Punta de Mita, Nayarit, Sept. 7, 2026 – President Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday that a Riviera Nayarit tourism master plan will be presented soon as Playa Las Cocinas awaits compliance with a federal restoration requirement.
Sheinbaum announced the timeline during a speech at the Recinto Ferial in Tepic. She said federal and state officials have worked on the plan for more than a year. “We do not want mangroves destroyed or all the beaches privatized,” she said.
During the same visit, defenders involved in the Playa Las Cocinas dispute said they gave Sheinbaum a letter and USB drive at Tepic airport. Activist Efraín López delivered the material, according to reporting on the meeting.
The immediate impact around Punta de Mita
Residents in Punta de Mita, Corral del Risco and Higuera Blanca will not see an automatic zoning change from the announcement.
Our review of the official pages found no published draft as of Monday. The available material contains no boundaries, zoning maps, project list, budget, implementation schedule, or public consultation calendar.
Those details would determine whether the plan affects conservation areas, building limits, infrastructure projects or public routes to the coast.
Property owners and developers could face new land-use rules only if the plan is incorporated into official state or municipal instruments. Those instruments govern zoning, density, construction permits and permitted uses.
Beach access already has separate federal protection. Mexico’s General Law of National Assets prohibits authorities and private parties from inhibiting, restricting or obstructing access to beaches and the adjoining federal maritime zone.
A master plan is not yet a binding zoning map
Saturday’s remarks were an update, rather than the plan’s first public mention.
In November 2025, Sheinbaum said the federal tourism ministry, Sedatu and Fonatur were working with Nayarit Gov. Miguel Ángel Navarro Quintero on the plan. She said the proposed model would favor ecotourism and protect the coast’s natural resources.
She did not identify the document’s legal category on Saturday. That distinction determines its authority.
Nayarit’s territorial planning law does not separately list a “master plan” as a binding instrument.
The law instead recognizes state, regional, municipal, metropolitan, and partial development programs. It requires those programs to include a legal basis, diagnosis, objectives, targets, and implementation tools. They must also identify priority projects, responsible agencies, financing sources, and cartographic annexes.
A state or regional program must pass through hearings coordinated by the Nayarit Planning Institute, known as IPLANAY. State law provides 60 days for those regional hearings.
A municipal program follows a different route. The municipal council must approve a public consultation, and residents receive 30 days to file comments. The program then needs municipal approval, a state congruency review, publication, and registration.
Under the federal urban planning law, municipalities retain authority over local zoning, land uses, and construction permits. Federal agencies can coordinate policy and investment, but they do not replace those municipal functions.
Bahía de Banderas has a separate planning process
Bahía de Banderas is already updating its Municipal Territorial and Urban Development Program, known as the PMOTDU.
In June, the municipal government reported progress on that program after meeting with Sedatu officials. The listed priorities included access to the sea, land-title certainty, settlement regularization, and infrastructure.
The Bahía de Banderas Municipal Planning Institute says the program remains in its diagnostic stage.
Its interactive planning map includes Punta de Mita and other coastal communities. Available layers identify restricted-access beaches, the federal maritime zone, land reclaimed from the sea and the maximum high-tide line.
The map was accepting public reports when PVDN reviewed it Monday. Residents can mark problems involving beach access, land-use expansion, public services, vegetation loss and tourism-related displacement.
That portal is collecting information for the municipal diagnosis. It is not a final zoning map or the formal 30-day consultation on a completed proposal.
No official material reviewed by PVDN says the municipal program and Sheinbaum’s Riviera Nayarit plan are the same document.
Las Cocinas remains under a federal requirement
The Las Cocinas case is governed by a separate environmental and concession process.
On July 20, Semarnat revoked the federal maritime-zone concession held by Cantiles de Mita. The agency said a technical, legal, and administrative review found unauthorized works and installations.
Semarnat said its restoration approach would include coastal vegetation recovery, rehabilitation of the site and protection of free passage.
On Aug. 26, Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena said Cantiles de Mita must remove the rock revetment and restore the beach. She said Semarnat would consider another concession only after those measures were completed.
PVDN previously reported that restoration remains a condition for any new concession review.
Grupo Dine presented a different account before the revocation. In its May statement, the company said the work was authorized, remained within the concession and had not restricted public passage.
“The beach belongs to everyone, and it will remain that way,” the company said. That statement preceded Semarnat’s finding that the concession terms had been violated.
The letter delivered to Sheinbaum asked her to examine the case and its history. “Development cannot mean dispossession or destruction,” the residents wrote.
Their request does not itself place Las Cocinas inside the tourism plan. No federal statement reviewed by PVDN expressly connects the plan to that project.
For Las Cocinas, Semarnat’s revoked concession and restoration requirement remain the operative federal actions. The unpublished tourism plan has not changed either one.
