DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

Dozens of high rises have been built in the capital city, after the president of the City Council signed off on a ruling to allow this.

Actually, single-family homes are now the exceptions in many central city neighborhoods in the Poligono Central and surrounding areas. This was until Mayor Carolina Mejia and the City Council overturned a resolution that had restricted apartment construction in the area since 2009.

Once the new ordinance was in effect with the backing of Mayor Carolina Mejia, real estate developers rushed to build apartments on the plots with single homes, disregarding there was no area for parking, streets were narrow, water services and sewage services not built for high densities. Dozens of properties have gone up with developers promising buyers they would pay for themselves by rentals to services such as Airbnb. Thousands of trees...