Costa Rica News – If you are thinking about buying or if you own a house or property that is “beach front”, you might want to make sure that it is not within the maritime zone.
It’s illegal to build on land that is within 200 meters of the shore in Costa Rica, but it hasn’t always been that way. Thousands of homes are within that limit and now risk being demolished.
There are 10,059 houses in the maritime zone. They house 31,000 people. The way to save them is for the 20 coastal municipalities to develop regulatory plans by April 2016. So far, not one has done so.
Last March lawmakers passed a law for coastal urban areas, a system by which they could continue to use the land as a territorial concession for 35 years as long as they comply with the regulatory plan within two years.
Many of the coastal residents are in their 50s and 60s and have been born and raised there. They had to live close to the shore because their lives were made by fishing and their transportation was by boat, as no roads connected these remote areas.
This affects lands throughout the country, such as Punta Uva and Santa Cruz.
