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| Tamarindo Plan Gets First Public Airing |
| Friday, 11 April 2008 | |
 (TBT) The long-awaited regulatory plan for Tamarindo got its first public airing last Friday.Farther inland the plan would allow for buildings up to six stories high. The projected new measures were unveiled on Friday at the first public airing of the long-awaited regulatory plan for the Tamarindo area. Nearly three years from its inception, the rough draft of the plan was presented .... .... to a sparsely-attended audience of residents and developers, initiating a preliminary public debate that will last through June. The controversial plan will address not only building height, but density, land use, roadways and protected areas, for the district stretching from Playa Avellanas to Huacas, and inland to Cañafistula. “We are drawing up the projected development in Tamarindo for the next 50 years,” said Héctor Chavarría of the National Institute of Housing and Urban Development (INVU), who spearheaded the project. The ambitious vision calls for an expansion of the Tamarindo airport, new roadways to link the communities within the district, boardwalks and bicycle lanes, a university and a new civic center. It will also curb what the planners call ‘spontaneous urban growth’ in the area, imposing limits on what can be built, and where. “The land use in the district has developed spontaneously for the most part,” reads the draft, “according to market forces and often contrary to established urban legislation.” “As such, the human settlements are monocentric in one place, linear and dispersed in another, without any established pattern, which entails a set of negative social, economic and urban implications.” Building height is one of the more polemic issues under discussion. The existing regulatory plan, in effect since 1999, restricts building height in the maritime zone (50 meters inland from the high tide line) to just two stories. That restriction would be maintained in the new plan, and inland, buildings would not exceed 24 meters (78 feet), or six stories, and then only in specially designated high-density zones, at least 150 meters from the maritime zone. In the more dense urban centers, planners would limit building height to three stories, in order to respect the ‘idiosyncrasy’ of the towns’ physical character, said Mr Chavarría.  Photo (Zoraida Diaz): Planning Stages: Tamarindo Costa Rica from the air this week. “Some of the proposed projects will require expropriations, needed to maintain equilibrium. Not everything can be commercial,” he insisted. The threat of expropriation is likely to raise strong opposition, but Mr Chavarría maintained the necessity of such bold moves to ensure the needs of the community in coming decades. “The more irresponsible ones will object to the regulatory part that imposes restrictions on building height and density,” he said bluntly. “Those areas now privately owned, destined to be public zones to attend the future needs of the community, they will be expropriated — and the value of the expropriations to be set by the tax authority won’t be to the liking of the current owners.” Zoning will establish which areas will be converted to public, protected land, with at least one national park envisioned for the district. The plan also emphasizes the need for pedestrian walkways, including a beachfront boardwalk, as well as bicycle paths along primary and secondary roadways for cyclists and horse-drawn carriages. Two new access roads into Tamarindo town would bypass Villareal center (through which the main road currently runs), diverging instead from Santa Rosa on the north, and Los Jobos to the south. Planners hope to relieve the choked congestion in the heart of Tamarindo town, and convert the tourist center into a pedestrian-only zone. New roads would also better connect the Tamarindo airport to nearby towns. The landing strip at the airport would be expanded, and an aerial terminal built to accommodate the anticipated growth in domestic air traffic. In Villareal, 4000 square meters of municipal land (about one acre) would house a civic complex, complete with a bus and taxi terminal, firefighters, police station, Red Cross, parks and cultural center. Despite its grand scope, the project is still in its very early stages. Representatives of INVU will continue holding preliminary public meetings in coming weeks to field written questions and comments from the community regarding the details of the plans. However, the Asociación Pro Mejoras de Playa Tamarindo (APMT) must also find another $10,000 to fund the required Environment Fragility Indices (IFAS) for non-coastal areas before it can be sent to the municipality for approval. The IFAS are an analysis of the environment’s more fragile components, such as watersheds, resources, and endemic wildlife, which then determine the uses to which the land can be put. At the moment, only the IFAS of the coastal regions have been determined. Once the IFAS are completed, public debate will begin in earnest, after which the final draft of the regulatory plan can be completed. “It must be clear that although we have made a significant advance in the matter of regulation,” said Mr Amador, “the reality is that if we don’t conclude this in the coming months along with other corrective measures, there will be nothing left to regulate, as Tamarindo will suffer unplanned development with serious consequences on the landscape, the beach and within the community.” The regulatory plan, once approved, will be implemented in stages with the input of the Municipality of Santa Cruz, MOPT, the Ministry of Health, and others. “Given that Tamarindo will be a big city our vision of growth must be divided into stages,” said Mr Chavarría. Details of the plan and dates of the public meetings can be found here. Comments (0)
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