. You can tell a good construction by the size of the block and the type of support that they have on them. Having a good home inspector or a good realtor that understands the quality issues is a big plus. 
 
Right now, we have a smaller project where the homes duplexes share walls. One of the things that we did on our project, even though it is a duplex with a shared wall, is that we built two complete walls. Building this way greatly reduces the noise, so you don’t hear your neighbors and it just makes the structure stronger. These are some of the little details that you can look up to in order to make sure that you get a good quality house or condo.
 
I’m not quite sure if there is any kind of regulation relative to the amount of rebar used. I do know that some developers show buyers the size of rebar that they’re using. Within that regulation, some developers use the smallest amount or the smallest diameter size and some use the higher quality, in order to make sure the structure is well built.
 
In our team at Top Mexico Real Estate, we always introduce a professional home inspector, especially for re-sales. They check on issues throughout the home such as electrical, pipes and even water pressure. One of the things I hear in the Yucatan is that there is a higher buildup of materials inside the water pipes, which is something that you have to have maintenance on because it builds up and then it reduces the amount of water coming through your pipes. It starts to build up over 5 to 7 years.  

 

(Luxury condos built around a golf course, Playacar Phase 2, Playa del Carmen, Mexico, pictured.)