The Baja California state legislature has formally called on Tijuana Mayor Ismael Burgueño Ruiz to launch a citywide census identifying families whose properties lack a cadastral registration number, a unique identifier assigned to each property in the municipal tax and land records system.
Morena legislator Evelyn Sánchez Sánchez introduced the measure. She wants Tijuana’s municipal Secretariats of Welfare and Urban Development to conduct the survey of unregistered settlements across the city.
Why Cadastral Registration Matters
A clave catastral, or cadastral key, is the official code that ties a property to the municipal registry. Without one, homeowners cannot complete basic administrative procedures such as paying property taxes, obtaining construction permits, or connecting to municipal water and sewer services. They are also locked out of government social programs and benefits that require proof of a registered address.
The legislature framed formal property registration as essential to securing legal housing rights and promoting orderly urban development in a city that has grown faster than its infrastructure can keep pace with.
Tijuana’s Informal Housing Problem
The issue is not new. Tijuana, a city of roughly 1.8 million people, adds an estimated 26,000 new residents per year. According to a 2023 KPBS report, roughly 40% of homes in the city were built without permits. Many sit on hillsides without retaining walls or solid foundations, particularly in working-class neighborhoods on the city’s expanding eastern and southern edges.
Entire colonias have grown up without basic city services like paved roads, streetlights, or public transit. Residents in these areas often lack any formal documentation linking them to the land they occupy, making them invisible to the municipal tax rolls and ineligible for public investment in their neighborhoods.
What Comes Next
The legislative resolution is an exhortation, not a binding order. It urges the Tijuana municipal government to act but carries no legal enforcement mechanism. Whether Mayor Burgueño’s administration will commit resources to a full census of unregistered properties remains to be seen.
For property owners in Tijuana, the cadastral key is the first step toward legal recognition of their home. Without it, selling, inheriting, or improving a property through official channels is effectively impossible.
This story was first reported by La Jornada BC.