History of Mar de las Pampas

• Sea and forest in perfect harmony, that's Mar de las Pampas...With its large beaches of find sand... With its great vegetation.
  Despite being incredible for us, this place has been just deserted chains of dunes until the middle part of the last century. The forest seems to have always been theres, but it's got an origin and a history.
  In April 1957, an auction house published an advertisement saying: 'Between Mar del Plata and Pinamar _ next to the sea in two large parts_ extraordinary offer for business men… Thursday 11 at 16 o'clock . We're going to make a public sale by judicial order…'
  The lots were got by Antonio Vázquez, Manuel Rico and Jacobo Zceltman who decided to found a different tourist place in the Atlantic Coast.The first step was planting the area.There was some experience about it, such us the one called Gesell in the near town which has got this name, the one called Guerrero in Cariló and the Bunge in Pinamar. The agrarian engineers Moretti and Takacs were in charge of the work. A lot of technical antecedents and materials were collected such as seeds, shrubs, different classes of grass, small tree plants, a jeep, etc; but the most important parts were men who fought against the sand without resting, they didn't mind if it was cold or hot, rainy or sunny.Many times the wind and the sand destroyed all that which had been reached after many weeks of hard work, but they restarted once more.
  Finally, the work and the technique won controlling the dunes which became a great forest of poplars, willows, pines, acacias, eucalyptus, cypresses and other species which are home of birds, insects, destructive animals and legendary little elves.
  At the beginning, the urbanization of Mar de las Pampas was designed in square blocks; but around 1969 they realized it didn't adapt to the irregular chains of dunes and the woody valleys. So, the proper proceeding was began in order to apply to the Buenos Aires government for the permission to change the urban drawing. Finally, around 1971 the permission for the plan which has got Mar de las Pampas nowadays was obtained. It respects nature and people's privacy. The parcels sale started in 1979, after 22 years of intensive work over the local nature and the development of a tourist town which cares about the environment.
  The roads remain in good conditions in any climate situation and they follow the natural curves of the ground, joining themselves to the landscape and making the rainy waters drain off easily. Anyway, the traffic network is perfectly organized in three functional levels: the main avenue Cruz del Sur and its continuation El Lucero, which makes a course of fan form and approaches to the beach in its middle part. The distance between the avenue and the different subareas is always the same. Some roads of intermediate traffic and varied shapes and cul-de-sacs (roads closed at one end in the middle of the blocks), which make possible a better use of the blocks and a rare urban privacy.
  Besides, Mar de las Pampas has got a Urban Design Code and Edification Rules which govern development of the zonepreserving nature, quiet and privacy. Therefore , it's divided in subareas according to its use and trade density (commerce, hotels, houses). High of buildings is restricted and the percentage of built parts in each lot is also restricted in order to preserve large green areas. Semi-public green places have been foreseen between the private parcels and the roads, the owner's got rights to use it but not to build in it.
  To sum up, the particular urban design stands out the forest and the natural landscapes foretelling an attractive future development.
  The first shopping centre was inaugurated in january, 2002. It was called "Paseo Comercial y Cultural Sendas del Encuentro" and it included part of today named "Paseo Sendas del Encuentro", "Anfiteatro Sendas del Encuentro" and "Pasaje Sureño". Until then, there were only few dispersed gastronomic places in the forest and two stores.