Dream of decent housing for channel residents coming true, albeit bittersweet for some
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
By John McPhaul
Twenty years ago the Martín Peña Channel (Caño de Martín Peña) was a narrow, fetid waterway in the heart of San Juan filled with garbage and other debris, and lined with informal housing that was barely livable due to the unbearable stench.
Yet hundreds of people lived on the banks of the 3.5-mile-long tidal channel -- which once was a broad waterway before migrants from the countryside threw their trash into it over a span of decades until it was largely filled in, stagnant and rotting and barely meters wide -- enduring the stench in a situation one resident called “a calvary.”
Today, the margins of the channel, which is part of the San Juan Bay National Estuary, are littered with abandoned houses that have yet to be removed. In the distance, heavy machinery belonging to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can be seen working on dredging.
The residents have been moved to the Cantera peninsula to the north of the channel, in three brand new housing projects with names like Paseo de Conde and Villa Pelicano.
The reaction of the new residents is a mixed bag.
When asked if she likes her new situation, Myrna González, 44, said “Yes and no.” Her old abode was much larger than her new house, but where she was living was isolated by a fire that claimed surrounding houses. She also doesn’t have to endure the occasional flooding that accompanied heavy rains, not to mention the horrid stench.
“Here there aren’t so many problems, but my old house was much bigger and here there’s a lot of noise,” González said.
Also, her new house has construction problems and the location is not so good.
“There are cracks in the walls and a lot of leaks, and the [nearby] avenue makes a lot of noise,” she said.
Also, she is not happy with the 25-year wait required to sell the property.
“It’s not good business,” she said. “I don’t plan to live here that long.”
Héctor “Pepito” Rivera wasn’t happy with the move, though he opted to take the expropriation money he was given and buy a house further up the peninsula from the new house.
Rivera, a member of Puerto Rico’s soccer Hall of Fame, said he liked living next to the channel, having grown up next to it, and wasn’t bothered by the awful stench.
“It never bothered me; I grew up with it so it never affected me,” he said. “It was fun growing up next to the water.”
The public-private project includes the development of more new public housing units, with some 1,300 units planned. It is part of a larger project to promote the rehabilitation and revitalization of eight communities surrounding the channel. A community land trust is playing an important role in the effort, which also involves ecosystem restoration.
The effects of the project can already be seen in the form of kids happily riding their bicycles down streets once dominated by drug dealers from the nearby Las Margaritas housing project.