Tourism Ministry Changes Density Parameters for Golf Courses and Undeveloped Areas

The Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) released Resolution 01-2008 which modifies the demographic density parameters applicable to golf courses and to undeveloped areas throughout the country to include such areas as mangrove areas, swamps and marshland.

“will be applied to the net area to be developed as golf courses involving real estate projects, the permitted density of the area, adding 30% of the total golf course to said area in order to calculate the density.”

In its first paragraph, the measure states that it will be applied “in projects that include golf courses and hotels wherein the brute population density existing in the zone will be taken into account, areas where a hotel is established without considering a golf course will be viewed for its density,” according to Sectur sources.

As such, the regulation “will be applied to the net area to be developed as golf courses involving real estate projects, the permitted density of the area, adding 30% of the total golf course to said area in order to calculate the density.”

The regulation also instructs that real estate projects and hotels “with areas unable to be developed, are to be determined by additional percentage, based on the following criteria which will be added to the net surface to be developed:

The promoters of these projects “must present, in both cases, – golf courses and undeveloped areas – a plan of current use and land potential including level curves, showing the location of water sources, wetlands, mangrove swamps, grass lands, forests, etc,” indicating, in square meters, the total surface area that corresponds to each usable land area.

This plan “must be supported by a Non-Objection Clause from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources” and it must describe in detail “the reforestation or a-forestation system or that will permit and provide the natural balance to the loss of vegetation and trees” that was provoked by the carrying out of the work; this is to preserve and increase the value of the area’s biodiversity.

The Resolution, introduced by Tourism Minister Félix Jiménez, is to be entered into the valid tourism legislation that oversees this entity in order to “regulate building, operation and tourism services, dictating norms and development parameters to secure its harmonious balance in keeping with research studies and recommendations.” The new legislation has an antecedent, the National Plan for the Organization of Tourism Areas of the Dominican Republic (PNOTT), worked out in an agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank and Sectur in 1991.

See Complete Resolution