Costa Rica Living – Ticos suffer with a poor quality of life because of disorder in the Greater Metropolitan Area.
Traffic jams, pollution, an increase in residents and vehicles and reduced competitiveness are consequences of a lack of basic urban planning.
The country has worked on a number of possible plans to create the right kind of cities in the GAM but, although it has spent $22 million to regulate the 43,000 hectares, a difference in criteria among economic, technical and ecological sectors have shut down every proposal.
La Nacion, Universidad Latina and the construction company H. Solis held the “Urban and Regional Planning” forum in the second edition of Visionarios 20/20. Panelists agreed that a regional plan is lacking.
The GAM Plan 2013-2030 was approved but then objected to by a group of environmentalists. It was a guide for the 32 municipalities to elaborate on their plans.
In addition to lack of planning there is lack of enforcement of existing controls. For example, it is illegal to build within ten meters of a river but it has been done without consequence in many municipalities.
