DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

Marcos Barinas / El Día

In recent years, the capital city government has stepped up the permits granted for high rises. City residents have seen how apartment buildings have been authorized where there were single family homes in prime residential and commercial areas such as Piantini, Evaristo Morales and Naco. Lack of parking, size of streets, drainage and water supply has been ignored. A recent interview in El Dia looks into the consequences of the boom in new high rise developments.

The recent torrential rains in Greater Santo Domingo, which saw sudden accumulations exceeding 300 millimeters, flooded Greater Santo Domingo from midnight to the early morning on Wednesday, 8 April 2026. There were stranded vehicles and collapsed intersections.

While the volume of water was exceptional, architect and urban planner Marcos Barinas warns that the crisis is less a natural inevitability and...