San Pedro Sula Urban Municipal Master Plan

The San Pedro Sula Municipal Development Plan (PMDM) represents a key element of the new development platform defined by the Country Vision for Honduras 2038, the 2010-2022 Nation Plan, and the Honduras 2020 Program. It was welcomed by residents as an opportunity to reinvigorate the city’s spirits and look forward to a better future. The plan builds upon an extensive collaborative process that was enriched through a comprehensive community engagement process, recording input from almost a thousand community stakeholders. A special forum with students from six different universities, and a hackathon to stimulate the local entrepreneurial spirit, were landmark events to root the plan among the city’s youth.

The PMDM provided new ways to facilitate citizen engagement with city decision makers and staff, while the Smart City strategy, developed by IBI Group, served as the integrating platform for PMDM components, with intertwined initiatives and objectives embedded into each element of the plan.

The PMDM and the Smart City Strategy respond to key concerns and priorities expressed by the Sampedranos of their aspirations to transform San Pedro Sula into a modern and intelligent city. Various community engagement sessions held during the planning process helped confirm the local concern for holistic individual safety and security (personal and material), the decay of the city’s natural setting, and the uncertainty of economic opportunity in an increasingly open economy. A specific initiative advanced while the plan was being prepared is the deployment of new generation streetlights linked to the city’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) network, into the Smart City Control Center, to facilitate inter-agency coordination and faster response to emergency situations.

Relevant to the preparation of the Smart City Strategy was the interaction with cable and internet service providers in the municipality. Discussion with these private-sector providers led to conversations with the national power utility and industry regulatory agencies to explore joint solutions to two key issues important for the local community: i) enhanced level of service (broadband capacity and reliability) throughout the city, and ii) cleaning of the public realm of the myriad of unused cables hanging throughout the city.

The PMDM continues its implementation phase with information shared through print and electronic media, topic-specific summary videos and the Soy SPS+ App, which was released with the plan.