PARQUE DE LA EQUIDAD

PARQUE DE LA EQUIDAD
Project box

Geographical area: Latin America and the Caribbean

Location: CANCÚN, MÉXICO

City size: Medium (between 250,000 and 1,000,000 inhabitants)

Promoter: Benito Juárez Municipality

Developer: Agencia de Proyectos Estratégicos del Estado de Quintana Roo (AGERPO)

Start year:

End-year:

Implementation phase: Implementation in progress

Project size: Neighborhood

Total area of intervention (in sqm): 21.530.000

Total investments (in USD): 12.3 million

Project overview

Parque de la Equidad is a neighbourhood-scale urban regeneration project covering 21,530,000‬ sqm in the central area of Cancún, Mexico, within the Benito Juárez Municipality. The intervention area included underused and degraded green spaces along three main interconnected streets, Avenues 20 de Noviembre, Chac Mool, and Cancún, as well as 48 residential superblocks characterised by poor maintenance, lack of infrastructure, and economic vulnerability. The site was severely affected by frequent heatwaves due to a low presence of green spaces in the residential area, while an inadequate drainage system exacerbated the risk of urban flooding. In addition, unsafe public spaces, insufficient lighting, and a lack of recreational infrastructure affected the life quality of residents, limiting their daily access to leisure and outdoor activities. At the socio-economic level, rising unemployment and the scarcity of local services deepened existing social and economic inequalities, further increasing the area’s overall vulnerability. 

In response to these challenges, in 2018, the Benito Juárez Municipality launched a regeneration process that integrates both physical renewal and socio-economic initiatives, promoting a holistic approach that combines climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, sustainable mobility, local economic revitalisation, citizen engagement, and social inclusion. 

The project is led by the Agencia de Proyectos Estratégicos del Estado de Quintana Roo (AGERPO), the state’s decentralised agency for strategic projects, responsible for the overall coordination, planning, implementation, and stakeholder engagement. The initiative is guided by the masterplan “Plan Maestro Parque de la Equidad: una oportunidad para la integración social de Cancún”, which provides the strategic framework for the area’s long-term transformation. At AGERPO’s request, the masterplan was designed by UN-Habitat between 2020 and 2022, aligning with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda. The first phase of construction started in 2020. The project adopted a strong participatory approach led by the Fundación Hogares, a national organisation supporting community-driven urban initiatives, to involve residents, local associations, and NGOs in the planning and design phase. Financially, the project began with USD 14 million of public funds and is now moving toward a public-private partnership (PPP) model to ensure financial continuity and long-term maintenance and management capacity. 

The regeneration plan is articulated across three interrelated layers. At the core is a 16 km linear park along Avenues 20 de Noviembre, Chac Mool and Cancún that encompasses approximately 890,000 sqm of municipal land. Then follows the Zone of Influence (Zona de Influencia), a 20,640,000 sqm area comprising 48 superblocks that combine private properties with municipal public spaces, including streets, facilities and squares. Within this zone, the project delineates the Action Polygon (Polígono de Actuación), the operational area of the Zone of Influence, covering 3,724,600 sqm and concentrating interventions along the first ring of blocks adjacent to the linear park. It serves as a short- and medium-term delivery zone to implement spatial actions, evaluate their impacts and refine approaches before scaling actions to the entire project area. In this way, the benefits from the park extend to the surrounding superblocks and align public and private actions across the project area.  

Environmental sustainability represents a central axis of the project. Actions include extensive reforestation, the integration of permeable surfaces and water-sensitive infrastructure, and the creation of new artificial and natural water bodies. Together, these interventions form a metropolitan blue-green corridor that enhances urban cooling, mitigates heat waves, and improves ecological connectivity. The plan also introduces a solid waste management programme, promotes the use of low-carbon construction materials, and upgrades the public lighting and energy networks to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. These measures contribute to resource circularity and support the city’s broader climate neutrality goals. From a social perspective, the project focuses on enhancing public safety, accessibility, and inclusiveness. It aims to create safe, walkable, and well-illuminated streets, strengthen sustainable mobility, and provide accessible public spaces and services to encourage community interaction and well-being. On the economic front, the regeneration seeks to revitalise local employment by supporting small businesses, service provision, and community-based economic activities. The objective is to foster economic vibrancy and reduce socio-spatial inequalities, strengthening the community’s resilience and long-term prosperity. 

Overall, Parque de la Equidad stands as a flagship example of integrated urban regeneration in Latin America. By merging environmental, social, and economic dimensions, it demonstrates how a large-scale intervention, combining public initiative, community participation, and multi-level governance, can drive inclusive and climate-resilient urban transformation. 

Parque de la Equidad employs a mixed-use approach across three spatial components. The linear park encompasses approximately 890,000 sqm of municipal open space and recreational areas. The Action Polygon and the Zone of Influence further provide public recreation areas with sports facilities, playgrounds, social gathering spaces, and amenities for environmental education and permaculture. Additionally, it will encompass public buildings, including new schools, health centres, and other social facilities. 

The project integrates sustainable-mobility infrastructure through continuous, pedestrian-friendly paths and cycle lanes and includes upgrades to about 167,033 sqm of existing streets in the linear park and the Action Polygon. Furthermore, within the Action Polygon, expansion of the residential offer on vacant land will be enabled by reduced minimum parking requirements for residential and mixed-use developments. The commercial function focuses on ground-floor retail and community markets. 

Benefits

Parque de la Equidad plays a significant role in enhancing the neighbourhood's economic vitality. The construction works support local employment and small business development by creating temporary jobs and stimulating local supply chains for materials and services.  

The promotion of business training activities and professional development support for individuals and private firms within the entire Zone of Influence improves workers’ competencies and generates economic opportunities for local businesses. The programme prioritises women entrepreneurs, including the provision of preferential soft-loan schemes and subsidised credit to support local employment and enterprise. Overall, these actions generate long-term permanent jobs and diversify the local economy. 

Additionally, rising land and property values benefit owners and, by lifting assessed values, increase municipal property-tax revenues. To align these gains with public benefit, the municipality implements value-capture instruments within the public-private partnership model to reinvest in urban infrastructure, services, facilities and public spaces and support equitable and sustainable growth. 

Parque de la Equidad is determined to improve climate adaptation and resilience, biodiversity, resource efficiency, circularity, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

The mitigation of the urban heat-island effect is reached through mass planting of native species and expansion of shaded areas along the 16 km corridor of the linear park. At the same time, rain gardens, natural drainage, and urban wetlands increase water infiltration and reduce urban flooding, strengthening climate adaptation and urban resilience. The project also includes the design of informational guidelines featuring climate-adapted construction and furniture solutions for the entire Zone of Influence, alongside a public education programme focused on sustainable water use, environmental awareness, and permaculture.  

The creation of wildlife crossings and the establishment of biological corridors across the linear park and the Zone of Influence restore ecological connectivity and enhance urban biodiversity. Furthermore, the project aims to integrate new waterbody elements into the existing cenote system, a chain of natural pools and underground waterways, and form a metropolitan blue-green corridor linking Laguna Manatí and Laguna Nichupté, thereby improving the city's climate resilience to hurricanes and tropical storms.  

A comprehensive solid-waste management programme starts with the installation of source-separated bins and collection points, moving towards circular waste flows in the project area. Construction works prioritise low-carbon and reused materials and are supported by energy-efficient construction technologies to strengthen resource efficiency and material circularity. Additionally, public lighting in the linear park transitions to on-site renewable energy, primarily solar, with potential for wind, advancing renewably powered public spaces and supporting energy self-sufficiency.  Finally, the undergrounding of high-voltage lines and the removal of transmission towers in the linear park reduce visual and thermal impacts in its green area. 

The regeneration project is designed to promote social equity, inclusiveness, and public safety. The linear park, as well as the transformation of plazas and nodes in the rest of the area, provides better access to public spaces and improve mobility through pedestrian paths and safe cycle lanes. Their further extension over the Zone of Influence connects the project with the wider city and fosters daily interactions across the area. Additionally, the mobility and safety in the area are expected to be improved through the reconfiguration of the street geometry. The project converts 167,033 sqm of street space into safe intersections along priority streets in the linear park and the Action Polygon, using traffic-calming features to slow vehicles and decrease car accidents. 

The installation of street furniture designed to meet the needs of vulnerable groups, together with spaces for cultural, sports, and community activities, helps activate and encourage the use of public space. Further, the municipality’s Tactical Urbanism Laboratory co-designs and delivers resident-led, low-cost pilots, such as street furniture, urban art and agriculture activities, that adapt spaces to community needs and strengthen social inclusion. Simultaneously, the installation and improvement of public lighting enhances night-time safety and the usability of paths and public spaces.  

The construction of schools, health centres, and other social facilities reduces inequalities in accessing basic services. The reduction of parking spaces for residential and mixed-use properties enables the reallocation of land to housing and mixed-use projects, fostering the delivery of affordable housing.  

Public participation is a key element of the regeneration process. In 2020, the Fundación Hogares started a community participation strategy involving seven activities engaging 2,472 participants, the majority of whom were women. This process ensured broad, gender-responsive community input into the project’s design. Further participatory processes proceed through the establishment of neighbourhood councils. Councils are composed of representatives of resident communities of the entire Zone of Influence to secure their involvement in the decision-making process throughout the project's implementation and in the co-management of the linear park, thereby enhancing legitimacy and sense of ownership and responsibility.

The construction works aim to follow the Mexican Sustainable Building Standard NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013 to give preferences to local resources and sustainable materials. By 2040, the regeneration project also aims for all interventions in the linear park to comply with the international UNE-EN ISO 14001 environmental management standard. It provides a framework for organisations to establish an effective Environmental Management System (EMS) that helps reduce their environmental impact, ensures compliance with regulations, and promotes continuous improvements in environmental performance. 

Finance model

The initial phase of the project, encompassing planning and early construction works along the 16 km of walkways and cycle paths within the linear park, received a total public funding of approximately USD 14 million (253 million pesos). This amount includes USD 2.7 million (50 million pesos) contributed by the state public fund and USD 11.3 million (203 million pesos) provided through the metropolitan public fund, following an agreement established in 2020 between AGERPO and the Secretariat of Finance and Planning of the State of Quintana Roo (SEFIPLAN). Of the total budget, around USD 1.2 million was allocated to UN-Habitat for project design and technical assistance. 

Additional resources are requested from municipal, state, and federal budgets to finance environmental and infrastructural interventions, social activities, training programmes, targeted loans for women’s entrepreneurship, waste management, and the establishment and operation of neighbourhood councils. Within federal funds, Fondo de Aportaciones para la Infraestructura Social (FAIS) is a fund that allocates federal government resources to infrastructure and equipment projects in the states. It sponsors the regeneration of public spaces and streets in the Zone of Influence and the installation of renewable energy components to power public lighting. Furthermore, Fideicomiso para la Infraestructura en los Estados (FIES), the federal fund supporting works, basic social actions and investments that directly benefit people living in extreme poverty and social deprivation, funds public lighting installations and improvements to basic social infrastructure, including the construction of schools, health centres and other related facilities.  

Alongside public funding, the municipality mobilises private finance by establishing Sistema de Actuación Urbanística Pública-Privada (SAAUPP), a public-private partnership model that co-finances eligible components not covered by municipal, state, or federal programmes. Private contributions from property owners or private developers cover expenditures for the operation and maintenance of the linear park, community activities, and small revenue-generating amenities. 

The municipality relied on direct public grants to finance the planning and design activities carried out by UN-Habitat, as well as the implementation of initial actions, including the construction of public spaces and the development of bicycle and pedestrian pathways within the linear park. Public grants will continue to be used for further development, including ecological interventions, social facilities, other infrastructure upgrades, and social soft measures. Housing renovations across the 48 superblocks within the Zone of Influence will be supported by subsidies provided by the municipality to private entities. 

The regeneration project sets out a toolbox of financing instruments, aligned with municipal, state and federal regulations, to support project implementation across the area in partnership with private actors. Among the financing instruments used, the project includes Concessions, a municipal programme that authorises qualified private investors, civil associations, NGOs, collectives, and environmentally sustainable groups from the Zone of Influence to develop and manage high-quality, revenue-generating services, ensure the maintenance of public infrastructure, and organise socio-cultural activities within the linear park and the Action Polygon. 

In addition, the project incorporates a set of value-capture instruments designed to recover part of the private economic gains generated by public investment and redirect them toward the project’s long-term financing and maintenance. 

Development Exactions (Medidas de Mitigación) will be applied to private developments within the same area, requiring developers to finance or deliver complementary infrastructure, public-space upgrades, or environmental mitigation measures, thereby offsetting the project’s externalities and reducing the burden on municipal budgets. 

A Betterment Levy (Contribución por Mejoras) will be introduced by AGERPO, targeting landowners within the Action Polygon who benefit from improved accessibility, enhanced green areas, and increased land and housing values resulting from proximity to the linear park. Revenues collected through this levy will be allocated to corridor works and ongoing maintenance. 

Finally, a Density Bonus (Densidad Habitacional Adicional Optativa) is an optional instrument to promote the development of affordable housing introduced by the municipality. It will allow landowners and developers interested in construction in the Action Polygon to exceed baseline building or housing density limits in exchange for financial or in-kind contributions to local infrastructure, services, or public spaces. Under this instrument, a developer or landowner who obtains additional units, must provide the appraised contribution before the building permit is issued. The resulting resources will be reinvested in infrastructure, equipment and public services in the Zone of Influence.  

References and Credits

Plan Maestro del Parque de la Equidad: una oportunidad para la integración social en la ciudad de Cancún. Accessed on 10.09. 2025. https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/plan-maestro-del-parque-de-la-equidad-una-oportunidad-para-la-integracion-social-en-la 

Parque de la Equidad. Accessed on 10.09.2025. https://onu-habitat.org/index.php/parque-de-la-equidad 

Inician actividades del Parque de la Equidad. Accessed on 11.09.2025. https://onu-habitat.org/index.php/inician-actividades-del-parque-de-la-equidad 

Avanza con paso firme el Parque de la Equidad en Cancún.  Accessed on 11.09.2025. https://agepro.qroo.gob.mx/avanza-la-validacion-del-plan-maestro-del-parque-de-la-equidad-en-cancun-con-vision-sustentable-e-incluyente-agepro/  

Avanza con paso firme el Parque de la Equidad en Cancún. Accessed on 16.09. 2025 https://cgc.qroo.gob.mx/avanza-con-paso-firme-el-parque-de-la-equidad-en-cancun/  

Obras en Cancún detonarán más de 1,000 millones de pesos en inversión complementaria: ONU Hábitat. Accessed on 18.09. 2025 https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/estados/Obras-en-Cancun-detonaran-mas-de-1000-millones-de-pesos-en-inversion-complementaria-ONU-Habitat-20220816-0114.html 

Image: Coordinación General de Comunicación (2024). Accessed on 20/07/2025.  

https://cgc.qroo.gob.mx/agepro-impulsa-alternativas-creativas-para-la-conservacion-del-parque-de-la-equidad/