San Miguel de Allende’s historic urban landscape is being rescued

Published April 8th, 2022

The Public Works Department and the Historic Center of San Miguel de Allende are intervening in the restoration of the historic urban landscape in the monuments area of the municipality; according to the agencies, the aim is for San Miguel de Allende to continue to shine to make Mexico and the world beat. In this regard, the Municipal President, Mauricio Trejo Pureco, commented that with the intervention of the Historic Center and Heritage departments in the supervision and the Infrastructure and Public Works department in the execution, the facades of several buildings in the historic center are being renovated, both in their appearance and in their construction; that is to say, improvements are being made in bulging, missing or non-existent plastering and “lime” painting.

It was specified that since the beginning of this municipal Public Administration a high degree of deterioration and abandonment was found in some buildings in the so-called “Monuments Zone”, that by indications of the municipal president this program was initiated, which diagnoses and intervenes the minor or major wear that currently presents the representative properties, cataloged and not cataloged, of the ‘Monuments Zone’, complying with the regulatory instances of sites and monuments, as well as the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

“It is a municipal program, with municipal resources, where the Direction of Historic Center (and Heritage) determines what, how, and where the work should be done … There are others (properties) that for some cause or reason are abandoned or are deteriorated and have not been intervened by the owners, either for lack of resources or lack of commitment. What we are also looking for is that the owners of their properties, especially the owners of houses, allow us to carry out these works because there are houses where authorization has been requested and they are not allowing us to do it”, said the director of the Historic Center and Heritage, Emilio Lara.

To begin this program, in November 2021 an invitation was made to the owners of houses, as well as commercial businesses, to provide them with maintenance, and, although there was a good participation of the individuals, there are abandoned properties, others for sale and some more in legal processes; in all these cases the Municipality will attend them directly until covering the whole of the historic center.

For the last three weeks, work has been done on San Francisco, Hernández Macías (fourth and fifth), Hidalgo (first and second), Zacateros (first, second, and almost third) streets; work will continue on Umarán, San Francisco (first), Relox (first) and Correo (first and second).

An example of these restorations is the Chorro building, which is a cataloged representative historic heritage building, which is undergoing specific treatment with restoration techniques and not only apparent painting.

The first stage of this municipal program considers the “Monuments Zone”, which corresponds to the 64 blocks declared in 1982 by the INAH, in which it is contemplated to conclude in April so that these works are not affected by the beginning of the rainy season; at the end, this area could be extended to the ‘Unesco Zone’ which is the buffer zone to the outside, that covers 96 blocks.