If you’ve asked around already about developing in Costa Rica, you’ve probably heard this dreaded word. SETENA is the environmental gatekeeper that supervises the environmental impact of any kind of development. The good side of it is that its regulations are incredibly comprehensive and it has the potential and mandate to protect Costa Rica’s greatest

You need your Master Plan approved (or visado) by the CFIA before most other regulators will look at them. The CFIA has actually been quite active in recent years in lobbying to speed up the permitting process, and it has headed up the creation of a Web site (www.tramitesconstruccion.go.cr) that tries (not always successfully) to provide

Land survey: If you’re doing even a small development, you should have done this step as part of due diligence. A property line survey – carried out by a topographer – is an extremely important step that will save you from many a headache. Here’s why: When Costa Rica started it’s national cadastre (or official property

Permitting for a development and a single-family home are substantially different. If you will be permitting the construction of a single home, keep in mind that your job will be a lot simpler that what’s presented in this section, though similar. There are two kinds of developments: those that need a Master Plan (plan maestro)and

Permitting a development requires a lot of work and expertise. For medium or large developments, you’ll almost certainly need to hire a one-stop-shop consulting company that has all necessary professionals on staff and has years of experience with permitting and environmental impact studies. This might cost a bit more, but you get what you pay

It helps to be familiar with the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies you will be dealing with during the permitting process. Following, a brief list: MINAET (www.minaet.go.cr): The Ministerio del Ambiente, Energía, y Telecomunicaciones, or Minstery of Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications. This is the big cheese when it comes to environmental regulation in Costa Rica. Permits to

There is no one, single way to do the permitting process, and there is no single entry point. How you do permitting will depend a lot on who you hire and how much you’re willing to spend. Many of the procedures discussed in this chapter can be carried out in parallel, either legally or extra-legally.