The Tres Santos development in Todos Santos is still controversial. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Anger, disbelief and sadness. Those were the three overwhelming emotions I was left with after watching “Patrimonio” on Sunday.
This is the documentary chronicling the recent plight of fishermen in Todos Santos who were losing their ancestral beach to big developers. These were developers who wanted to add nearly 5,000 homes to a town of only 6,000 people.
While the fishermen were the face of the struggle and lawsuits, the project had far-reaching ramifications. Developers said they wouldn’t tap into the water supply, but they did to the detriment of the town. Wetlands, that under Mexico law are supposed to be protected, were bulldozed. Bribes divided the fishermen. Families were ruined.
The film, whose title means heritage, debuted in 2018. It was part of the Todos Santos Film Festival that year. This year it was shown twice on April 7 as a fundraiser for the local theater.
Tres Santos, as the mega-development is called, was going to include a boutique hotel, 4,772 residences, a farm, desalinization plant, and campus-learning center tied to Colorado State University. The college campus, a few residences and farm-to-table restaurant were completed in town.
Hotel San Cristóbal is also open, catering to an affluent crowd that probably doesn’t care about the illegalities that were undertaken to erect the lodging establishment. That’s assuming they even know the history. (The Bunkhouse Group out of Austin, Texas, owns the hotel property.)
The last blog on the Tres Santos website is from August 2017 and the last Facebook post was December 2016. While the premise from the get-go was to be community oriented, I didn’t find anything on the Tres Santos website that says it offers anything for locals.
The sign at Tres Santos continues to promote the property. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Colorado State University, which is in Fort Collins, has a website about its Todos Santos campus. It says, “We’re eager to enhance the exchange of students in Todos Santos and BCS with Colorado students, to engage the BCS community in life-long learning workshops and courses, and to work together to make a difference and build global connections.” However, I could not find anything about actual classes locals could take, or lectures open to the public, or any event that was for community members.
This is how the developer describes themselves: “MIRA Companies, founded by Denver-based Black Creek Group in 2007, is the trade name for the fully integrated real estate investment and development company that focuses on middle-and high-income residential and residential-related assets, including master-planned residential, second home and large-scale mixed-use urban infill communities in Mexico targeting Mexican, U.S. and Canadian nationals.”
A Dec. 9, 2015, letter to the community from Tres Santos reps that surprisingly is still on that entity’s website says, “The Tres Santos beach community will not infringe on the fishermen’s beach concession. We have committed to this in word and writing. Period.”
That proved to be one of many lies the company spewed. The developer tried to gut the fishing community. It has forever changed their way of life by reducing the land they have to work from. A wall built for the beachfront hotel causes the water to crash on the little fishing area, bringing sand and propeller damaging rocks. The lagoon emptying into the ocean won’t be the same.
It was a multi-year legal process before the fishermen prevailed; the court siding with them in early 2018 regarding their right to the concession at the beach. Besides winning the rights to their patrimonio, the fishermen and supporters (who were Mexicans and gringos) helped preserve Todos Santos.
Water is a real issue here. Developers said their water use would be self-contained. Lies. They are using the city water and no desalinization plant is operating.
It’s hard to believe anything the backers of Tres Santos have to say after all the lies they told, the documents they forged, the environmental analysis that was bought in their favor, and the people they bribed to greenlight the project.
The film shows how the government wheels were greased. Big money was tied up in the project.
Chip Conley had his hands in the Tres Santos mess. The film has footage of him in New York wooing would be investors. Conley was the founder of the Joie de Vivre boutique hotel chain. He later joined Airbnb to lead the Global Hospitality and Strategy division. While Tres Santos is not going any further at the moment, Conley still has a large presence in the region. He has a compound in Pescadero where he runs the Modern Elder Academy. Weekly sessions cost $5,000.
Even some who know about the strife and conflict turn a blind eye. I don’t get this. I have a niece who has spent money at the hotel because she said a friend wanted to go there. I have a tennis partner who goes there and to the restaurant in town at Tres Santos without any guilt.
To me there are times when standing on principle is a must. It is important to have morals, ethics and integrity. What if no one supported these businesses? It’s an answer I would like to see play out. Voting with one’s dollars, or pesos as the case is here, is now more important than marching in the street and other proactive measures that were undertaken during the height of the turmoil. I will not reward these barbarians with a single peso.
An oddity about the movie is that filming began before most people even knew there was a story to be told. It made me wonder how this could have happened if the “good guys” didn’t perhaps stoke some of the unrest. I’m not saying they were in cahoots with the developers, but there are several pieces of the story that are missing. How did attorney John Moreno get involved and why? His family has a long lineage in Todos Santos. How did he and his family benefit from siding with the fishermen?
Colorado State is practically nonexistent in the film. That is an oversight; or maybe it’s the sequel.
The buildings are built, the fishing lagoon ruined, but the lessons should not be forgotten. There could be another Tres Santos or an attempt to finish what was started. That is why knowing the history is important.
This is too good of an article to be left on the back burner. I hope you have submitted it elsewhere like the Gringo Gazette.
Really nice work Kathyrn!
Knowing our history is important in every issue. The repetition in our actions is unbelievable, because we don’t understand our history and learn from it. And even forewarned, many people are complacent enough to spend their dollars, thereby supporting the most inscrutable objectionable, questionable businesses .
Good article. It does seem a sequel might be in order at some time.
I have troubling, random thoughts that I can’t get in order: weathly, white business men that get what they want, the loss of native towns & cultures to tourism, dismay at the lack of responsability by the university, profits over people, etc.., sadness, cynicism & how I contribute as a tourist?
Thank you, Kae – as May wrote, I hope that you can share this.
The sequal is happening here in Santa Fe and the Galisteo Basin now.
Midlife Elders spearheaded by Chip bought the Saddleback Ranch in the Galisteo
Basin. They are trying to buy the land (12 acres in a prized neighborhood) around
the Carmelite Monastery here in Santa Fe NM.
Hi Maria~~ I am living in the area that Conley now wants to develop and we are wanting to understand who he is, how he was involved in Tres Santos and what we can expect. He has already begun manipulating our local artists here, buying their art, schmoozing with them, and green washing his intentions. He is very smooth and I can see already he is a master at manipulation. He came in and immediately began a campaign of distancing himself from Tres Santos. Claiming ignorance and innocence around not knowing what they were up to. I want to understand how a man as savvy as himself, (from his early days running hotels for prostitutes to being part of Airbnb which has successfully destroyed the long term rental markets all around the country meaning…we have to build upwards of 15 new “apartment buildings” in and around Santa Fe because of Airbnb getting totally out of control and more long term rental units being lost to the allure of quick easy money from short term rentals. Santa Fe will be a shadow of it’s former self with all this “development”) but he right away, began to explain that he did not know what Black Creek was up to, he merely tried to connect some wellness entrepreneurs with investors he says. He claimed ignorance. It does appear as though Black Creek were masters of the lie, as most developers are. And yet, something about his claim of innocence started to feel disingenuous at best. I am now reading through sections of Mr Conley’s book “Peak”. Where he talks about his philosophy for entrepreneurs being aware of investor and developer “intentions” to ensure that values “line up”. If this is his philosophy, did he not do his own homework before crawling into business with these people? Can he really claim ignorance? Maria I’d like to connect with you, perhaps join forces. The unfettered development of every last piece of open space has to stop. I am not even sure this is about Mr Conley specifically, but more about constant development of our most precious open space. It just has to stop. We are in a super drought that will not resolve any time soon and all the building in and around Santa Fe is tragic and I feel all good and caring people must put up some resistance to the movement as a whole. And wrapping big development up in the “cloak of wellness and green initiatives” does not make that turd shine in the least. I feel this cloak of “benevolence” and “wellness programs and development” is just the latest ploy by the greedy to make even more money but dress it up as some benevolent offering (at $5000.00 per week for those poor, lost, rich folk?) Greed is a mental illness, they do not see how destructive their obsession with more and more is. But some things simply need to be left alone. Saddle back is one of those things. And trying to sell MEA as anything less than a money making scheme is again, disingenuous to any one with a mind for critical thinking. It defies all logic that Chip and his people are here to help people age well by destroying a drought laden area with more and more building and water usage. This is not about anything but making more millions and trying the tactic of “green and benevolent” ~~ if he really wants to be “green and benevolent” he would abandon any idea of development and put the land into a trust in perpetuity. THAT would prove to us that he is in this for the earth and for benevolent reasons. But he is not. He is yet another rich guy trying to make another couple million from capitalizing on development and pillaging the land here. Even with his plans of regenerative farming. No water falls from the sky here. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing, no matter what kind of regenerative methods he tries to sell us. 40 more houses over there is still up to 80 more people using what little water we have, Why come to the desert?? Why not go to some place in the east with lots of water?? It all adds up to a head scratcher, he contradicts himself every time he opens his mouth. Is he caring about the environment and the people who live here or is he here to build and make millions? He cannot have it both ways. Seems to me the making of millions is the real driver, the bottom line, at the expense of water for our little town. We want him to leave us alone. That is what we want. To be left alone.
Thank you for bringing this (yet another) rape of indigenous people and their land by “the old white guy industrial complex”. So tired of the myopic rapacity of the few, bulldozing, bribing and bullying their need for greed and disposing of any who stand in their way. Boycott Modern Elder Academy.
Thank You
Thank you Mark. Do you live in the Santa Fe area? Can you join forces with us to stop this?