Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties

No shortcuts in Costa Rica land development today.  If you think doing permitting the right way is onerous, wait and see what happens when you do it the wrong way.

The Costa Rica government is rapidly improving enforcement, significantly increasing the chance that un-permitted construction will get shut down long before the developer has a chance to ask forgiveness. In the year 2008 we saw a series of high-profile crackdowns on construction sites all over the country that should the developer community. The penalties can include everything from fines to even jail time. Also, the government is also making a few key changes in the permitting process – particularly in the environmental review – that promise to make permitting move faster, meaning that bribes, in addition to being a crime, are no longer worth the risk.   Without the meticulous attention to detail that the permitting process requires, you could end up unnecessarily delaying your product an extra year or two – a catastrophic development if your financing is time sensitive. Horror stories abound.

The main problem that developers face is the great variety of permits that must be obtained prior to building. To develop a property larger than 5000 square meters (1.2acres approximately),  you need the OK from at least half a dozen separate entities,and probably more. Developing a subdivision or a condominium adds another layer of oversight from another regulatory body.

In the end  you’ll probably need to have hired at least seven state-certified professionals, including an architect, a civil engineer, a topographer, an environmental engineer, an archaeologist, an anthropologist, and a biologist. All that, and you haven’t even started construction yet.

At Costa Rica Development properties our Land development division, we have arrived at a very carefully planned methodology to both find properties for our clients as well as get them off on the right foot in the development process.

We identify development objectives clearly and seek properties that match up in the areas best suited for this particular type of development whether it be major Hotel and Golf course project or simply project of building lots for sale.

Once we get close to a decision, we take the choices we have narrowed down to and do a very inexpensive Ambiente study by satellite. This gives us a pretty good indication of the land use. When it is decided to go forward with an offer, the due diligence is planned very carefully to give us the best time frame to complete it properly and receive the full information we need to be sure we can do what we want to accomplish on the land.

Our company has personally been involved in a fine project called “Vistas Manuel Antonio”.

In the upcoming posts, I will walk you through the process the we used to get to through all the approvals to date and successfully so, while others were being shut down all around us.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions regarding your devlopment

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