Rosarito Beach Municipality

The municipality of Playas de Rosarito belongs to the state of Baja California (Mexico). Its head is the population of Rosarito. According to the 2015 census, the municipality had 96,734 inhabitants. It has a territorial extension of 513.32 km². It is located at 32° 21' north latitude and 117° 03' west latitude.

History

At the end of the 18th century Spanish missionaries and Dominican friars gave the name El Rosario to a settled indigenous ranchería in the place. This ranchería was part of the mission of San Miguel Arcángel de la Frontera, located a few leagues to the south. The mission was founded on March 28, 1787 by the Dominican fray Luis Sales on the banks of the San Juan Bautista stream.

Fray Junípero Serra passed through the place in May 1769, on his way to evangelize Alta California.

About the place, Fray Junípero noted in his diary:

Gentility is immense, and all those of this counterpart (south sea) where we came from, from the Ensenada of All Saints, who call it the maps and waste, live very gifted with various seeds and with the fishing that they do in their rafts of tule, in the form of canoe, with those who enter very deep into the sea and are so much confidence that all men came, boys and big, All the way you see hares, rabbits, such as deer and many of them.

After the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries by decree of King Carlos III of Spain in 1767, the Dominicans and the Franciscans divided the entire former region of California in two: the Franciscans kept the Alta (current state of California, in the USA) and the Dominicans with the Baja (in the territory of present-day Mexico).

In 1772, the Dominicans and Franciscans were ordered to establish a border between the two missionary territories. In August 1773, Fray Francisco Palou marked the division between the two Californias with a simple wooden cross. This division, known as Palou landmark, is located precisely in the current municipality of Rosarito, although its exact location is still a matter of debate.

It was then determined that the ranchería of El Rosario would remain in the custody of the northern Mission of San Diego de Alcalá, of the Dominicans, as it was now within its limits.

19th century

Since the war between Mexico and the United States between 1846 and 1848, many families of Spanish descent who owned property in Alta California emigrated to Baja California because their property titles were not known to them by the US government, some families They settled in El Rosario to continue their agricultural and livestock activities while they went to old San Diego, in present-day California, to satisfy their mercantile, cultural, and religious needs.

Over time the name of El Rosario became Rosarito. As a result of the war between Mexico and the United States and the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the new Mexican border was no more than 30 km from Rosarito and this resulted in the development of Rancho de la Tía Juana, which over time became would become the city of Tijuana, the development pole of the region.

Ban

During the anti-alcoholic measures that different municipalities in the United States applied around the Volstead Act, some small food and drink stands flourished in Playas de Rosarito, the first being that of René Ortiz and later, Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Agustín Olachea and other American businessmen, prepared the ground to build the Rosarito Beach Hotel that would end up being managed by Manuel P. Barbachano, at that time the main distributor of electricity and telephone services in the Northern District of Baja California. After Barbachano died in the 1950s, Governor Braulio Maldonado Sández fought the illicit casinos that were installed in the Rosarito Beach Hotel. President Adolfo Ruíz Cortines himself stayed in one of its suites, according to Maldonado Sández.

Installment of the municipality

On November 3, 1981, President José López Portillo, while Roberto de la Madrid Romandía was Governor of the State, promulgated a decree that expropriated a large part of the properties of the Old Rancho El Rosario, then Tijuana Delegation, for the purpose of regularize them.

This threat of dispossession and the traditional abandonment by the three orders of government, motivated the creation of a Defense Committee that managed, in 1982, to repeal the presidential decree. To prevent new government corruption, to better invest taxes and contributions for their benefit, and assume their civic right to self-govern as Tijuanenses did before with respect to their municipal seat of Ensenada; municipality of Tecate with respect to Mexicali and Tijuana, and Baja Californians in general when they demanded the creation of the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, the Defense Committee became in March 1983 the Committee for the Free Municipality of Playas de Rosarito May 24, 1991. Assumed the responsibility of carrying out a study of economic self-sufficiency and carrying out the procedures for the constitution of the municipality in the same territorial area of the Delegation.

The founding partners were Manuel Appel Valenzuela, Sergio Brown Higuera, Alejandro Crosthwaite Escudero, engineer Eduardo Castillo, graduate Rafael Castillo Castro, public accountant Hugo Torres Chabert, President, professor Miguel Jiménez García, graduate José Luis Ibarra, Secretary, Jesús Perdomo, Bernardo Pérez García, Treasurer, engineer Bernardo Rémpening, María Elena Salazar and Francisco Torres González. [indicated in the aforementioned notarized constitutive act].

The controversy born with the expropriation decree, already repealed, was strengthened by the general conviction of the traditional abandonment by the State Government and the Tijuana City Council, which served them as one more proletarian colony, in the face of the certainty that they would not what was collected in the Rosarito Delegation was paid in services. The municipal presidents of Tijuana maintained the opposite and argued the tax insufficiency, with respect to the services provided. Hugo Torres was succeeded as Presidents of the Pro-Municipality Committee by the lawyers Rafael Castillo Castro and José Luis Ibarra Arenas. In November 1987, they met with Federico Valdez, the current mayor of Tijuana, who upon receiving the conclusions of the socioeconomic study, concisely stated that he was aware of it. In turn, the governor, Xicoténcatl Leyva Mortera, received the Committee on March 22, 1988, and stopped the promotion until December 14 of the same year when, at the request of deputy Salvador Aguirre Sánchez, he turned over the initiative for the municipalization of Rosarito Falta The reference may be in the Historical Archive of the Congress to the Legislation and Constitutional Points Commission of the XII State Legislature, where it remained frozen for several years.

At 8:55 p.m. on June 29, 1995, the State Congress unanimously approved the conversion from a delegation to a municipality. Its official name: Playas de Rosarito.

According to INEGI, the new municipality then had a population of over 35,000 inhabitants and had a land area of 513.32 km². The opinion was number 10 of the United Commissions on Legislation and Constitutional Points and Finance and Administration. The express opinion of the Tijuana City Council was not received, despite repeated written requests from Congress, taking its legal omission as acceptance. Finally, Decree 166 was confirmed when it was published on July 21, 1995, in the Official State Newspaper.

Rosarito formally ceased to be an integral part of Tijuana, only after 108 years: first in 1887, as the municipal police station of Ensenada de Todos los Santos; then in 1900, as political sub-headquarters of the same municipality, after the failed municipality created by Colonel Cantú in 1917. In 1920, as administrative political delegation of the Municipality of Ensenada, belonging to the Federal Territory of Baja California; in 1925 as the ephemeral Municipality of Zaragoza; in 1944, as a political delegation from the Northern Territory and, finally, in 1953, as a delegation from the Municipality of Tijuana in the nascent State of Baja California and thus began to be part of the group of municipalities or municipalities of Baja California made up of three delegations, Plan Libertador, Downtown area and Primo Tapia.

The State Congress unanimously appointed the Council, at the proposal of the Governor, selecting them from among more than seventy people. The elected councilors were:

Proprietary councilors

• Araceli Nuri Torres Sánchez
• Public Accountant Hugo Torres Chabert
• Oscar Martín Arce Paniagua
• Guillermo García Valenzuela
• Rafael López Saucedo
• Bachelor José Luis Ibarra Arenas
• Public Accountant Oscar F. Salazar Santacruz

Alternate councilors

• Jesus Nuño Covarrubias
• Sergio Sotelo Félix
• José C. Cordero Victorio
• Pablo F. Arce Mayoral
• José de Soto González
• Olivia M. Gutiérrez E.
• Raúl Peña Gutiérrez

Recent time

Sandy beach in Rosarito

The proprietary members of the Municipal Council of Rosarito submitted the positions of president and attorney general to a secret vote, with Hugo Torres Chabert and Guillermo García Valenzuela being elected, respectively. At the end of 1997, he requested a license to leave office and contend for an electoral position, for which he was replaced by the until then substitute councilor Pablo Francisco Arce Mayoral; The Council appointed Mr. Óscar Martín Arce Paniagua as attorney general, who concluded the exercise.

The Municipal Council of Playas de Rosarito took office on December 1, 1995, with the main responsibility of establishing the necessary municipal administrative and regulatory norms within the new political limits.

In 1998 the first elections were held to constitute what would be the 1.er. City Council of Playas de Rosarito, being elected Silvano Abarca Macklis PAN. His strongest opponent Norma Olivia Mercedes Gutiérrez Espinoza PRI. The Abarca Macklis Administration has been considered the most acceptable to date. During his three-year term, the construction of the Municipal Palace and Guerrero Boulevard in Colonia Constitución, in the downtown area of Rosarito, was cemented, thus increasing the number of main roads.

In 2001, Luis Enrique Díaz Félix (PAN) was elected, who had been general secretary (the position is that of general secretary, not general secretary. Note: RTLL) from 1.er. City Hall, he managed to defeat Rodolfo González Pitones PRI and Oscar Ávila Corrujedo Convergencia at the polls, third and second place respectively. Curious case, since the PRI, which had been the second political force in the 1.er. City Council, moves to third place displaced by a new party as it was Convergence. The strength of this party arose due to the mobilization of Óscar Ávila and internal disputes in the local PRI.

Óscar Ávila was a member of the PRI until 2001 when he was nominated for the Municipal Presidency by the Convergence party; His departure from the PRI was motivated by the appointment of Rodolfo González Pitones; Eliseo Rebolledo Guinto was also considered, however this candidacy did not prosper. When Óscar broke with the PRI, there was a rout of groups that coalesced around the figure of Ávila, which placed them in second place in the council, with three aldermen.

In 2004, Rosarito elected José Antonio Macías Garay PAN as Municipal President of 3.er. City hall. He manages to defeat Oscar Ávila Corrujedo in the election, who on this occasion was postulated by the Party of the Democratic Revolution; and Javier Cital Camacho PRI, a character who, it is said, was imposed by the state PRI and who came to fill a space that the Rosarito PRI members did not know how to take advantage of. In this election, they separated from the PRI: Norma Olivia Mercedes Gutiérrez Espinoza, who sought the Local Deputation for District XVI that she lost to Silvano Abarca Macklis; Sergio Brown Higuera, who was nominated for councilor by the PRD; Luis Guillermo Jiménez, who was also a councilor of the III Town Hall for the PRD.

The struggle between panistas was evident; Along with the Administration of José Antonio Macías Garay, Juan Carlos Molina Torres surprises locals and strangers by winning the election for the leadership of the Municipal Steering Committee of the PAN in Rosarito against Rafael López Sotomayor, who was a councilor of 2.do. City hall; and before Manuel Ochoa Magallón, former secretary general of the City Council with Luis Enrique. Molina's triumph gives a new twist to PANism by showing an image that is not aligned with the Municipal President.

When Rosarito became a municipality, it achieved unprecedented development, to the point of becoming one of the fastest growing Mexican towns.

In the elections held on July 4, 2010, the PRI candidate, Javier Robles Aguirre, was elected municipal president with 10,487 votes out of a total of approximately 70,000 voters. In 2013, Silvano Abarca, who was the first mayor, has a second term, under the acronym of the Nueva Alianza party, but in collusion with the PAN and the PRD. In 2016, Mirna Rincón from Acción Nacional surprises and becomes the first mayoress of Rosarito. In 2019, as in the rest of Baja California, she won the National Regeneration Movement, with Aracely Brown being the elected mayor.

Mayors

Title	Mayor	Political party		Start of mandate	Term of office	Notes
1st Mayor	Silvano Abarca Macklis		National Action Party	1 November 1998	31 October 2001
2° Mayor	Luis Enrique Díaz Félix			1 November 2001	31 October 2004
3° Mayor	José Antonio Macías Garay			1 November 2004	31 October 2007
4° Mayor	Hugo Eduardo Torres Chabert		Revolutionary Party Institutional	1 November 2007	31 October 2010
5° Mayor	Javier Robles Aguirre			1 November 2010	31 October 2013
6° Mayor	Silvano Abarca Macklis		New Partnership	1 November 2013	31 October 2016	In partnership with the PAN and the PRD
7th Mayor	Mirna Cecilia Rincón Vargas		National Action Party	1 November 2016	September 30, 2019
8° Mayor	Aracely Brown		Brunette	October 1, 2019	30 September 2024	Mayor reelected in 2021.

Geography

It is located in the northwest area of the state. It is located at the coordinates 32° 21' north latitude and 117° 3' west longitude at sea level. It is located at an altitude of 10 m s. no. m. and its distance to the capital of the Republic is approximately 3000 km by road.

Municipal boundaries

It has administrative limits with the following municipalities and/or geographical features, depending on its location:

Northwest: Pacific Ocean	North: Tijuana	Northeast: Tijuana/Tecate
West: Pacific Ocean		This: Tijuana
Southwest: Pacific Ocean	South: Ensenada	Sureste: Ensenada

Orography

The zone is basically made up of an area of smooth hilly plains and slopes of the mountain units, presenting a great variety of slopes in which those less than 10% predominate.

Most of the municipal territory is made up of coastal-type soil formed by loose materials that accumulate by the action of waves and marine currents; These so-called expansive soils have poor drainage, which represents problems for development.

Hydrography

The municipality is located in the hydrographic region number 1 of Baja California. This basin is divided into 21 sub-basins, the most important being those that correspond to the Rosarito and Huacuatay streams.

Climate

It has a Mediterranean climate, warm in summer with an average temperature of 22 °C and cool in winter with an average temperature of 18 °C, the maximum temperature recorded is on May 6, 2008, with 42 °C, unusual; Since the maximum on average each year is 34 °C in summer, it rains in winter and occasionally in spring and autumn, in total it rains 250 mm per year, on December 16, 2008 there was a flood in the center of the head municipal Rosarito caused by heavy rains causing an overflow in the stream.

Vegetation

The predominant vegetation is made up of scrub, romerillo, poplar, bitter chamizo, willow, alder, oak, agave, barrel and velvet cactus, rush, chaparroso, top, sweet mangrove, jojoba, cachal, tule and other species.

Natural resources

The natural resources available to the municipality are basically those from the sea and those from tourism since it is a region that lives from the work of factories, tourism, planting and fishing, a commuter town for people who work in the United States and only comes to stay overnight and spend the weekend.

Characteristics and Land Use

In this region, the colonies located between Cañada El Descanso and Ejido Plan Libertador, with an approximate length of 30 km and an average width of 5 km, are formed by sedimentary rocks of marine origin, and belong to the Cretaceous period. from the end of the secondary era, with an approximate age of 100 million years, such rocks are known as the "Rosarito Group". On the other hand, approaching sea level, forming wide tables and hills of Descanso, Popotla and Rosarito. There are volcanic rocks of basalt and andesite from the Miocene period of the Tertiary age with an approximate age of 15 million years. Finally, the youngest geological formation is the Quaternary era, which is less than a million years old. This structure formed by sedimentary rocks of marine origin makes up all the beaches of the coast with the exception of the Alisitas and a small part of the elevations of the Mesa del Descanso.

The municipality presents particular characteristics regarding the distribution of land use, such is the case of the unoccupied area, made up of rural and urban vacant lots scattered throughout the city, which add up to 824.02 hectares, which represent 35.3% of the current urban area.

The land use situation is due to a discontinuous diversification where the predominant use is residential that surrounds a significant concentration of commercial uses and mainly tourist services, which were organized in parallel on the main Blvd. of this municipality on "Blvd Benito Juárez", which connects with federal highway No.1.

Another relevant use in the town is infrastructure, represented by the PEMEX distribution center and the CFE Thermoelectric, located to the north of the town, whose surface area is equivalent to a total of 149.48 hectares.

The current urban area comprises 2,335.9 ha, of which 1,747.93 are occupied, resulting in 74.83% land occupation with a population density of 19.81 hab. per acre.

Religion

Traditionally, the predominant religion in the municipality is Catholic, in the year 2000 it had a total of 36,257 believers followed by the Evangelical with 4,754 parishioners.

Migration and Immigration

Since the 1970s, the volume of the population has increased significantly, stimulated by the growing number of people arriving from the different States of the Republic, with the desire to improve their quality of life. According to data from the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), at the beginning of 1996, of the total number of residents of this town, 29.7% were born in Baja California; 13.7% in Jalisco; 7.7% in Michoacán; 6.8% in Sinaloa; 5% in Mexico City; 4% in Guanajuato; 2% in the United States and the rest in other States of the Republic. This determining factor causes the population to increase significantly each year.

Education

For basic education there are preschool, primary, secondary and high school schools. For the year 2000, the municipality has 20 preschool, 29 primary and 8 secondary schools. It also has four universities officially recognized by the state educational authority: an extension of the UABC, and three private universities with state RVOEs; the Rosaritense University (the first university to be established in the municipality, since 2002), the Center for University Studies of Baja California and the Center for University Studies of Mexicali.

Health

The municipality's medical attention in rural and urban areas is attended by the public sector and by the private initiative. It is important to clarify that the IMSS, ISSTE and ISSSTECALI units provide outpatient consultation and family planning programs; These units channel gynecology-obstetrics and emergency patients to private clinics in the town or to the Tijuana regional hospital. The DIF, for its part, makes referrals to different institutions. The private sector, for its part, has established a series of hospitals, which is why there are private clinics that provide different services. In 1998, considering a population of 60.6 thousand inhabitants and a specialized medical staff, it can be established that there are one doctor for every 2,020 people in the town.

Methods of communication

The road infrastructure of Playas de Rosarito and its immediate area is basically defined by two roads of interurban hierarchy that run north-south and connect the City of Tijuana with the City of Ensenada, a national highway (toll road No..1). This divides the urban area of Playas de Rosarito and constitutes a physical barrier between the commercial, tourist and service western area, and the residential areas under consolidation and future reserves that are being developed in the eastern and northern areas. The other two accesses are given only for the flow that joins in a north-south direction and this affects the local roads of reduced section. The free federal highway No.1 connects the City of Tijuana with the existing tourist development between this city and the port of Ensenada, through the intersection of Playas de Rosarito, this intersection occurs in a length of 4.5 km and is becomes Blvd. Benito Juárez, which is the main axis of urban mobility. The provision of the telephone service is 5,119 residential lines; 1,350 commercials; 297 public and 12 private lines. There are telegraph and post offices. In addition to having cell phone service coverage by different companies.

Industry

Notable for their importance are the Benito Juárez Thermoelectric Power Plant, the Pemex Storage and Distribution Plant. The recent installation of a first level electronic maquiladora industry has generated an expectation of job creation, which to date is in the first stage of operation.

Tourism

Due to its natural conditions, the municipality has its own places for tourism development that began at the beginning of the century with the construction of the first hotels in 1925 and 1927, parallel to this fact the establishment of shops and crafts began. This activity has been consolidated over the last decades. Tourism is undoubtedly the center of gravity of the economic activities of the new Municipality, with its extensive and beautiful coastline, with its sandy beaches and cliffs, climate, modern hotels, first-class restaurants, tourist developments at the level of any city, Mexican crafts, popular festivals, civic, historical, religious commemorations, etc.

Rosarito has different places to develop its tourism:

• Blv handicraft market. Benito Juárez: In Playas de Rosarito different objects originating from many parts of the Mexican Republic are offered. It is a special place to shop, including jewelry, mache paper, blowing glass, alloys, distillery, artistic beauty, paintings, among other Mexican expressions.

• Popotla: In Playas de Rosarito you can get decorative pieces for the home mainly of different materials, such as steel, granite, marble, plaster, unique made by Mexican hands.
• Pueblo Plaza (on the Blvd. Benito Juárez): Campirana shopping center where you will find different business twists, the locals go from shops where you can see how pieces are made by artisans from different cultures, there are also representative garment shops from different parts of the Mexican Republic and of course you can not miss a good restaurant.
• Puerto Nuevo: It is a restaurant community made up of more than 30 establishments, in which the typical dish of the region is served the famous “ Puerto Nuevo style” which is served with beans, rice and flour tortillas, and other options are offered for all visitors.
• Calafia: Centro Histórico y Cultural, extension of the regional university fields, making it an ideal area for all kinds of services, hoteliers, located 10 km from the center of Rosarito and 1 km from the cinematographic studies of Fox.
• Puerto Nuevo: e lugar is characterized by the large number of restaurants that offer a variety of seafood dishes to delight all demanding palate, mainly with the famous Puerto Nuevo style lobster dish, located 18.5 km south of the center of Rosarito on seashores

Tourism contributes approximately 34.4% of the income received by the Municipality. The establishment of the Fox film studios, where the movie “Titanic” was filmed, and the Calafia Historical and Cultural Center have strengthened the municipal tourist attraction to the South, in the Descanso region.

Film Studio

The film company 20th Century Fox Studios created a studio in the city to shoot high-budget movies, taking advantage of the very low cost of labor, the ocean views, and the lodging facilities that Rosarito provides.

The construction of this venue began on June 6, 1996. This venue contains the largest filming tanks in the world, as well as stages, offices, set workshops, dressing rooms, wardrobe storage and other kinds of production areas to achieve any filming requirement.

Thanks to the conclusion of the filming of Titanic, the economy of Rosarito experienced a spectacular increase. Films continued to be shot at Fox Baja Studios during the tourist influx in the late 1990s and early 2000s; Partiers, surfers and families were arriving on buses from the United States to soak up the sun or hit the local bars. It was then that Foxploration, which included a Titanic museum, became a tourist attraction. Throughout the next decade, Foxploration suffered a visitor crisis and in 2007, Fox sold the studio to local investors and Foxploration closed.

Titanic, the most successful film of the XX century, was filmed in part in Rosarito, as well as others such as Deep Blue Sea, Pearl Harbor and The Far Side of the World. In 2008 and 2009, 80% of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was recorded.

They recently filmed the second season of Fear the Walking Dead, which according to the state governor, Francisco “Kiko” Vega, would leave an economic spillover of 35 million dollars. Filming for Fear the Walking Dead began on December 3, 2015.

Trade

Rosarito has an active trade, with modern supply centers of state chains and from the center of the country. The FTA and the fact that it belongs to the border region affect this activity. In the established trade you can find a diverse range of twists that satisfy part of the local demand and above all that promote tourism.

Services

Most of the companies dedicated to services are concentrated in the municipal capital. The installed capacity and the service offered by the tourism sector is sufficient to meet the required demand, this being the preponderant sector in the region, the supply of hotels, restaurants, nightclubs as well as handicraft shops.

Economically Active Population by Sector

The economic activities of the municipality, by sector, are distributed as follows:

In the year 2000, the municipality had an economically active population of 20,376 inhabitants, of which 53.72 percent of the total population over 12 years of age, the economically inactive population amounts to 17,295, which represents 45.60 percent. percent of the population over 12 years of age.

Gastronomy and lodging

Rosarito has hotels of all categories in which the “Hotel Rosarito Beach” and “Festival Plaza” stand out the most due to their age, as well as sites for camping and parking vehicles such as motor home or RVs.

You can find all kinds of international food, even though the typical thing is "puerto nuevo" alluding to a fishing village where you can eat lobster fried in oil, accompanied by Mexican rice and stewed beans, all accompanied by freshly made flour tortillas.