Municipal Competence in Urban Planning and Land-Use CertificationCompetencia municipal en la ordenación urbanística y certificación de usos del suelo

**IV.- MUNICIPAL COMPETENCE** **IN MATTERS RELATING TO** ** URBAN PLANNING OF THE CANTON. REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FROM WHICH IT DERIVES.-** Given that the claim concerns the issuance of a certificate for a non-conforming land use, this Tribunal deems it appropriate to make some brief observations regarding the competence of local governments in urban planning matters. It is clarified that this power has a dual aspect, thus, first, with regard to the definition of regulatory provisions—promulgation of the respective regulations—regulatory plans (planes reguladores) and related regulations—and second, with regard to control —exercise of the police power (poder de policía)—in the territorial circumscription. In effect, it must be remembered that urban planning regulation has traditionally been entrusted, without any discussion, to the municipalities, since it has been considered that

"(...) urban planning competence has been a genuine municipal competence, perhaps the very first among all" (GARCÍA DE ENTERRÍA, Eduardo and PAREJO ALFONSO, Luciano, Lecciones de Derecho Urbanístico. Editorial Civitas, Madrid, Spain, S.N.E., 1981. p. 116.);

such that it has been configured as a tradition of Urban Planning Law, especially in those moments when its content has been expressed by means of "building and urban police ordinances," under the competence of local governments, on the understanding that public urban planning competence belongs to the city, and consequently, to the municipalities. Thus, urban planning initially was an exclusively municipal competence. Subsequently, as it ceased to be a function specific to the urban sphere and sought to encompass the planning of the entire territory, other higher Administrations took responsibility for it, thereby modifying the competence level of urban planning matters, by including other bodies, in our context, such as the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo —a decentralized entity—, and the Ministries of Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications, with the Secretaría Técnica Ambiental (a deconcentrated body) and the Ministry of National Planning. But with regard strictly to local urban planning, it is worth recalling that it is in the Construction Law, approved by Decree-Law number 833, of November fourth, nineteen forty-nine—a pre-constitutional norm, having been promulgated by the De Facto Government of the Founding Junta of the Second Republic, led by José Figueres Ferrer—where it is established that the Municipalities are responsible for ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, health, comfort, and beauty in their public roads and in the buildings and constructions erected on the lands of the same, without prejudice to the powers that the laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies (Article 1), as well as that no building may be erected in the country that contravenes its provisions (Article 74). And notwithstanding that our current Political Constitution —of November seventh, nineteen forty-nine— is somewhat sparse in defining the proper and essential functions of the municipalities, constitutional jurisprudence—specifically in rulings number 5097-93, 5303-93, 6706-93, 4205-96, and 2003-3656—has interpreted that, based on the provisions of its Articles 169 and the first paragraph of Article 170, primary ownership in matters of local urban planning corresponds to the municipalities, to the exclusion of any other public entity. In this sense, in the Municipal Code, number 4574, of May fourth, nineteen seventy,—in force until nineteen ninety-eight—, urban planning matters were expressly recognized as a municipal competence, in its Article 4. In consonance with the foregoing provision, and as a derivative of the constitutional norms, Articles 15 and 19 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, number 4240, of November fifteenth, nineteen sixty-eight, are concordant, as they stipulate textually:

"Article 15.- Pursuant to the precept of Article 169 of the Political Constitution, the competence and authority of the municipal governments to plan and control urban development, within the limits of their jurisdictional territory, is recognized. Consequently, each one of them shall provide what is appropriate to implement a regulatory plan (plan regulador), and the related urban development regulations, in the areas where it must govern, without prejudice to extending all or some of its effects to other sectors, where qualified reasons prevail for establishing a specific controlling regime." (Emphasis is not from the original.)

"Article 19.- Each Municipality shall issue and promulgate the procedural rules necessary for the due observance of the regulatory plan (plan regulador) and for the protection of the interests of health, safety, comfort, and well-being of the community." (Emphasis is not from the original.)

**V.- MUNICIPAL COMPETENCE** **IN THE VERIFICATION** ** OF COMPLIANCE WITH URBAN PLANNING NORMS.-** As for the second mentioned sphere, it pertains to the control exercised by municipal Authorities regarding compliance with local urban planning regulations. In this sense, as this Tribunal has indicated in various rulings (among them, numbers 175-2009, of fifteen hours forty minutes, and 176-2009, of fifteen hours fifty minutes, both of January thirtieth, two thousand nine), "local governments must act in a timely manner in the exercise of the police power (poder de policía), using the powers that the legal system has granted them to achieve their goals" (underlining is not from the original); which in the matter of urban planning, is realized in the control of urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento) processes, and which is specifically realized in a exhaustive manner in Article 1 of the Construction Law, as it literally provides:

"The Municipalities of the Republic are responsible for ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, health, comfort, and beauty in their public roads, in the buildings and constructions erected on the lands of the same, without prejudice to the powers that the laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies." For its part, the "police power (poder de policía)" is the competence recognized to the Administration, so that, based on a law, it may regulate and rule an activity, in order to ensure public order, health, tranquility, the safety of persons, as well as the moral, political, and economic organization of society; an attribution, by virtue of which, the imposition of restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental rights is reasonable, as its justification is found precisely in the consideration that fundamental rights are limited by those of other persons, given that they must coexist with each and every one of the other fundamental rights. Whereby, the measures that the State adopts for the purpose of protecting safety, health, and tranquility are of public social interest, which are manifested through the police power (poder de policía), understood as the regulatory power over the enjoyment of rights and the fulfillment of constitutional duties. (In this sense, one may consult rulings number 401-91, of fourteen hours of February twentieth, and 619-91, of fourteen hours forty-five minutes of March twenty-second, both rulings of nineteen ninety-one, and 2003-2864, of fifteen hours twenty minutes of April ninth, two thousand three, of the Constitutional Chamber.)

**VI.- OF** **URBAN PLANNING REGULATIONS IN GENERAL AND MUNICIPAL ONES.-** The content of urban planning regulations, in our legal system (Costa Rican), must then be clarified. First of all, it is noted that the term "urban planning regulations" must be understood in a broad sense and not restricted to the regulations that in this matter emanate from a municipal agreement; as it refers to the generality of urban planning instruments, which derive from various administrative bodies, and which in doctrine has been conceptualized as "[...] an instrument, approved by an act of Public Power, that orders the territory, establishing provisions for the siting of production and residence centers in a manner convenient for the better distribution of the population; regulates land use for its public and private purpose and, especially, its urbanization and building, and, by doing so, defines the content of the right of property and programs the development of urban planning management." (CARCELER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. Introducción al Derecho Urbanístico. Second Edition. Editorial Tecnos, S.A. Barcelona. Spain. 1992. p. 34.)

Thus, at the national level, there are various urban planning regulations, according to the body responsible for their adoption and, consequently, the scope of coverage of the national territory over which they exercise their application: namely, those of national order and regional ones, the approval of which is the responsibility of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy and Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, which contain the general guidelines of planning in this matter, and finally, the local, cantonal, or municipal ones, which are those elaborated, processed, approved, and executed by the municipalities. When the term "regulatory plan (plan regulador)" is used, a term adopted by our national legislation in Article 1 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, which defines it as:

"the local planning instrument that defines, in a set of plans, maps, regulations, and any other document, graphic, or supplement, the development policy and the plans for the distribution of the population, land uses, circulation routes, public services, community facilities, and construction, conservation, and rehabilitation of urban areas"; popularly, reference is made to urban planning regulations emanating from local governments; however, we must understand that the regulations of the first two orders are also comprised, namely, national and regional ones, as they have the same content and fulfill the same ordering function of the territory, at the urban level and in determining the possible land uses. These regulatory bodies have a specific content, namely, the ordering and planning of land use, for the creation of urban centers—cities, urbanizations (urbanizaciones), industrial projects or parks, parks, public roads, public services, etc.—within the scope of a territorial circumscription, whether the canton or part thereof; or also at a regional level, in the case of the Regional Urban Development Plan, of the Gran Área Metropolitana, approved by Decree number 3332, of April twenty-sixth of nineteen eighty-two, and its amendments; which at the moment is the only urban planning regulation in our country issued at a regional level; and without a regulation of this nature having been adopted at the national level at this time. Consequently, this implies the location, with respect to public buildings, and zoning (zonificación), with respect to private building. Thus, it not only determines the use or purpose of lots, but also their configuration and size; population density, the percentage of the land that may be used, the number of floors, the type and purpose of buildings; all of the foregoing, subject to uniform general norms for each kind thereof throughout the entire zone. Likewise, it guides the architectural composition of buildings, and regulates, in case of necessity, their aesthetic characteristics; a competence that, it is not superfluous to point out, has not been exercised at this time in our country (except, perhaps, in very sporadic cases). They are composed of both written norms and graphics, plans, and annexed documents that help determine their content, which is of an absolutely normative character, which has the following effects: a) they regulate the faculties of the exercise of the right of property, according to the classification and qualification of the lands contained therein; b) they have indefinite validity, but are susceptible to being modified by subsequent revisions; c) their efficacy is "erga omnes," although reduced to a specific territory or territorial circumscription, according to its level (national, regional, or local), as it binds both the Administration in general and private individuals; and d) it cannot contain reservations of dispensation.

**VII.- THE CONTENT OF** **REGULATORY PLANS (PLANES REGULADORES).-** It is by reason of its broad content that, for regulatory plans (planes reguladores), the Ley de Planificación Urbana establishes in its Article 21 the principal regulations that are complementary normative instruments to any urban planning regulation, known as a "Plan," whether national, regional, or local, namely:

a.- the ZONING (ZONIFICACIÓN) one: by which norms for the use of the territory are established, it being necessary to recall that it is a basic concept of urban planning, consisting of reserving specific zones of a territory for concrete needs or functions; and it encompasses from the creation of industrial zones to the establishment of residential, political-administrative zones, sports zones, green zones, zones of special environmental protection, and others (CALVO MURILLO, Virgilio, "Derecho Urbanístico: Fundamentos e Instituciones", Revista Judicial, Year II, No. 5, Poder Judicial of Costa Rica, September 1977, p. 92.) It is the first, and perhaps most important, regulation that must accompany every urban planning plan, in accordance with Article 21, subsection 1) of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, given that, as its name indicates, it is responsible for the ordering and determination of land use, with a view to the rational use of the land and to ensure satisfactory environmental living conditions and qualities, thereby conditioning the use of real estate property, through the delimitation of areas, according to the adopted categorization. (BANDEIRA DE MELLO, Celso Antonio. Figuras jurídicas del planeamiento urbano en el Brasil. In: Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. pp. 388 and 389.) In this way, the urban planning regime of the right of property is not uniform by the mere fact that the land is subject to planning, but rather differs according to the type of land under which the property in question is classified; which demonstrates the importance of zoning (zonificación). (CARCELLER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. Instituciones de Derecho Urbanístico. Fifth edition. Editorial Montecorvo, S.A. Madrid, Spain. 1992. p. 333.) Thus, from this regulation, the exact definition of the possible (permitted) uses in each zone is established, with the consequent impact on the right of property; by conditioning where one can and must reside, where one can trade, where services must be provided, where industry can be established, and where one can engage in recreation and entertainment; which leads us to consider the seriousness with which it must be formulated, which requires not only criteria of opportunity and convenience, but above all technical and objective ones. It is clear that the content of the land statute determines the scope of ownership and conditions its exercise, diversifying into situations favoring private initiative and likewise establishing linkages that restrict its exercise. The function of classifying the land to establish the corresponding legal regime falls to the General Plan, of which the zoning regulation (reglamento de zonificación) forms part; which must contain the urban planning classification and qualification of the land. By classification is meant the category or type of land (urban, developable, programmed or not, and non-developable, industrial, reserve or for environmental protection, residential, institutional, etc.) according to its basic urban planning purpose; qualification applies to designate the subdivision of those land types into zones characterized by specific urban planning contents or uses; and in this sense, it is linked to the zoning (zonificación) technique, which was born when it became desirable to separate buildings intended for residential purposes from industrial installations. It is clear that the regulations contained in the zoning regulation (reglamento de zonificación) come to assist in the delineation of the content of the right of property, insofar as its content is the result of the constitutional and legal regime of property, as it is not an absolute right, but subject to regulations by virtue of the recognition of the fundamental element of the social function of property and the contingencies of urban coexistence. The legitimacy of the regulations or limitations contained in the zoning (zonificación) norms is conditioned on the following principles: a) only norms of a general nature constitute zoning (zonificación), that is, those that encompass a category of goods, also qualified by their spatial location, insofar as such location is not singularizing, and b) zoning (zonificación) regulations cannot be unlimited, as they must preserve the essential core of the right of property (of use, enjoyment, and disposal, not in an unrestricted sense); otherwise, one would be facing a suppression of the right, that is, an expropriation. Thus, zoning (zonificación) cannot entail the annulment or paralysis of the manifestations of the right of property, which must in no way be confused with the expressions or patrimonial meaning of the property. There is only an obligation to indemnify for the imposition of these measures when they affect the essential core of this right, defined by constitutional jurisprudence as the possibility of carrying out some type of exploitation of the property, perhaps not the one desired by its owner. Thus, limitations imposed on the property that allow the owner the possibility of "normally" by the limitation imposed by the State, thereby respecting the natural use of the property, by maintaining its value as a means of production or economic value in the market. (In this sense, among others, see rulings number 0796-91, of fifteen hours ten minutes of April twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-one; number 5893-95, of nine hours forty-eight minutes of October twenty-seventh, nineteen ninety-five, and number 2345-96, of nine hours twenty-four minutes of May seventeenth, nineteen ninety-six.) The Full Court so stated in relation to the limitations to be imposed on property when they exceed the indicated limit, in an extraordinary session of June sixteenth, nineteen eighty-three:

"[...] that is say 'limitations' as Article 45 calls them, but not the dispossession of private property nor the deprivation of a primary attribute of ownership, because preventing the enjoyment of goods amounts, at least in this case, to a form of The Constitutional Chamber ruled in the same sense in the aforementioned rulings number 5097-93 and 2345-96, under the following considerations:

"IV) For the Chamber, the reasonable limits that the State may impose on private property, in accordance with its nature, are constitutionally possible as long as they do not empty its content. When this occurs, it ceases to be a reasonable limitation and becomes a deprivation of the right itself" (ruling number 5097-93, cited above); "It is, therefore, that the attributes of property may be limited, as long as the owner reserves for himself the possibility of normally exploiting the property, excluding, of course, the part or function affected by the limitation imposed by the State. Outside these parameters, if social welfare demands sacrifices from one or from a few only, they must be compensated, just as occurs when the sacrifice imposed on the owner is of such an entity that it causes him to lose the property in its entirety. Thus, the limitation to property withstands constitutional analysis when the impairment of the essential attributes of property—those that allow the natural use of the thing within the current socio-economic reality—does not cause the nature of the good to disappear or make the use of the thing impossible, because the State imposes authorization or approval requirements so complex that they entail, in fact, the impossibility of usufructuating the good" (ruling number 2345-96, cited above).

Thus, Article 24 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana determines the content of these regulations as follows: a) the determination of land uses; b) matters relating to the location, height, and construction area of buildings; c) the area and dimensions of lots, which has a direct impact on the determination of land density; d) the size of setbacks, courtyards, and other open spaces, and lot coverage by buildings and structures; e) the provision of space for parking, loading, and unloading of vehicles off the streets; f) size, location, and characteristics of signs or advertisements; and g) any other architectural or urban planning detail related to land use, the regulation of which is of interest to the local community. For this reason, it is obligatory to reserve zones that have a special affectation by reason of their use, such as those near airports, those having an affectation for the protection of forest, historical, and architectural heritage, or natural heritage of the State, which derive from Articles 50 and 89 of the Political Constitution, as ordered by Article 25 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana; b.- the SUBDIVISION (FRACCIONAMIENTO) and URBANIZATION one: which, according to Article 32 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, seeks to determine under what conditions a municipality shall permit or regulate subdivision (fraccionamiento) and urbanization projects (urbanizaciones) in its jurisdiction, for which requirements are provided pertaining to access to public roads, the transfer of areas for public use, standards for the construction of streets and sidewalks, pavements, pipelines, stormwater and sanitary drainage, electrification and public lighting, among others. In this sense, the importance for Urban Planning Law of controlling subdivision (fraccionamiento) actions must be highlighted, which offers no doubt whatsoever. In this regard, the Administrative Contentious Superior Tribunal states:

“IV.- From what has been said, it is necessary to insist that the control of urban development as a competence of municipalities implies both the power to issue regulatory plans (planes reguladores), but above all, it implies the competence to 'control' the subdivision (fraccionamiento) of lands through those same regulatory plans (planes reguladores) and by granting the corresponding municipal approval (visado) to the respective plan, as expressed in number 33 of the cited Ley de Planificación Urbana. In the same order of things, according to Article 10, subsection 2) of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, it is the responsibility of the Urban Planning Directorate of the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo to approve (visar) the corresponding plans regarding urbanization or subdivision (fraccionamiento) projects for urbanization purposes prior to municipal approval (Article 33 ibidem). This is a competence that translates into a control function on the part of the Urban Planning Directorate in relation to the urban planning and control of the municipalities (Articles 7, subsection 3) and 9 of the aforementioned law). They become advisors or overseers, being able to inform or even report to the Municipalities regarding a possible infraction of the law or the local regulatory plan (plan regulador), even being able to issue an act of suspension of a specific work, where an infraction of the law in matters of urban planning has been verified. According to Article 36, subsection b) ibidem, the municipalities cannot grant the respective approvals (visados) to plans for urban planning projects in areas subject to control when they do not have the required permit (visado of the Urban Planning Directorate).” (Third Section, Administrative Contentious Superior Tribunal, ruling number 791-2002 of ten hours ten minutes of September twenty-seventh, two thousand two.) (Emphasis is not from the original.)

And indeed, omitting controls (visados) for subdivision (fraccionamiento) purposes is one of the most common and dangerous ways to circumvent urban planning standards and to thwart all the regulatory instruments in the matter, which causes serious consequences.

Among these, we can cite the impossibility of planning and supplying basic services, the construction of housing complexes in high-risk zones for natural emergencies, or building in zones that, due to their characteristics, should not be designated for construction, because they are aquifer recharge areas or have high environmental value; just to mention a few examples; c.- the OFFICIAL MAP (MAPA OFICIAL): which, pursuant to Article 1 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), "is the map or set of maps in which the exact position of the layouts of public roads and areas to be reserved for community uses and services is indicated"; the content of which is regulated in Articles 42 and 43 of the aforementioned Law:

"Article 42.- The regulation of the Official Map shall establish the rules on reserves, acquisition, use, and conservation of the areas necessary for roads, parks, plazas, buildings, and other community uses, expressing the location and size of those already delivered to the public service and those demarcated only preventively." "Article 43.- The Official Map, together with the plans or the cadastre that complement it, shall constitute a special reliable registry of the ownership and affectation to the public domain of the lands or spaces already delivered to public uses"; d.- the URBAN RENEWAL (RENOVACIÓN URBANA) plan: whose content is determined in Article 51 of the reference Law, in the following manner:

"Article 51.- The Urban Renewal Regulation shall contain the regulations locally adopted to conserve, rehabilitate, or remodel defective, deteriorated, or decaying urban areas, taking into account the inconvenient subdivision (parcelación) or construction, the lack of community services and facilities, or any other condition adverse to general safety, health, and welfare"; which is of transcendental importance, especially when dealing with the protection of the architectural historical heritage, or for safeguarding the safety of a neighborhood's inhabitants; e.- and finally, the CONSTRUCTION (CONSTRUCCIONES) regulation; which aims to technically regulate all the requirements that any type of construction must meet, according to the definition of the concept given in Article 1 of the reference Law, which defines it as "any structure that is fixed or incorporated into a piece of land; it includes any work of building, reconstruction, alteration, or expansion that implies permanence." Thus, its objective is to establish the rules for the planning, design, and construction of buildings, streets, sports fields, industrial and machinery installations, and all those works additional to these, regarding everything related to architecture and civil, electrical, mechanical, or sanitary engineering, with the purpose of promoting, ensuring, and protecting health, economy, comfort, and common welfare through requirements that guarantee in such works their solidity, stability, safety, healthiness, adequate lighting, and ventilation.

VIII.- THE LEGAL NATURE OF REGULATORY PLANS (PLANES REGULADORES) AND THEIR CONTENT.- Urban planning regulations, which as indicated, comprise a very varied set of norms; product of the action of the various public entities that intervene in this matter; where we find legal norms, norms of a regulatory character with the force of law (law in the material sense), and of course, regulatory norms. So much so that we can well conclude that our urban planning legal framework is composed of norms of a different nature, precisely by virtue of two important factors: firstly, the body or institution from which they emanate (be it the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa), the Executive Branch, the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism, or the municipalities); and secondly, and as a derivative of the former, the scope of the regulation's coverage, be it national, regional, or local binding. Thus, urban planning regulations of a legal nature do not pose a legal problem, neither in doctrine nor in jurisprudence, given that they are legitimate, as long as they are approved by a qualified vote, that is, with the minimum vote of thirty-eight deputies, due to their content; in the terms provided in the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política) itself, insofar as they impose social interest limitations. It is worth reiterating that this requirement of a qualified vote is not merely formal, but substantial, insofar as it implies the necessary consensus among the various fractions of the political parties that make up the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa). Therefore, there is no major discussion about the legitimacy and normative rank of the Urban Planning Law, which fully complies with the constitutional requirement, having been approved in compliance with the constitutional requirement. Now then, while urban planning regulations constitute a set of heterogeneous norms, precisely because they derive from various public instances, and consequently, as a manifestation of various instances of public power (Legislative Branch, Administrative Branch, and local power), it is our opinion that the analysis of these regulations must start from the content of Article 45 of the Constitution, whose second paragraph legitimizes the establishment of social interest limitations on property, as long as they are established through a qualified law, a substantial and not formal requirement, as it implies legislative consensus for its adoption. In this sense, as has been considered by the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) in its jurisprudence, the limitations and regulations of an urban planning nature are of social interest, insofar as they are imposed precisely to facilitate coexistence in society, and translate into impediments or obligations for the owner, and which, in their majority, have an origin quite old in our legal system, deriving -many of them- from provisions of the Civil Code, dating from eighteen hundred and eighty-eight. The constitutional jurisprudence has recognized two types of social interest that legitimize -or justify- the imposition of limitations on property: these are those relating to environmental protection and those of an urban planning nature, the latter, based on the development made in ruling number 4205-96, cited above. In such a way that, in a strict sense, it should be considered that urban plans -all in general, be they national, regional, and local in scope-, by reason of their content, have the normative rank of laws in the material sense, given that they impose obligations, duties, and limit rights, particularly the exercise of the right to property, just as the Argentine jurist Edgardo O. SCOTTI points out:

"A plan for a specific urban nucleus implies not only establishing policies aimed at the adequate organization of activities in space, but it means guiding and conditioning the actions of the public and private sectors through the use of legal instruments that, through incentives, requirements, or prohibitions, delimit the exercise of the right to property and the other functions and uses that can be developed in the urban sphere." (Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. p. 77.)

In this regard, there is no doubt about the direct incidence of urban plans on the exercise of the fundamental rights of private property and freedom of enterprise, insofar as from the content of their regulations, the development of industry and commerce is also inferred (Articles 45 and 47 of the Political Constitution), as well as the consequent protection of another fundamental right, that is, a healthy and ecologically balanced environment (Article 50 of the Political Constitution); as considered by the Constitutional Chamber in ruling number 5303-93:

"... the limitation on property imposed by a regulatory plan is constitutionally possible, because the right to property is not unlimited; rather, there exists a general framework within which the owner may act and which must be compatible with the constitutional content of that right. For what has been expressed, in the judgment of this Tribunal, the limitation imposed, insofar as it is adjusted to a valid regulatory plan, does not violate, as suggested in the appeal, Article 45 of the Political Constitution, as long as that regulatory plan does not deconstitutionalize the private property that is affected by that instrument. A contrario sensu, if the limitations exceed the minimum parameters of reasonableness and proportionality, they would be contrary to the Political Constitution." Thus, it has been considered that the content imposed in the various urban plans -in their complete dimension, be they national, regional, and local- is consistent with the constitutional requirement, as it derives from a legal provision –the Urban Planning Law-, which was indeed approved in compliance with the constitutional condition –two thirds of the total members of the Legislative Assembly-, by virtue of which, that legitimization is transferred to them. And in addition to the above, it must be considered that regional plans, in this case, the Regional Urban Development Plan of the Greater Metropolitan Area (Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano del Gran Área Metropolitana), have that character by virtue of an express legal mandate, pursuant to Article 64 of the Urban Planning Law, insofar as it states textually:

"Article 64.- The Metropolitan Regulatory Plan, its regulations, and the respective amendments, shall acquire the force of law for all the municipalities of the circuit that has agreed to its adoption." (The highlighting is not from the original.)

Finally, regarding municipal regulatory plans, we can defend this value –of law in the material sense- based on the following reasons: a) by reason of its content, which imposes obligations on owners and limitations on property, as indicated previously; b.) by reason of its reinforced approval procedure, which constitutes a manifestation of direct democracy; insofar as for the approval of these regulations, it is required, as an essential requirement, the holding of an oral and public hearing, in the terms provided in Article 19 of the Urban Planning Law; and likewise, the plan is adopted and imposed by agreement of the Municipal Council, the deliberative body of the municipalities; and c) by legal equivalency, from the provision in the transcribed Article 64 of the Urban Planning Law. Ergo, if an urban planning ordinance at the regional level acquires the rank of law for the Municipality that adopts it, and this is by agreement of the Council, it is proper that this condition is also acquired by the one that has been developed by the municipality itself and governs solely its territorial circumscription. In any case, our Constitutional Court has clearly and precisely indicated that regulatory plans, despite being regulatory rules emanating from municipalities, have the normative rank of laws in the material sense. In this sense, rulings number 2006-13330, of seventeen hours thirty-three minutes of the sixth of December, two thousand six; 2007-5575; of fifteen hours twenty-four minutes of the twenty-fifth of April, two thousand seven, and 2008-18438, of seventeen hours fifty-six minutes of the eleventh of December, two thousand eight, may be consulted.

IX.- THE ISSUANCE AND EFFECTS OF LAND USE (USOS DE SUELO).- Having made reference to the competence of the municipalities in the field of local urbanism and the content and transcendence of urban planning regulations, we proceed to clarify the content and effects of land uses, bearing in mind that the content of the challenged decision is precisely the determination of a non-conforming use, regarding the activity sought by the interested party. In effect, land use certificates are administrative acts of a declaratory and not constitutive nature, insofar as they certify facts or circumstances, such that they do not create nor modify legal situations –just as the administrative jurisprudence points out, thus for example the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría General de la República) in its opinions number C-327-2001 and C-357-2003–, given that it concerns a specific legal act by means of which the Administration (local or the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism, as appropriate, that is, if it concerns a subdivision (fraccionamiento), in the first case, or a housing development (urbanización) in the second), certifies the conformity or not of the land use with what is established in the respective zoning; as provided in Article 28 of the Urban Planning Law. In this sense, it must be taken into account that the doctrine and jurisprudence – both constitutional and contentious-administrative- have indicated that urban plans are normative provisions that discipline land use, so that they affect private rights (right to property) by predetermining the modes of enjoyment and utilization of the good. Thus, the issuance of a visa is forbidden when the intended use is incompatible with that provided in the respective regulation. Concordantly, from the Zoning Regulation for Land Use of the GAM, it is understood that every property has an urbanistic vocation that is declared in the master plan and likewise, in its Article 12, it is indicated that any interested party must obtain prior the corresponding certificate stating the permitted use, which will have a validity of one calendar year from the moment it is issued, adding Article 12.4 that in case of not having started the works within the year of validity, the permit must be renewed. Then Article 13 states expressly:

"The certificate shall indicate the use and shall not be interpreted as a definitive permit to carry out use, occupation, expansions, remodeling, construction, or subdivision. The Alignment and the Land Use Certificate shall have a validity of one year from their issuance." (The underlining is not from the original.)

Thus, through land use certification, it is not decided what the permitted use is, insofar as this has already been previously determined in the zoning regulation, which forms part of the local regulatory plan; so that it simply certifies what the required use is, according to what is established by regulation, in addition to stating whether the use being given to a determined piece of land conforms or not with said regulation, which means it is a merely declaratory act, without creating, modifying, or extinguishing any legal situation, as occurs with constitutive administrative acts. For this reason, the issuance of a land use certificate cannot be assimilated to a construction permit, insofar as it is not legitimate to claim that it constitutes a declaratory act of rights. So it is precisely because of its declaratory nature that land use certificates do not, by themselves, give rise to the acquisition of a subjective right nor consolidate, by themselves, any legal situation. Land use certification is merely descriptive regarding a determined factual situation in relation to what is normatively provided, for which reason, through it, it is not possible to consolidate any legal situation pre-existing to the certifying act.

X.- However, it is important to bear in mind that the land use certificate, as a declaratory administrative act that it is, does constitute an act of great importance, insofar as its content and function is to certify facts or legal situations that serve as the basis for the adoption of administrative acts through which legal situations are indeed created, modified, or extinguished, such is the case, for example, of authorizations to build or to process municipal licenses to exercise certain activities, for whose adoption it requires –sine qua non– the corresponding land use certificate. By virtue of the foregoing, the importance that they be issued in accordance with the legality block is evident, that is, with the urban planning regulations, be these the urban regulatory plans specific to each canton or the regional plans (for example, the GAM) or those dictated by the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism, of supplementary application in the absence of local plans (Transitory Provision II of the Urban Planning Law and rulings number 4205-96 and 2003-11397 of the Constitutional Chamber).” In this sense, as this Court has indicated in various pronouncements (among them, numbers 175-2009, at fifteen hours forty minutes, and 176-2009, at fifteen hours fifty minutes, both of January thirtieth, two thousand nine), *"local governments must act in a timely manner in the exercise of police power (poder de policía), using the powers that the legal system has granted them to achieve their purposes"* (the underlining is not from the original); which, in the matter of urban planning, is realized in the control of urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento) processes, and which is specifically realized in article 1 of the Construction Law, as it literally provides:

"The Municipalities of the Republic are responsible for ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, health, comfort, and beauty in their public thoroughfares, and in the buildings and constructions erected on their land, without prejudice to the powers that the laws grant in this matter to other administrative bodies." For its part, the "police power (poder de policía)" is the competence recognized to the Administration, so that, based on a law, it regulates and governs an activity, in order to ensure public order, health, tranquility, the safety of persons, as well as the moral, political, and economic organization of society; an attribution by virtue of which the imposition of restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental rights is reasonable, insofar as its justification lies precisely in the consideration that fundamental rights are limited by those of other persons, since they must coexist with each and every one of the other fundamental rights. Thus, the measures adopted by the State for the purpose of protecting safety, health, and tranquility are of public social interest, which are manifested through the police power, understood as the regulatory power over the enjoyment of rights and the fulfillment of constitutional duties. (In this regard, see the judgments number 401-91, at fourteen hours of February twentieth and 619-91, at fourteen hours forty-five minutes of March twenty-second, both rulings of nineteen ninety-one, and 2003-2864, at fifteen hours twenty minutes of April ninth, two thousand three, of the Constitutional Chamber.)

**VI.- ON URBAN PLANNING REGULATIONS IN GENERAL AND MUNICIPAL ONES.-** The content of the urban planning regulations in our legal system (Costa Rican) must then be clarified. First of all, it is noted that the term "urban planning regulations (regulaciones urbanísticas)" should be understood in a broad sense and not restricted to the regulations in this matter emanating from a municipal agreement; insofar as it refers to the generality of urban planning instruments, which derive from various administrative instances, and which in doctrine has been conceptualized as "[...] *an instrument, approved by an act of the Public Power, that organizes the territory, establishing provisions on the location of production and residence centers in a manner convenient for the best distribution of the population; regulates the use of land for public and private purposes and, in particular, its urbanization and building, and, in doing so, defines the content of property rights and programs the development of urban management.*" (CARCELER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. *Introducción al Derecho Urbanístico*. Second Edition. Editorial Tecnos, S.A. Barcelona. Spain. 1992. p. 34.)

Thus, at the national level, there are various urban planning regulations, according to the body responsible for their adoption and, consequently, the scope of coverage of the national territory over which they apply: that is, those of national order and regional ones, whose approval is the responsibility of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy and the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism, which contain the general guidelines for planning in this matter, and finally, the local, cantonal, or municipal ones, which are those that the municipalities elaborate, process, approve, and execute. When the term "regulatory plan (plan regulador)" is used, a meaning that is adopted by our national legislation in Article 1 of the Urban Planning Law, which defines it as:

"*the local planning instrument that defines, in a set of maps, plans, regulations, and any other document, graphic, or supplement, the development policy and the plans for population distribution, land uses, circulation routes, public services, community facilities, and construction, conservation, and rehabilitation of urban areas*"; popularly, reference is made to urban planning regulations deriving from local governments; however, we must understand that the regulations of the first two orders, that is, the national and regional ones, are also included, insofar as they have the same content and fulfill the same function of ordering the territory, at an urban level and in determining the possible uses of the land. These regulatory bodies have a specific content, that is, the ordering and planning of land use, for the creation of urban centers –cities, urbanizations, industrial projects or parks, parks, public roads, public services, etc.– within the scope of a territorial circumscription, be it the canton or part of it; or also at a regional level, in the case of the Regional Urban Development Plan for the Great Metropolitan Area, approved by Decree number 3332, of April twenty-sixth, nineteen eighty-two, and its reforms; which at the moment is the only urban planning regulation in our country enacted at a regional level; and without a regulation of this nature having been adopted at the national level to date. Consequently, this implies the *location*, regarding public buildings, and the *zoning*, regarding private construction. Thus, it not only determines the use or purpose of lots, but also their configuration and size; population density, the percentage of land that can be used, the number of floors, the class, and the purpose of buildings; all the foregoing, subject to uniform general rules for each kind thereof in the entire zone. Likewise, it guides the architectural composition of the buildings, and regulates, if necessary, their aesthetic characteristics; a competence that, it is worth noting, has not been exercised so far in our country (except, perhaps, in very sporadic cases). They are composed of both written rules and graphics, plans, and attached documents that help determine their content, which is of an absolutely normative nature, which has the following effects: **a)** they regulate the powers of exercising property rights, according to the classification and qualification of the lands contained therein; **b)** they have indefinite validity, but are susceptible to modification by subsequent revisions; **c)** their effectiveness is "*erga omnes*", although reduced to a specific territory or territorial circumscription, depending on its level (national, regional, or local), insofar as it binds both the Administration in general and private individuals; and **d)** they may not contain dispensation reservations.

**VII.- ON THE CONTENT OF REGULATORY PLANS.-** Due to its broad content, the Urban Planning Law establishes in its Article 21 which are the main regulations that are complementary normative instruments of any urban planning regulation, known as a "Plan", whether national, regional, or local, namely:

**a.- the *ZONING* one:** through which rules for the use of the territory are established, remembering that it is a basic concept of urban planning, consisting of reserving certain zones of a territory for specific needs or functions; and it ranges from the creation of industrial zones to the establishment of residential, political-administrative zones, sports zones, green zones, special environmental protection zones, and others (CALVO MURILLO, Virgilio, "*Derecho Urbanístico: Fundamentos e Instituciones*", *Revista Judicial*, Year II, No. 5, Poder Judicial de Costa Rica, September 1977, p. 92.) It is the first, and perhaps most important, regulation that must accompany every urban plan, in accordance with Article 21, subsection 1) of the Urban Planning Law, since, as its name indicates, it is responsible for the ordering and determination of land use, with a view to rational land use and to ensure satisfactory environmental conditions and qualities of life, thereby conditioning the use of real estate property, through the delimitation of areas, according to the categorization adopted. (BANDEIRA DE MELLO, Celso Antonio. *Figuras jurídicas del planeamiento urbano en el Brasil*. In: *Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano*. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. pp. 388 and 389.) Thus, the urban planning regime of property rights is not uniform by the mere fact that the land is subject to planning, but differs according to the type of land in which the property in question is classified; which highlights the importance of zoning. (CARCELLER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. *Instituciones de Derecho Urbanístico*. Fifth edition. Editorial Montecorvo, S.A. Madrid, Spain. 1992. p. 333.) Thus, from this regulation, the exact definition of the possible (permitted) uses in each zone is established, with the consequent impact on property rights; by conditioning where one can and should reside, where one can trade, where services must be provided, where industry can be carried out, and where one can recreate and entertain; which leads us to consider the seriousness with which it must be formulated, which requires, not only criteria of opportunity and convenience, but above all technical and objective ones. It is clear that the content of the land statute determines the scope of ownership and conditions its exercise, diversifying into situations favoring private initiative, and likewise, establishes linkages that restrict its exercise. The function of classifying land for the establishment of the corresponding legal regime is the responsibility of the General Plan, of which the zoning regulation forms part; which must contain the urban planning classification and qualification of the land. By classification, one should understand the category or type of land (urban, developable, programmed or unprogrammed, and non-developable, industrial, reserve or for environmental protection, residential, institutional, etc.) according to its basic urban planning purpose; the qualification applies to designate the subdivision of those types of land into zones characterized by specific urban planning contents or uses; and in this sense, it is linked to the technique of zoning, which arises when there is a tendency to separate residential buildings from industrial facilities. It is clear that the regulations contained in the zoning regulation contribute to outlining the content of property rights, insofar as the content thereof is the result of the constitutional and legal regime of property, as it is not an absolute right, but subject to regulations by virtue of the recognition of the fundamental element of the social function of property, and the contingencies of urban coexistence. The legitimacy of the regulations or limitations contained in the zoning rules is conditioned to the following principles: **a)** only the rules of a general nature compose zoning, that is, those that cover a category of goods, also qualified by their spatial location, insofar as such location is not singularizing, and **b)** the zoning regulations cannot be unlimited, as they must preserve the essential core of the property right (of use, enjoyment, pleasure, and disposition, not in an unrestricted sense); otherwise, one will be facing a suppression of the right, that is, an expropriation. So, zoning cannot entail the annulment or paralysis of the manifestations of property rights, which in no way should be confused with the patrimonial expressions or meaning of property. There is only an obligation to compensate for the imposition of these measures when they reach the essential core of this right, defined by constitutional jurisprudence as the possibility of carrying out some type of exploitation of the good, perhaps not the one desired by its owner. Thus, legitimate will be the limitations imposed on property that allow the owner the possibility of "normally" exploiting the good, except, of course, the part or function affected by the limitation imposed by the State, thereby respecting the natural use of the good, by maintaining its value as a means of production or economic value in the market. (In this regard, see, among others, judgments number 0796-91, at fifteen hours ten minutes of April twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-one; number 5893-95, at nine hours forty-eight minutes of October twenty-seventh, nineteen ninety-five, and number 2345-96, at nine hours twenty-four minutes of May seventeenth, nineteen ninety-six.) So stated the Full Court in relation to the limitations to be imposed on property when they exceed the indicated limit, in an extraordinary session of June sixteenth, nineteen eighty-three:

"[...] *that is, 'limitations' as Article 45 calls them, but not dispossession of private property nor deprivation of a primary attribute of ownership, because preventing the enjoyment of the goods is equivalent, at least in this case, to a form of expropriation without the requirement of prior compensation ordered by the Political Constitution.*" In the same sense, the Constitutional Chamber ruled in the cited judgments number 5097-93 and 2345-96; under the following considerations:

"*IV.) For the Chamber, the reasonable limits that the State can impose on private property, in accordance with its nature, are constitutionally possible as long as they do not empty its content. When that happens, it ceases to be a reasonable limitation to become a deprivation of the right itself*" (judgment number 5097-93, cited supra); "*That is, the attributes of property can be limited, as long as the owner reserves for himself the possibility of normally exploiting the good, excluded, of course, the part or the function affected by the limitation imposed by the State. Outside these parameters, if social welfare demands sacrifices from one or from a few only, they must be compensated, the same as when the sacrifice imposed on the owner is of such an identity that it causes them to lose the good in its entirety. Thus, the limitation on property withstands constitutional analysis, when the impact on the essential attributes of property, which are those that allow the natural use of the thing within the current socio-economic reality, does not make the nature of the good disappear or make the use of the thing impossible, because the State imposes authorization or approval requirements so complex that they imply, in fact, the impossibility of usufructing the good*" (judgment number 2345-96, cited supra).

Thus, Article 24 of the Urban Planning Law determines the content of these regulations in the following manner: **a)** the determination of land uses; **b)** matters relating to the location, height, and building area of constructions; **c)** the area and dimensions of lots, which has a direct impact on the determination of land density; **d)** the size of setbacks, yards, and other open spaces, and the coverage of the lot by buildings and structures; **e)** the provision of space for parking, loading, and unloading of vehicles off the streets; **f)** size, location, and characteristics of signs or advertisements; and **g)** any other architectural or urban planning detail regarding land use, whose regulation is of interest to the local community. For this reason, it is mandatory to reserve zones that have a special designation due to their use, such as those near airports, those that have a designation for the protection of forest and historical and architectural heritage, or natural heritage of the State, which derive from Articles 50 and 89 of the Political Constitution, as ordered by Article 25 of the Urban Planning Law; **b.- the *SUBDIVISION and URBANIZATION* one:** which, in accordance with Article 32 of the Urban Planning Law, aims to determine under what conditions a municipality must permit or regulate subdivision (fraccionamiento) and urbanization projects in its jurisdiction, for which requirements are provided corresponding to access to public roads, transfer of areas for public use, rules for the construction of streets and sidewalks, pavements, piping, storm and sanitary drainage, electrification and public lighting, among others. In this sense, the importance for Urban Planning Law of the control of subdivision actions (control de las acciones de fraccionamiento) must be highlighted, which offers no doubt. In this regard, the Superior Administrative Litigation Court states:

"*IV.- From what has been said, it must be insisted that the control of urban development as a competence of the municipalities implies both the power to enact regulatory plans, but above all, it implies the competence to 'control' the subdivision (fraccionamiento) of lands by means of the same regulatory plans and with the granting of the corresponding municipal approval to the respective plan, as expressed in numeral 33 of the cited Urban Planning Law. In the same order of things, according to Article 10, subsection 2) of the Urban Planning Law, it corresponds to the Urban Planning Directorate of the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism to approve the corresponding plans for urbanization or subdivision projects for urbanization purposes prior to municipal approval (Article 33 ibidem). It is a competence that translates into a control function by the Urban Planning Directorate in relation to the urban planning and control by municipalities (Articles 7, subsection 3) and 9 of the above-indicated law). They become advisors or overseers, being able to report or even denounce to the Municipalities, regarding a possible infraction of the law or the local regulatory plan, even being able to issue an act of suspension of a determined work, in which the infraction of the law on urban planning has been proven. According to Article 36, subsection b) ibidem, municipalities cannot grant the respective approvals to plans for urban projects in areas subject to control when they do not have the required permit (approval of the Urban Planning Directorate).*" (Third Section, Superior Administrative Litigation Court, judgment number 791-2002 at ten hours ten minutes of September twenty-seventh, year two thousand two.) (The highlighting is not from the original.)

And indeed, omitting the controls (approvals) for subdivision (fraccionamiento) purposes is one of the most common and dangerous ways of circumventing urban planning standards and overthrowing all regulatory instruments in the matter, causing serious consequences.

Among these, we can cite the impossibility of planning and supplying basic services, <b><i>the construction of housing complexes in high-risk zones due to natural emergencies or building in zones that, due to their characteristics, should not be designated for constructions</i></b>, because they are aquifer recharge areas or have high environmental value; just to cite a few examples; c.- the <u>OFFICIAL MAP (MAPA OFICIAL)</u>: which, pursuant to article 1 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), "<i>is the map or set of maps in which the exact position of the layouts of public roads and areas to be reserved for community uses and services is indicated</i>"; whose content is regulated in articles 42 and 43 of the cited Law:

"<b><i>Article 42.-</i></b><i> The regulation of the Official Map (Mapa Oficial) shall establish the rules on reserves, acquisition, use, and conservation of the areas necessary for roads, parks, plazas, buildings, and other community uses, expressing the location and size of those already delivered to public service and those demarcated only preventively.</i>" "<b><i>Article 43.-</i></b><i> The Official Map (Mapa Oficial), together with the plans or the cadaster that complements it, shall constitute a special reliable registry on ownership and affectation to the public domain of the lands or spaces already delivered to public uses</i>"; <b><i>d.- </i></b><i>the <b>of <u>URBAN RENEWAL (RENOVACIÓN URBANA)</u>: </b></i>whose content is determined in articles 51 allows of the reference Law, in the following manner:

"<b><i>Article 51.-</i></b><i> The Urban Renewal Regulation (Reglamento de Renovación Urbana) shall contain the regulations that are locally adopted to conserve, rehabilitate, or remodel defective, deteriorated, or decaying urban areas, taking into account the inconvenient parceling or building, the lack of community services and facilities, or any other condition adverse to general safety, health, and well-being</i>"; which is of transcendental importance, especially when dealing with the protection of the historical architectural heritage, or for the safeguarding of the safety of the inhabitants of a neighborhood; e.- and finally, the <b>of</b> <b><i><u>CONSTRUCTIONS (CONSTRUCCIONES)</u></i></b>; which seeks to technically regulate all the requirements that any type of construction must meet according to the definition of the concept given in article 1 of the reference Law, which holds it as "<i>any structure that is fixed or incorporated into a land; includes any work of building, reconstruction, alteration, or expansion that implies permanence.</i>" Thus, its objective is to set the norms for the planning, design, and construction of buildings, streets, sports fields, industrial and machinery installations, and all those works additional to these, in everything related to architecture, civil, electrical, mechanical, or sanitary engineering, with the purpose of promoting, ensuring, and protecting health, economy, comfort, and common well-being through requirements that guarantee in such works their solidity, stability, safety, health, illumination, and adequate ventilation.

**VIII.- OF THE LEGAL NATURE (NATURALEZA JURÍDICA) OF THE REGULATORY PLANS (PLANES REGULADORES) AND THEIR CONTENT.-** The urban planning regulations, which as indicated, comprise a very varied set of norms; a product of the action of the various public entities that intervene in this matter; from which we find, legal norms, norms of a regulatory nature with the value of law (law in the material sense), and of course, regulatory norms. In such a way, that we can well conclude, that our urban planning legal order is made up of norms of different natures, precisely by virtue of two important factors, firstly, by the organ or institution from which it emanates (be it, the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa), the Executive Branch (Poder Ejecutivo) or the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), or the municipalities); and secondly, and as derived from the previous, the scope of coverage of the regulation, be it, of national, regional, or local linkage. Thus, the urban planning regulations of a legal order are not a legal problem, neither in doctrine, nor in jurisprudence, since they are legitimate, provided they are approved by qualified vote, that is, with the minimum vote of thirty-eight deputies, due to their content; in the terms provided in the second paragraph of article 45 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política) itself, as they impose limitations of social interest. It is not superfluous to reiterate that this requirement of qualified vote is not merely formal, but substantial, as it implies the necessary consensus among the various fractions of the political parties that make up the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa). For this reason, there is no major discussion about the legitimacy and normative rank of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), which fully complies with the constitutional requirement, having been approved in compliance with the constitutional requirement. Now, while the urban planning regulations constitute a set of heterogeneous norms, precisely because they derive from various public instances, and consequently, as a manifestation of various instances of public power (Legislative Branch (Poder Legislativo), Administrative power, and local power). It is our criterion, that the analysis of these regulations must start from the content of article 45 of the Constitution, whose second paragraph legitimizes the establishment of limitations of social interest to property, provided they are established by qualified law, a substantial and not merely formal requirement, by implying the legislative consensus for their adoption. In this sense, just as the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) has considered in its jurisprudence, the limitations and regulations of an urban planning order are of social interest, as they are imposed precisely to facilitate coexistence in society, and translate into impediments or obligations for the owner, and which mostly, have a quite ancient origin in our legal order, by deriving -many of them- from provisions of the Civil Code, dating from eighteen eighty-eight. The constitutional jurisprudence has recognized two types of social interest that legitimize -or justify- the imposition of limitations on property: these are those related to <b><i>environmental protection</i></b> and those of <b><i>urban planning order</i></b>, the latter, from the development made in judgment number 4205-96, cited above. In such a way, that in a strict sense, it should be considered that the urban plans (planes urbanísticos) -<b><i><u>all in general, be they those of national, regional, and local scope-, due to their content, have the normative rank of laws in the material sense, since they impose obligations, duties, and limit rights, in particular the exercise of the right of property</u></i></b>, just as the Argentine jurist Edgardo O. SCOTTI states:

"<i>A plan for a given urban nucleus implies not only establishing policies destined for the adequate organization of activities in space, but it means guiding and conditioning the actions of the public and private sectors through the use of legal instruments that, by means of stimuli, demands, or prohibitions, delimit the exercise of the right of property and the other functions and uses that can be developed in the urban sphere.</i>" (<u>Law and Urban Planning (Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano). Editorial</u> Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. p. 77.)

In this regard, there is no doubt about the direct incidence of urban plans on the exercise of the fundamental rights of private property and freedom of enterprise, as from the content of their regulations, the development of industry and commerce is also inferred (articles 45 and 47 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política)), as well as the consequent protection of another fundamental right, be it, that of a sustainable and ecologically balanced environment (article 50 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política)); just as the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) considered in judgment number 5303-93:

"... <i>the limitation to property imposed by a regulatory plan (plan regulador) is constitutionally possible, because the right of property is not unlimited; rather, there exists a general framework within which the owner can act and which must be compatible with the constitutional content of that right. For what has been expressed, in the judgment of this Court, the imposed limitation, as long as it is adjusted to a current regulatory plan (plan regulador), does not violate as suggested in the appeal article 45 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política), as long as that regulatory plan (plan regulador) does not deconstitutionalize the private property that is affected by that instrument. On the contrary, if the limitations exceed the minimum parameters of reasonableness and proportionality, they would be contrary to the Political Constitution (Constitución Política)."-</i> Thus, <b><i>it has been considered that the content imposed in the various urban plans (planes urbanísticos) -in their complete dimension, be they national, regional, and local- is consistent with the constitutional requirement, by deriving from a legal provision –the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana)-, which was indeed approved in compliance with the constitutional condition –two thirds of the total members of the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa)-, by virtue of which, that legitimation is transferred to them</i></b>. And adding to the above, it must be considered that, regional plans, in this case, the Regional Urban Development Plan (Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano), of the Great Metropolitan Area (Gran Área Metropolitana), has that character by virtue of an express legal mandate, pursuant to article 64 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), as they textually indicate:

"<b><i>Article 64.-</i></b><i> The Metropolitan Regulatory Plan (Plan Regulador Metropolitano), its regulations, and the respective amendments, <b>shall acquire the force of law for all the municipalities of the circuit that have agreed upon its adoption.</b></i>" (The highlighting is not from the original.)

Finally, regarding municipal regulatory plans (planes reguladores municipalidades), we can defend this value –<b>of law in the material sense</b>- based on the following reasons: <b>a) <i><u>by reason of their content</u></i></b>, which imposes obligations on owners and limitations on property, as indicated previously; <b>b.) <i><u>by reason of their reinforced approval procedure</u></i></b>, which constitutes a manifestation of direct democracy; as for the approval of these regulations, <b><i>it is required, as an essential requirement, the holding of an oral and public hearing</i></b>, in the terms provided in article 19 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana); and likewise, the plan is adopted and imposed by means of an agreement of the Municipal Council (Concejo municipal), the deliberative body of the municipalities; and <b>c) <i><u>by legal equivalence</u></i></b>, from what is provided in the transcribed article 64 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana). Therefore, if an urban planning ordinance at a regional level acquires the rank of law for the Municipality (Municipalidad) that adopts it, and this is by agreement of the Council, it stands to reason that this condition is also acquired by the one that has been created by the municipality itself and governs only its territorial circumscription. In any case, our Constitutional Court, has clearly and precisely indicated, that regulatory plans (planes reguladores), despite being regulatory regulations emanating from the municipalities, have the normative rank of laws in the material sense. In this sense, judgments number 2006-13330, of seventeen hours thirty-three minutes of December sixth, two thousand six; 2007-5575; of fifteen hours twenty-four minutes of April twenty-fifth, two thousand seven and 2008-18438, of seventeen hours fifty-six minutes of December eleventh, two thousand eight can be consulted.

**IX.- OF THE ISSUANCE AND EFFECTS OF LAND USES (USOS DE SUELO).-** Having referred to the competence of municipalities in the field of local urbanism and the content and significance of urban planning regulations; we proceed to clarify the <b><i>content and effects of land uses (usos de suelo)</i></b>, in consideration that the content of the contested decision, is precisely the determination of a non-conforming use, regarding the activity intended by the interested party. Indeed, the <b><i>certificates of land use (certificados de uso del suelo) are administrative acts of a <u>declaratory</u> and not constitutive nature</i></b>, as they certify facts or circumstances, so that <b><i><u>they do not create or modify legal situations</u></i></b> –just as the administrative jurisprudence indicates, for example, the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) in its opinions number C-327-2001 and C-357-2003–, since it is a concrete legal act by means of which the Administration (Administración) (local or the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), as appropriate, that is if it concerns a subdivision (fraccionamiento), in the first case, or of a development (urbanización) in the second), certifies the conformity or not of the land use with what is established in the respective zoning; pursuant to the provisions of article 28 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana). In this sense, it must be taken into account that<b><i> the doctrine and the jurisprudence –</i></b> <b><i>both constitutional and contentious-administrative- has indicated that urban plans (planes urbanísticos) are normative provisions in which the use of land is disciplined, so they affect private rights (property right) predetermining the modes of enjoyment and utilization of the asset.</i></b> Thus, the granting of a visa is prohibited when the intended use is incompatible with that provided in the respective regulation. In a concordant manner, from the Zoning Regulation for Land Use (Reglamento de Zonificación del Uso del Suelo) of the GAM, it is understood that <i>every property has an urban planning vocation that is declared in the master plan (plan director)</i> and for this reason, in its article 12 it is indicated that <i>every interested party must previously obtain the corresponding certificate in which the permitted use is recorded</i>, which will have a validity of one calendar year from the moment it is issued, adding article 12.4 that in case works have not been started in the year of validity, the permit must be renewed. Then article 13 expressly indicates:

"<i>The <b>certificate will indicate the use and will not be interpreted as a definitive permit to make use, occupation, expansions, remodeling, construction, or subdivision (fraccionamiento)</b>. The Alignment and the Land Use Certificate (Certificado de Uso de suelo) will have a validity of one year from their issuance.</i>" (The underline is not from the original.)

In such a way, that by means of the certification of land use (uso del suelo)<b><i> <u>it is not decided what the permitted use is</u></i></b>, as this has already been previously determined in the zoning regulation, which integrates the local regulatory plan (plan regulador); in such a way <i>that <b>it simply certifies what the use is according to what is established regulatorily, in addition to recording whether the use that is being given to a specific land is or is not in conformity with said regulation</b></i>, with which, it is a merely declaratory act,<i> without creating, modifying, or extinguishing any legal situation</i>, as does occur with constitutive administrative acts. For this reason, the issuance of the land use certificate (certificado del uso del suelo) cannot be assimilated to a construction license, as it is not legitimate to allege that it constitutes an act declaratory of rights. In such a way, that it is precisely due to its declaratory nature,<b> <i>that land use certificates (certificados de uso del suelo) do not give rise, by themselves, to the acquisition of a subjective right nor do they consolidate, by themselves, any legal situation</i>.<i> The certification of land use (uso del suelo) is merely descriptive regarding a factual situation determined in relation to what is normatively provided, by reason of which, through it, it is not possible to consolidate any legal situation preexisting the certifying act</i></b>.

**X.-** However, it is important to take into account that the land use certificate (certificado de uso del suelo), as a declaratory administrative act that it is, does constitute an act of great importance, insofar as its content and function is to certify facts or legal situations <i>that serve as the basis for the adoption of administrative acts through which legal situations are created, modified, or extinguished</i>, such is the case, for example, of authorizations to build or to process municipal patents to exercise certain activities, for whose adoption it requires –<i>sine qua non–</i> the corresponding land use certificate (certificado de uso del suelo). By virtue of the foregoing, the importance that they are granted in accordance with the legality block stands out, that is, to the urban planning regulations, be they the urban planning regulatory plans (planes reguladores urbanísticos) of each canton or the regional plans (for example, the GAM) or those dictated by the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), of supplementary application in the absence of the local ones (Transitional Provision II of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) and judgments number 4205-96 and 2003-11397 of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional))." **IV.- ON MUNICIPAL JURISDICTION REGARDING THE URBAN PLANNING OF THE CANTON. THE NORMATIVE REGULATION DERIVING FROM IT.-** Given that the claim concerns **the issuance of a certificate for a non-conforming land use**, this Tribunal considers it appropriate to make some brief reflections on the jurisdiction of local governments in urban planning matters. It is clarified that said power has a dual aspect, thus, firstly, concerning the **definition of normative regulations** -promulgation of the respective regulations -regulatory plans (planes reguladores) and related regulations- and secondly, concerning **control** -exercise of police power (poder de policía)- within the territorial jurisdiction. Indeed, it should be remembered that **urban planning regulation has been entrusted traditionally, and without any discussion, to the municipalities (municipalidades)**, insofar as it has been considered that "[...] *urban planning jurisdiction has been a genuine municipal jurisdiction, perhaps the first among all"* (GARCÍA DE ENTERRÍA, Eduardo and PAREJO ALFONSO, Luciano, *Lecciones de Derecho Urbanístico*. Editorial Civitas, Madrid, Spain, S.N.E., 1981. p. 116.); so that it has been configured as a tradition of Urban Planning Law, especially at those times when its content has been expressed through "*construction and urban police ordinances*", under the jurisdiction of local governments, with the understanding that public urban planning jurisdiction is inherent to the city, and consequently, to the municipalities. Thus, urban planning begins as an exclusively municipal jurisdiction. Subsequently, as it ceases to be a function specific to the urban sphere and seeks to encompass the planning of the entire territory, other higher Administrations become responsible for it, thereby modifying the jurisdictional level of urban planning matters, by including other instances, in our environment, such as the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo -a decentralized entity-, and the Ministries of Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications, with the Secretaría Técnica Ambiental (a deconcentrated body) and the Ministry of National Planning. But regarding what properly concerns **local urban planning**, it is worth remembering that it is in the Ley de Construcciones, approved by Decreto-Ley number 833, of November fourth, nineteen forty-nine -a pre-constitutional norm, having been promulgated by the De Facto Government of the Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República, directed by José Figueres Ferrer-, where it is established that **the Municipalities are in charge of ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, health, comfort, and beauty in their public thoroughfares and in the buildings and constructions erected on their lands**, without prejudice to the powers that laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies (Article 1), as well as that no building may be erected in the country that contravenes its provisions (Article 74). And despite the fact that our current Political Constitution –of November seventh, nineteen forty-nine- is somewhat sparse in defining the proper and essential functions of the municipalities, constitutional jurisprudence -specifically in judgments number 5097-93, 5303-93, 6706-93, 4205-96, and 2003-3656-, has interpreted that based on the provisions of its Articles 169 and the first paragraph of Article 170, **primary ownership in matters of local urban planning belongs to the municipalities, to the exclusion of any other public entity**. In this sense, in the Código Municipal, number 4574, of May fourth, nineteen seventy, -in force until nineteen ninety-eight-, urban planning matters were expressly recognized as a municipal jurisdiction in its Article 4. In accordance with the previous provision, and **as a derivative of constitutional norms, Articles 15 and 19 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, number 4240, of November fifteenth, nineteen sixty-eight are concordant**, insofar as they textually provide:

"***Article 15.-** Pursuant to the precept of Article 169 of the Political Constitution, the jurisdiction and authority of municipal governments to plan and control urban development, within the limits of their jurisdictional territory, is recognized. Consequently, each one of them shall provide what is appropriate to implement a regulatory plan, and the related urban development regulations, in the areas where it must govern, without prejudice to extending all or some of its effects to other sectors, where qualified reasons prevail for establishing a specific controlling regime.*" (Emphasis not in original.)

"***Article 19.-** Each Municipality shall issue and promulgate the necessary procedural rules for the due compliance with the regulatory plan and for the protection of the interests of health, safety, comfort, and well-being of the community.*" (Emphasis not in original.)

**V.- ON MUNICIPAL JURISDICTION IN VERIFYING COMPLIANCE WITH URBAN PLANNING NORMS.-** As for the second area stated, it concerns the control exercised by the Municipal Authorities regarding compliance with local urban planning regulations. In this sense, as this Tribunal has indicated in various pronouncements (among them, numbers 175-2009, at fifteen hours forty minutes; 176-2009, at fifteen hours fifty minutes, both of January thirty, two thousand nine), "[...] *local governments must act in a timely manner in the* ***exercise of police power***, *using the powers that the legal system has granted them to achieve their purposes*" (the underline is not from the original); which in urban planning matters, is concretized in the control of urbanization and subdivision processes, and which is definitively materialized in Article 1 of the Ley de Construcciones, insofar as it literally provides:

"*The Municipalities of the Republic are in charge of ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, health, comfort, and beauty in their public thoroughfares, in the buildings and constructions erected on their lands, without prejudice to the powers that laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies.*" For its part, "**police power**" is the jurisdiction recognized to the Administration, so that, based on a law, it regulates and rules an activity, in order to ensure **public order, health, tranquility, the safety of persons, as well as the moral, political, and economic organization of society**; an attribution, by virtue of which, the imposition of restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental rights is reasonable, insofar as its justification lies precisely in the consideration that fundamental rights are limited by those of other persons, given that they must coexist with each and every one of the other fundamental rights. Whereby, the measures that the State adopts with the purpose of protecting safety, health, and tranquility are of public social interest, which manifest themselves through police power, understood as the regulatory power over the enjoyment of rights and the fulfillment of constitutional duties. (In this sense, one may consult judgments number 401-91, at fourteen hours of February twentieth, and 619-91, at fourteen hours forty-five minutes of March twenty-second, both resolutions of nineteen ninety-one, and 2003-2864, at fifteen hours twenty minutes of April ninth, two thousand three, of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional).)

**VI.- ON URBAN PLANNING REGULATIONS IN GENERAL AND MUNICIPAL ONES.-** The content of urban planning regulations in our legal system (Costa Rican) must then be clarified. First of all, it is noted that the term "**urban planning regulations (regulaciones urbanísticas)**" must be understood in a broad sense and not restricted to the regulations in this matter emanating from a municipal agreement; insofar as it refers **to the generality of urban planning instruments, which derive from various administrative instances**, and which in doctrine has been conceptualized as "[...] *an instrument, approved by an act of Public Power, which orders the territory, establishing provisions on the location of production and residential centers in the manner convenient for the best distribution of the population; regulates the use of land for its public and private purpose and, in particular, its urbanization and building, and, in doing so, defines the content of property rights and programs the development of urban management.*" (*CARCELER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. *Introducción al Derecho Urbanístico*. Second Edition. Editorial Tecnos, S.A. Barcelona. Spain. 1992. p.

34.)</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>Thus, at the national level there are various urban planning regulations, depending on the body responsible for their adoption and, consequently, the scope of coverage of the national territory over which they exercise their application: namely, those of a <u>national order</u> and <u>regional ones</u>, whose approval is the responsibility of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy and the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), which contain the general guidelines for planning in this matter, and finally, <u>local, cantonal or municipal ones</u>, which are those that the municipalities prepare, process, approve, and execute. When the term "<b><i>regulatory plan (plan regulador)</i></b>" is used, an expression adopted by our national legislation in Article 1 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), which defines it as: </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>"<i>the local planning instrument that defines, in a set of maps, plans, regulations, and any other document, graphic, or supplement, the development policy and the plans for the distribution of the population, land uses, circulation routes, public services, community facilities, and construction, conservation, and rehabilitation of urban areas</i>";</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>commonly</span></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'> reference is made to urban planning regulations emanating from local governments; however, we must understand that the regulations of the first two orders are also included, that is, the national and regional ones, insofar as they have the same content and fulfill the same land-ordering function, at the urban level and in determining the possible uses of the land. These regulatory bodies have specific content, that is, the ordering and planning of land use, for the creation of urban centers –cities, housing developments, industrial projects or parks, parks, public roads, public services, etc.– within the scope of a territorial circumscription, whether the canton or part thereof; or also at the regional level, as in the case of the Regional Urban Development Plan of the Greater Metropolitan Area (Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano, del Gran Área Metropolitana), approved by Decree number 3332 of April twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred eighty-two, and its amendments; which is currently the only urban planning regulation in our country enacted at the regional level; and without, at this time, any regulation of this nature having been adopted at the national level. Consequently, this implies the <i>location</i>, with respect to public buildings, and <i>zoning,</i> with respect to private construction. Thus, it not only determines the use or purpose of lots, but also their configuration and extent; the population density, percentage of land that may be used, number of floors, class, and purpose of buildings; all of the foregoing, subject to general uniform standards for each class thereof throughout the entire zone. Likewise, it guides the architectural composition of buildings, and regulates, if necessary, their aesthetic characteristics; a power that it is worth pointing out has not been exercised at this time in our country (except, perhaps, in very sporadic cases). They are composed of both written standards and graphics, plans, and attached documents that help to determine their content, which is of an absolutely normative nature, producing the following effects: <b>a)</b> they regulate the powers of exercising the right of property, according to the classification and qualification of the land contained therein; <b>b)</b> they remain in force indefinitely, but are susceptible to being modified by subsequent revisions; <b>c)</b> their effectiveness is "<span class=SpellE><i>erga</i></span><i> <span class=SpellE>omnes</span></i>", although reduced to a specific territory or territorial circumscription, depending on its level (national, regional, or local), insofar as it binds both the Public Administration in general, and private individuals; and <b>d)</b> they cannot contain dispensation reservations.</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span class=SpellE><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family: Arial;color:#010101'>VII</span></b></span><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>.- THE CONTENT OF REGULATORY PLANS.- </span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%; font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>Due to their extensive content, the Urban Planning Law establishes in its Article 21 the main regulations that are complementary normative instruments of any urban planning regulation, known as a "Plan", whether national, regional, or local, namely: </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>a.- the <i><u>ZONING</u></i></span></b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'> regulation: </span></i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>by which standards are established for the use of the territory, bearing in mind that it is a basic concept of urbanism, consisting of reserving certain zones of a territory for specific needs or functions; and it ranges from the creation of industrial zones to the establishment of residential, political-administrative, sports, green, special environmental protection, and other zones (CALVO MURILLO, Virgilio, "<u>Urban Planning Law: Fundamentals and Institutions (Derecho Urbanístico: Fundamentos e Instituciones)</u>", <u>Judicial Journal (Revista Judicial)</u>, Year <span class=SpellE>II</span>, No. 5, Judicial Branch of Costa Rica, <span class=SpellE>September</span> 1977, p. 92.) It is the first, and perhaps most important regulation that must accompany any urban planning plan, in accordance with Article 21, subsection 1) of the Urban Planning Law, given that, as its name indicates, <b><i>it is responsible for the ordering and determination of land use, with a view to rational land use and to ensure satisfactory environmental living conditions and qualities, thereby conditioning the use of real estate property, through the delimitation of areas, according to the adopted categorization</i></b>. (<span class=SpellE>BANDEIRA</span> DE MELLO, Celso Antonio. <u>Legal figures of urban planning in Brazil</u>. In: <u>Law and Urban Planning (Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano)</u>. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. pp. 388 y 389.) Thus, the <b><i>urban planning regime of property law is not uniform by the mere fact of the land being subject to planning, but differs according to the type of land in which the property in question is classified; which highlights the importance of zoning. </i></b>(<span class=SpellE>CARCELLER</span> FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. <u>Institutions of Urban Planning Law (Instituciones de Derecho Urbanístico)</u>. Fifth edition. Editorial <span class=SpellE>Montecorvo</span>, S.A. Madrid, Spain. 1992. p. 333.) Thus, based on this regulation, the exact definition of the possible (permitted) uses in each zone is established, with the consequent impact on the right of property; by conditioning where one can and must reside, where one can trade, where services must be provided, where industry can be carried out, and where one can recreate and entertain; which leads us to consider the seriousness with which it must be formulated, requiring, <b><i> not only criteria of opportunity and convenience, but above all technical and objective ones</i></b>. It is clear that <b><i>the content of the land statute (estatuto del suelo) determines the scope of ownership and conditions its exercise, diversifying into situations favoring private initiative, and likewise, establishes linkages that restrict its exercise</i></b>. The function of classifying the land for the establishment of the corresponding legal regime is incumbent upon the General Plan, of which the zoning regulation forms part; which, must contain the urban planning classification and qualification of the land. By classification, one must understand the category or type of land (urban, developable, programmed or non-programmed and non-developable, industrial, reserve or for environmental protection, residential, institutional, etc.) according to its basic urban planning purpose; qualification applies to designate the subdivision of those types of land into zones characterized by specific contents or urban planning uses; and in this sense, it is linked to the technique of zoning, which was born when there was a tendency to separate construction intended for residence from industrial facilities. It is clear that <b><i>the regulations contained in the zoning regulation come to assist in the delineation of the content of the right of property, insofar as the content thereof is the result of the constitutional and legal regime of property, as it is not an absolute right, but subject to regulations by virtue of the recognition of the fundamental element of the social function of property, and the contingencies of urban coexistence</i></b>. The legitimacy of the regulations or limitations contained in the zoning rules is conditioned by the following principles: <b>a)</b> only rules of a general nature make up the zoning, that is, those that cover a category of goods, also qualified by their spatial location, insofar as such location is not <span class=SpellE>singling-out</span>, and <b>b)</b> zoning regulations cannot be unlimited, as they must preserve the essential core of the right of property (of use, enjoyment, pleasure, and disposal, not in an unrestricted sense); otherwise, one would be facing a suppression of the right, that is, an expropriation. </span><span style='font-size: 11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>Therefore, zoning cannot lead to the nullification or paralysis of the manifestations of the right of property, which should in no way be confused with the expressions or patrimonial meaning of property. There is only an obligation to compensate for the imposition of these measures when they reach the essential core of this right, defined by constitutional jurisprudence as the possibility of carrying out some type of exploitation on the property, perhaps not the one desired by its owner. Thus, <b>limitations imposed on property that allow the owner the possibility of "normally" exploiting the property will be legitimate, except, of course, for the part or function affected by the limitation imposed by the State, thereby respecting the natural use of the property, by maintaining its value as a means of production or economic value in the market</b>. (In this regard, among others, see judgments number 0796-91, of fifteen hours ten minutes <span class=SpellE>ontwentysixth</span> of April nineteen hundred ninety-one; number 5893-95, of nine hours forty-eight minutes of October twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred ninety-five, and number 2345-96, of nine hours twenty-four minutes of May seventeenth, nineteen hundred ninety-six.) This was indicated by the Full Court (Corte Plena) in relation to the limitations to be imposed on property when they exceed the indicated limit, in an extraordinary session of June sixteenth, nineteen hundred <span class=SpellE>eighty</span>-three:</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>"[...] <i>that is, 'limitations' as Article 45 calls them, but not dispossession of private property nor deprivation of a primary attribute of ownership, because preventing the enjoyment of goods is equivalent, at least in this case, to a form of the Political Constitution.</span></i><span style='font-style: normal'>"</span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>The Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) ruled in the same sense in the aforementioned judgments number 5097-93 and 2345-96; under the following considerations:</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>"<span class=SpellE><b><i>IV</i></b></span><b><i>.)</i></b><i> For the Chamber (Sala), the reasonable limits that the State can impose on private property, according to its nature, <b>are constitutionally possible insofar as they do not empty its content</b>. When that occurs, it ceases to be a reasonable limitation to become a deprivation of the right itself</i>" (judgment number 5097-93, <span class=SpellE>cited supra</span>);</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>"<i>That is, <u>the attributes of property can be limited, as long as the owner reserves for himself the possibility of normally exploiting the property, excluding, of course, the part or the function affected by the limitation imposed by the State</u>. Outside these parameters, if social well-being demands sacrifices from one or only a few, it must be compensated, just as happens when the sacrifice imposed on the owner is of such an entity that it causes him to lose the property entirely. Thus, <u>the limitation on property resists constitutional analysis, when the affectation to the essential attributes of property, which are those that allow the natural use of the thing within the current socio-economic reality, does not cause the nature of the property to disappear or make the use of the thing impossible</u>, because the State imposes authorization or approval requirements so complex that they imply, in fact, the impossibility of usufructing the property</i>" (judgment number 2345-96, <span class=SpellE>cited supra</span>).</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>Thus, Article 24 of the Urban Planning Law determines the content of these regulations in the following manner: <b>a)</b> the determination of land uses; <b>b)</b> matters relating to the location, height, and construction area of buildings; <b>c)</b> the surface area and dimensions of lots, which has a direct impact on the determination of land density; <b>d)</b> the size of setbacks, yards, and other open spaces, and coverage of the lot by buildings and structures; <b>e)</b> the provision of space for parking, loading, and unloading of vehicles off the streets; <b>f)</b> size, location, and characteristics of signs or advertising announcements; and <b>g)</b> any other architectural or urban planning detail relating to land use, whose regulation is of interest to the local community. For this reason, it is mandatory to reserve zones that have a special affectation due to their use, such as those near airports, those that have an affectation for the protection of forest and historical and architectural heritage, or natural heritage of the State, which derive from Articles 50 and 89 of the Political Constitution, as ordered by Article 25 of the Urban Planning Law;</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>b.- the <i><u>SUBDIVISION (FRACCIONAMIENTO) and URBANIZATION</u> regulation: </i></span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height: 150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>which, according to Article 32 of the Urban Planning Law, seeks to determine under what conditions a municipality must permit or regulate subdivision (fraccionamiento) and urbanization projects in its jurisdiction, for which requirements are established corresponding to access to the public road, transfer of areas for public use, standards for construction of streets and sidewalks, pavements, pipes, storm and sanitary drains, electrification and public lighting, among others. In this sense, the importance for Urban Planning Law of <b><i>the control of subdivision (fraccionamiento) actions</i></b> must be highlighted, which is beyond any doubt. In this regard, the Superior Contentious Administrative Court (Tribunal Superior Contencioso Administrativo) states:</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>“<span class=SpellE><b><i>IV</i></b></span><b><i>.- </i></b><i>From what has been said, it should be reiterated that <b><u>the control of urban development as a power of municipalities implies both the authority to issue regulatory plans (planes reguladores), but above all, it implies the power to “control” the subdivision (fraccionamiento) of lands by means of those same regulatory plans (planes reguladores) and with the granting of the corresponding municipal approval (visado municipal) to the respective plan, just as expressed by numeral 33 of the aforementioned Urban Planning Law</u></b>. In the same order of things, according to Article 10, subsection 2) of the Urban Planning Law, it is the responsibility of the Directorate (Dirección) of Urbanism of the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), to approve (visar) the plans corresponding to urbanization or subdivision (fraccionamiento) projects for urbanization purposes prior to municipal approval (Article 33 <span class=SpellE>ibidem</span>). This is a power that translates into a function of control by the Directorate (Dirección) of Urbanism in relation to the planning and urban control of the municipalities (Articles 7, subsection 3) and 9 of the <span class=SpellE>supra</span> indicated law. They become advisors or overseers, able to inform or even denounce the Municipalities, regarding a possible infraction of the law or the local regulatory plan (plan regulador), even being able to issue an act of suspension of a specific work, in which an infraction of the law on urbanism has been verified. According to Article 36, subsection b) <span class=SpellE>ibidem</span>, the municipalities cannot grant the respective approvals to plans for urban projects in areas subject to control when they do not have the required permit (approval of the Directorate (Dirección) of Urbanism).</i>” (Third Section, Superior Contentious Administrative Court, judgment number 791-2002 of ten hours ten minutes of September twenty-seventh of the year two thousand two.) (The highlighting is not from the original.)</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>And indeed, <b><i>omitting the controls (approvals) for subdivision (fraccionamiento) purposes is one of the most common and dangerous ways to circumvent urban planning standards and ruin all regulatory instruments in the matter, causing serious consequences</i></b>. Among these, we can cite the impossibility of planning and supplying basic services, <b><i>the construction of housing complexes in high-risk zones due to natural emergencies or building in zones that, due to their characteristics, should not be used for constructions</i></b>, because they are aquifer recharge areas or have a high value from the environmental point of view; just to cite a few examples; </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>c.- the <u>OFFICIAL MAP</u> regulation: </span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>which, according to Article 1 of the Urban Planning Law, "<i>is the map or set of maps on which the position of the layouts of public roads and areas to be reserved for community uses and services is precisely indicated</i>"; whose content is regulated in Articles 42 and 43 of the aforementioned Law:</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>"<b><i>Article 42.-</i></b><i> The Official Map regulation shall establish the standards on reservations, acquisition, use, and conservation of the areas necessary for roads, parks, squares, buildings, and other community uses, expressing the location and size of those already delivered to public service and those demarcated only preventively.</i>"</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>"<b><i>Article 43.-</i></b><i> The Official Map, together with the plans or the cadastre that completes it, shall constitute a special reliable registry on property and affectation to the public domain of the lands or spaces already delivered to public uses</i>”<span style='color:#010101'>;</span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>d.- </span></i></b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>the <b><u>URBAN RENEWAL</u> regulation: </b></span></i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%; font-family:Arial'>whose content is determined in Articles 51 et seq. of the reference Law, in the following manner:</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>"<b><i>Article 51.-</i></b><i> The Urban Renewal Regulation shall contain the regulations that are locally adopted to conserve, rehabilitate, or remodel defective, deteriorated, or decaying urban areas, taking into account the inconvenient parceling or building, the lack of services and community facilities, or any other adverse condition to general safety, healthiness, and well-being</i>";</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>which</span></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'> is of transcendental importance, especially regarding the protection of historical-architectural heritage, or for safeguarding the safety of the inhabitants of a neighborhood;</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>e.- </span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial;color:#010101'>and finally, the <b><i><u>CONSTRUCTIONS</u></i></b> regulation; which seeks to technically regulate all the requirements that any type of construction must meet according to the definition of the concept given in Article 1 of the reference Law, which defines it as "<i>any structure that is fixed or incorporated into a land; it includes any work of construction, reconstruction, alteration, or expansion that implies permanence.</i>" Thus, its objective is to set the standards for the planning, design, and construction of buildings, streets, sports fields, industrial and machinery installations, and all those works additional to these, in everything related to architectural, civil, electrical, mechanical, or sanitary engineering, with the purpose of promoting, ensuring, and protecting health, economy, comfort, and common welfare through requirements that guarantee their solidity, stability, safety, healthiness, adequate lighting, and ventilation in such works.</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:1.0cm;line-height:150%'><span class=SpellE><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family: Arial'>VIII</span></b></span><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%; font-family:Arial'>.- ON THE LEGAL NATURE OF REGULATORY PLANS AND THEIR CONTENT.-</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%; font-family:Arial'> Urban planning regulations, which as indicated, comprise a very varied set of norms; the product of the action of the various public entities that intervene in this matter; hence, we find legal norms, norms of a regulatory nature with the force of law (law in the material sense), and of course, regulatory norms. Consequently, we can well conclude that our urban planning legal system is composed of norms of different natures, precisely by virtue of two important factors: firstly, by the body or institution from which it originates (namely, the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa), the Executive Branch or the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo), or the municipalities); and secondly, and as derived from the former, the scope of coverage of the regulation, that is, of national, regional, or local binding. Thus, urban planning regulations of a legal order do not pose a legal problem, neither in doctrine nor in jurisprudence, given that they are legitimate, provided they are approved by a qualified vote, that is, with the minimum vote of thirty-eight deputies, due to their content; in the terms provided in the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Political Constitution itself, insofar as they impose limitations of social interest. It is worth reiterating that this requirement of a qualified vote is not merely formal, but substantial, as it implies the necessary consensus among the various factions of the political parties that make up the Legislative Assembly. Therefore, there is no major discussion about the legitimacy and normative rank of the Urban Planning Law, which fully complies with the constitutional requirement, having been approved in compliance with the constitutional requirement.</span><o:p></o:p></p> Now, insofar as urban planning regulations constitute a heterogeneous set of norms, precisely because they derive from various public authorities, and consequently, as a manifestation of various branches of public power (Legislative Power, Administrative Power, and local power), it is our opinion that the analysis of these regulations must start from the content of Article 45 of the Constitution, whose second paragraph legitimizes the establishment of socially beneficial limitations (limitaciones de interés social) on property, provided that they are established by a qualified law, a substantial and not merely formal requirement, as it implies legislative consensus for their adoption. In this regard, as the Constitutional Chamber has considered in its jurisprudence, urban planning limitations and regulations are socially beneficial, insofar as they are imposed precisely to facilitate coexistence in society, and translate into impediments or obligations for the owner, and which, for the most part, have a rather ancient origin in our legal system, deriving —many of them— from provisions of the Civil Code, which dates back to eighteen eighty-eight. Constitutional jurisprudence has recognized two types of social interest that legitimize —or justify— the imposition of limitations on property: these are those relating to ***environmental protection*** and those of ***urban planning order***, the latter, based on the development made in judgment number 4205-96, cited above. Thus, in a strict sense, it should be considered that urban plans —***all of them in general, whether national, regional, or local in scope— by reason of their content, have the normative rank of laws in a material sense, since they impose obligations, duties, and limit rights, particularly the exercise of the right to property***, as noted by the Argentine jurist Edgardo O. SCOTTI:

"*A plan for a specific urban nucleus implies not only establishing policies aimed at the adequate organization of activities in space, but also means guiding and conditioning the actions of public and private sectors through the use of legal instruments that, through incentives, requirements, or prohibitions, delimit the exercise of the right to property and the other functions and uses that can be developed in the urban sphere.*" (Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. p. 77.)

In this respect, there is no doubt about the direct impact of urban plans on the exercise of the fundamental rights of private property and freedom of enterprise, insofar as the content of their regulations also infers the development of industry and commerce (Articles 45 and 47 of the Political Constitution), as well as the consequent protection of another fundamental right, that of an environmentally and ecologically balanced environment (Article 50 of the Political Constitution); as the Constitutional Chamber considered in judgment number 5303-93:

"... *the limitation on property imposed by a regulatory plan is constitutionally possible, because the right to property is not unlimited; rather, there is a general framework within which the owner can act and which must be compatible with the constitutional content of that right. For the reasons stated, in the opinion of this Court, the limitation imposed, as long as it conforms to a current regulatory plan, does not violate, as suggested in the appeal, Article 45 of the Political Constitution, so long as that regulatory plan does not deconstitutionalize the private property affected by that instrument. Conversely, if the limitations exceed the minimum parameters of reasonableness and proportionality, they would be contrary to the Political Constitution.*"- Thus, ***it has been considered that the content imposed in the various urban plans —in their complete dimension, whether national, regional, or local— is consistent with the constitutional requirement, because it derives from a legal provision —the Urban Planning Law—, which was indeed approved in compliance with the constitutional condition —two-thirds of the total members of the Legislative Assembly—, by virtue of which, that legitimacy is transferred to them***. And adding to the above, it must be considered that regional plans, in this case, the Regional Urban Development Plan for the Greater Metropolitan Area (Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano del Gran Área Metropolitana), have that character by virtue of an express legal mandate, in accordance with Article 64 of the Urban Planning Law, as they textually state:

"***Article 64.—*** *The Metropolitan Regulatory Plan, its regulations, and the respective amendments, **shall acquire the force of law for all the municipalities of the circuit that have agreed to its adoption.** *" (The emphasis is not from the original.)

Finally, regarding the municipal regulatory plans, we can defend this value —**of law in a material sense**— based on the following grounds: **a) *by reason of their content***, which imposes obligations on owners and limitations on property, as indicated previously; **b.) *by reason of their reinforced approval procedure***, which constitutes a manifestation of direct democracy; insofar as for the approval of these regulations, ***an oral and public hearing is required, as an essential requirement***, in the terms provided in Article 19 of the Urban Planning Law; and likewise, the plan is adopted and imposed by agreement of the Municipal Council, the deliberative body of the municipalities; and **c) *by legal equivalence***, of the provisions of the transcribed Article 64 of the Urban Planning Law. Ergo, if a regional urban planning ordinance acquires the rank of law for the Municipality that adopts it, and this is by agreement of the Council, it is proper that this condition is also acquired by the one that has been developed by the municipality itself and governs solely its territorial circumscription. In any case, our Constitutional Court has clearly and precisely indicated that regulatory plans, despite being regulatory provisions emanating from the municipalities, have the normative rank of laws in a material sense. In this sense, judgments number 2006-13330, of seventeen hours thirty-three minutes on December sixth, two thousand six; 2007-5575, of fifteen hours twenty-four minutes on April twenty-fifth, two thousand seven; and 2008-18438, of seventeen hours fifty-six minutes on December eleventh, two thousand eight, may be consulted.

**IX.- ON THE GRANTING AND EFFECTS OF LAND USE CERTIFICATES.-** Having referred to the competence of municipalities in the area of local urbanism and the content and significance of urban planning regulations, we proceed to clarify the ***content and effects of land use (usos de suelo)***, given that the content of the challenged decision is precisely the determination of a non-conforming use, regarding the activity sought by the interested party. Indeed, the ***land use certificates (certificados de uso del suelo) are administrative acts of a declaratory and not constitutive nature***, insofar as they attest to facts or circumstances, such that ***they do not create or modify legal situations*** —as noted by administrative jurisprudence, for example, the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) in its opinions number C-327-2001 and C-357-2003—, since it is a concrete legal act through which the Administration (local or the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, INVU), as applicable, that is, whether it concerns a subdivision (fraccionamiento), in the first case, or a development (urbanización) in the second), certifies the conformity or non-conformity of the land use with the provisions of the respective zoning; as provided in Article 28 of the Urban Planning Law. In this sense, it must be taken into account that ***doctrine and jurisprudence —both constitutional and contentious-administrative— has indicated that urban plans are normative provisions in which land use is disciplined, so that they affect private rights (right to property) by predetermining the modes of enjoyment and use of the asset.** * Thus, the granting of approval is prohibited when the intended use is incompatible with that provided in the respective regulation. Concordantly, from the Zoning Regulation for Land Use of the GAM (Reglamento de Zonificación del Uso del Suelo de la GAM), it is understood that *every property has an urbanistic vocation that is declared in the master plan* and therefore, in its Article 12, it is indicated that *any interested party must previously obtain the corresponding certificate stating the permitted use*, which will be valid for one calendar year from the moment it is issued, with Article 12.4 adding that if works have not begun within the year of validity, the permit must be renewed. Then Article 13 expressly states:

"*The **certificate shall indicate the use and shall not be interpreted as a definitive permit to make use, occupancy, expansions, remodeling, construction, or subdivision (fraccionamiento)**. The Alignment and the Land Use Certificate shall be valid for one year from their issuance.*" (The underlining is not from the original.)

Thus, through the land use certification, ***it is not decided what the permitted use is***, insofar as this has already been previously determined in the zoning regulation, which is part of the local regulatory plan; so that ***it simply certifies what the due use is according to the regulatory provisions, as well as stating whether the use being given to a specific plot of land conforms or not with said regulation***, with which it is a merely declaratory act, ***without creating, modifying, or extinguishing any legal situation***, as does occur with constitutive administrative acts. For this reason, the issuance of the land use certificate cannot be assimilated to a construction permit, insofar as it is not legitimate to claim that it constitutes a declaratory act of rights. Thus, it is precisely because of its declaratory nature, ***that land use certificates do not, by themselves, give rise to the acquisition of a subjective right nor do they, by themselves, consolidate any legal situation***. ***The land use certification is merely descriptive of a specific factual situation in relation to the normative provisions, for which reason, through it, it is not possible to consolidate any pre-existing legal situation prior to the certifying act***.

**X.-** However, it is important to bear in mind that the land use certificate, as a declaratory administrative act that it is, does constitute an act of great importance, insofar as its content and function is to attest to facts or legal situations *that serve as the basis for the adoption of administrative acts through which legal situations are indeed created, modified, or extinguished*, such is the case, for example, of authorizations to build or to process municipal licenses (patentes municipales) to carry out certain activities, for the adoption of which it requires —*sine qua non*— the corresponding land use certificate. By virtue of the foregoing, the importance of these being granted in accordance with the legality framework, that is, with the urban planning regulations, whether these are the urban regulatory plans specific to each canton or the regional plans (for example, the GAM) or those issued by the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism (INVU), applicable in a supplementary manner in the absence of local ones (Transitional Provision II of the Urban Planning Law and judgments number 4205-96 and 2003-11397 of the Constitutional Chamber), is readily apparent.”

“IV.- DE LA COMPETENCIA MUNICIPAL EN LO ATINENTE A LA ORDENACIÓN URBANÍSTICA DEL CANTÓN. REGULACIÓN NORMATIVA DE LA QUE DIMANA.- En atención a que el reclamo versa sobre el dictado de certificado de un uso de suelo como no conforme, estima conveniente este Tribunal hacer unas breves reflexiones en torno a la competencia de los gobiernos locales en la materia urbanística. Se aclara que dicha potestad tiene una doble vertiente, así, en primer lugar, en lo concerniente a la definición de las regulaciones normativas -promulgación de las respectivas regulaciones -planes reguladores y regulaciones conexas- y en segundo lugar, el concerniente al control -ejercicio del poder de policía- en la circunscripción territorial. En efecto, debe recordarse que la regulación urbanística ha sido encomendada tradicionalmente, y sin discusión alguna, a las municipalidades, en tanto se ha estimado que

"(...) la competencia urbanística ha sido una competencia municipal genuina, quizá la primera entre todas" (GARCÍA DE ENTERRÍA, Eduardo y PAREJO ALFONSO, Luciano, Lecciones de Derecho Urbanístico. Editorial Civitas, Madrid, España, S.N.E., 1981. p. 116.);

de manera que se ha configurado, como una tradición del Derecho Urbanístico, especialmente en aquellos momentos en que su contenido ha sido expresado por medio de las "ordenanzas de construcción y policía urbana", de competencia de los gobiernos locales, bajo el entendido de que la competencia pública urbanística es propia de la ciudad, y en consecuencia, de las municipalidades. Así, el urbanismo comienza siendo una competencia exclusivamente municipal. Posteriormente, a medida que va dejando de ser una función propia del ámbito urbano y pretende abarcar la ordenación de todo el territorio, se responsabilizan de él otras Administraciones superiores, modificándose de esa manera el nivel competencial de la materia urbanística, al incluir a otras instancias, en nuestro medio, tales como el Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo -ente descentralizado-, y los Ministerios de Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones, con la Secretaría Técnica Ambiental (órgano desconcentrado) y el Ministerio de Planificación Nacional. Pero en lo que respecta propiamente con la planificación urbana local, conviene recordar que es en la Ley de Construcciones, aprobada por Decreto-Ley número 833, del cuatro de noviembre de mil novecientos cuarenta y nueve -norma pre-constitucional, al ser promulgada por el Gobierno de Facto de la Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República, dirigida por José Figueres Ferrer-, donde se establece que las Municipalidades son las encargadas de que las ciudades y demás poblaciones reúnan las condiciones necesarias de seguridad, salubridad, comodidad y belleza en sus vías públicas y en los edificios y construcciones que en terrenos de las mismas se levanten, sin perjuicio de las facultades que las leyes conceden en estas materias a otros órganos administrativos (artículo 1º), así como que ninguna edificación podrá hacerse en el país que contraríe sus disposiciones (artículo 74). Y no obstante que nuestra Constitución Política vigente –del siete de noviembre de mil novecientos cuarenta y nueve- es un poco parca en la definición de las funciones propias y esenciales de las municipalidades, la jurisprudencia constitucional -concretamente en las sentencias número 5097-93, 5303-93, 6706-93, 4205-96, y 2003-3656-, ha interpretado que a partir de lo dispuesto en sus artículos 169 y primer párrafo del artículo 170, la titularidad primaria en materia de planificación urbana local corresponde a las municipalidades, con exclusión de cualquier otro ente público. En este sentido, en el Código Municipal, número 4574, de cuatro de mayo de mil novecientos setenta, -vigente hasta mil novecientos noventa y ocho-, expresamente se reconoció como competencia municipal, la materia de urbanismo, en su artículo 4. En consonancia con la anterior disposición, y como un derivado de las normas constitucionales, son concordantes los artículos 15 y 19 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, número 4240, de quince de noviembre de mil novecientos sesenta y ocho, en tanto disponen textualmente:

"Artículo 15.- Conforme al precepto del artículo 169 de la Constitución Política, reconócese la competencia y autoridad de los gobiernos municipales para planificar y controlar el desarrollo urbano, dentro de los límites de su territorio jurisdiccional. Consecuentemente, cada uno de ellos dispondrá lo que proceda para implantar un plan regulador, y los reglamentos de desarrollo urbano conexos, en las áreas donde deba regir, sin perjuIcio de extender todos o algunos de sus efectos a otros sectores, en que priven razones calificadas para establecer un determinado régimen contralor." (El resaltado no es del original.)

"Artículo 19.- Cada Municipalidad emitirá y promulgará las reglas procesales necesarias para el debido acatamiento del plan regulador y para la protección de los intereses de las salud, seguridad, comodidad y bienestar de la comunidad." (El resaltado no es del original.)

V.- DE LA COMPETENCIA MUNICIPAL EN LA VERIFICACIÓN DEL CUMPLIMIENTO DE LAS NORMAS URBANÍSTICAS.- En cuanto al segundo ámbito enunciado, es el atinente al control que ejercen las Autoridades municipales respecto del cumplimiento de la normativa urbanística local. En este sentido, como lo ha señalado este Tribunal en diversos pronunciamientos (entre ellos, los número 175-2009, de las quince horas cuarenta minutos 176-2009, de las quince horas cincuenta minutos, ambos, del treinta de enero del dos mil nueve), "los gobiernos locales deben actuar oportunamente en el ejercicio del poder de policía, utilizando las potestades que el ordenamiento jurídico les ha otorgado para alcanzar sus cometidos" (el subrayado no es del original); que en la materia de urbanismo, se concreta en el control de los procesos de urbanización y fraccionamiento, y que se concreta de manera taxativa en el artículo 1 de la Ley de Construcciones, en tanto dispone literalmente:

"Las Municipalidades de la República son las encargadas de que las ciudades y demás poblaciones reúnan las condiciones necesarias de seguridad, salubridad, comodidad, y belleza en sus vías públicas, en los edificios y construcciones que en terrenos de las mismas levanten sin perjuicio de las facultades que las leyes conceden en estas materia a otros órganos administrativos." Por su parter, el "poder de policía" es la competencia que se le reconoce a la Administración, para que, con fundamento en una ley, regule y reglamente una actividad, a fin de asegurar el orden público, la salubridad, la tranquilidad, la seguridad de las personas, así como la organización moral, política y económica de la sociedad; atribución, en virtud de la cual, la imposición de restricciones al goce de los derechos fundamentales, resulta razonable, en tanto su justificación se encuentra precisamente en la consideración de que los derechos fundamentales se encuentran limitados por los de las demás personas, toda vez que deben coexistir con todos y cada uno de los otros derechos fundamentales. Con lo cual, las medidas que el Estado adopte con la finalidad de proteger la seguridad, la salubridad y tranquilidad, son de interés público social, que se manifiestan por medio del poder de policía, entendida como la facultad reguladora del goce de los derechos y del cumplimiento de los deberes constitucionales. (En este sentido, se pueden consultar las sentencias número 401-91, de las catorce horas del veinte de febrero y 619-91, de las catorce horas cuarenta y cinco minutos del veintidós de marzo, ambas, resoluciones de mil novecientos noventa y uno y 2003-2864, de las quince horas veinte minutos del nueve de abril del dos mil tres, de la Sala Constitucional.)

VI.- DE LAS REGULACIONES URBANÍSTICAS EN GENERAL Y LAS MUNICIPALES.- Debe entonces, clarificarse el contenido de la normativa urbanística, en nuestro ordenamiento jurídico (costarricenes.) Primero que nada, se advierte que el vocablo "regulaciones urbanísticas" debe ser entendido en un sentido amplio y no restringido a las regulaciones que en esta materia emanan de un acuerdo municipal; en tanto está referido a la generalidad de los instrumentos de planificación urbanísticas, que derivan de diversas instancias administrativas, y que en doctrina ha sido conceptualizado como "[...] un instrumento, aprobado por un acto del Poder Público, que ordena el territorio, estableciendo previsiones sobre el emplazamiento de los centros de producción y de residencia del modo conveniente para la mejor distribución de la población; regula la utilización del suelo para su destino público y privado y, en especial, su urbanización y edificación, y, al hacerlo, define el contenido del derecho de propiedad y programa el desarrollo de la gestión urbanística." (CARCELER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. Introducción al Derecho Urbanístico. Segunda Edición. Editorial Tecnos, S.A. Barcelona. España. 1992. p. 34.)

Así, en el ámbito nacional existen diversas regulaciones urbanísticas, en atención al órgano que le corresponde su adopción y, en consecuencia, al ámbito de cobertura del territorio nacional sobre el que ejerce su aplicación: sea, las de orden nacional y las regionales, de aprobación a cargo del Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica e Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, que contienen las directrices generales de la planificación en esta materia, y finalmente, las locales, cantonales o municipales, que son los que elaboran, tramitan, aprueban y ejecutan las municipalidades. Cuando se utiliza el término "plan regulador", acepción que es adoptada por nuestra legislación nacional en el artículo 1º de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, que lo define como:

"el Instrumento de planificación de planificación local que, define en un conjunto de planos, mapas, reglamentos y cualquier otro documento, gráfico o suplemento, la política de desarrollo y los planes para la distribución de la población, usos de la tierra, vías de circulación, servicios públicos, facilidades comunales, y construcción, conservación y rehabilitación de áreas urbanas"; popularmente se hace referencia a las regulaciones urbanísticas emandas de los gobiernos locales; sin embargo, debemos entender que también están comprendidas las regulaciones de los dos primeros órdenes, sea, las nacionales y regionales, en tanto tienen el mismo contenido y cumplen la misma función ordenadora del territorio, a nivel urbano y de determinación de los usos posibles del suelo. Estos cuerpos normativos tienen un contenido específico, sea, la ordenación y planificación del uso del suelo, para la creación de centros urbanos –ciudades, urbanizaciones, proyectos o parques industriales, parques, vías públicas, servicios públicos, etc.- en el ámbito de una circunscripción territorial, sea el cantón o parte de éste; o también a nivel regional, caso del Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano, del Gran Área Metropolitana, aprobado mediante Decreto número 3332, del veintiséis de abril de mil novecientos ochenta y dos, y sus reformas; que al momento es la única regulación urbanística en nuestro país dictada a nivel regional; y sin que a este momento, se haya adoptado una regulación de esta índole, a nivel nacional. Consecuentemente, ello implica la localización, respecto de los edificios públicos, y la zonificación, respecto de la edificación particular. Así, no sólo determina el uso o destino de los lotes, sino también la configuración y extensión de los mismos; la densidad de población, porcentaje del terreno que pueda ser utilizado, el número de plantas, clase y el destino de las edificaciones; todo lo anterior, con sujeción a normas generales uniformes para cada especie de los mismos en toda la zona. Asimismo, orienta la composición arquitectónica de las edificaciones, y regula, en caso de ser necesario, sus características estéticas; competencia que no está de más en señalar, que no ha sido ejercida por el momento en nuestro país (salvo, quizás, en casos muy esporádicos). Están conformados tanto por normas escritas como por gráficos, planos y documentos anexos que ayudan a determinar su contenido, el cual es de carácter absolutamente normativo, lo cual tiene los siguientes efectos: a) regulan las facultades del ejercicio del derecho de propiedad, según la clasificación y calificación de los terrenos en ellos contenidos; b) tienen vigencia indefinida, pero susceptible de ser modificada por ulteriores revisiones; c) su eficacia es "erga omnes", aunque reducida a un determinado territorio o circunscripción territorial, según el grado del mismo (nacional, regional o local), en tanto vincula tanto a la Administración en general, como a los particulares; y d) no puede contener reservas de dispensa.

VII.- DEL CONTENIDO DE LOS PLANES REGULADORES.- Es razón de su amplio contenido que los planes reguladores la Ley de Planificación Urbana establece en su artículo 21 cuáles son los principales reglamentos que son instrumentos normativos complementarios de toda regulación urbanística, conocida como "Plan", ya sea nacional, regional o local, a saber:

a.- el de ZONIFICACIÓN: mediante el cual se establecen normas para el uso del territorio, debiéndose recordar que se trata de un concepto básico del urbanismo, consistente en reservar determinadas zonas de un territorio para necesidades o funciones concretas; y abarca desde la creación de zonas industriales hasta la fijación de zonas residenciales, político-administrativas, zonas deportivas, zonas verdes, de protección especial ambiental y otras (CALVO MURILLO, Virgilio, "Derecho Urbanístico: Fundamentos e Instituciones", Revista Judicial, Año II, No. 5, Poder Judicial de Costa Rica, Setiembre de 1977, p. 92.) Es el primero, y tal vez más importante reglamento que debe acompañar a todo plan urbanístico, de conformidad con el artículo 21 inciso 1) de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, toda vez que, como su nombre lo indica, le corresponde la ordenación y determinación del uso del suelo, con vistas a un uso racional de la tierra y para asegurar condiciones y calidades ambientales de vida satisfactoria, con lo cual, condiciona el uso de la propiedad inmobiliaria, mediante la delimitación de áreas, según la categorización adoptada. (BANDEIRA DE MELLO, Celso Antonio. Figuras jurídicas del planeamiento urbano en el Brasil. En: Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. pp. 388 y 389.) De esta suerte, el régimen urbanístico del derecho de propiedad no es uniforme por el mero hecho de quedar el suelo sujeto al planeamiento, sino que difiere según el tipo de suelo en que resulta clasificada la finca de que se trate; lo cual evidencia la importancia de la zonificación. (CARCELLER FERNÁNDEZ, Antonio. Instituciones de Derecho Urbanístico. Quinta edición. Editorial Montecorvo, S.A. Madrid, España. 1992. p. 333.) Así, a partir de esta regulación se establece la definición exacta de los usos posibles (permitidos) en cada zona, con la consecuente incidencia en el derecho de la propiedad; al condicionar dónde se puede y se debe residir, dónde se puede comerciar, dónde se han de prestar los servicios, dónde se ha de poder hacer la industria, y dónde se ha de poder recrear y entretener; lo cual nos lleva a considerar la seriedad con que debe ser formulada, que requiere, no sólo criterios de oportunidad y conveniencia, sino sobre todo técnicos y objetivos. Queda claro que el contenido del estatuto del suelo determina el ámbito del dominio y condiciona su ejercicio, diversificándose en situaciones favorecedoras de la iniciativa privada, y asimismo, establece vinculaciones que restringen su ejercicio. La función de clasificación del suelo para el establecimiento del régimen jurídico correspondiente incumbe al Plan General, del cual, el reglamento de zonificación forma parte; el cual, debe de contener la clasificación y calificación urbanística del suelo. Por clasificación debe entenderse la categoría o tipo de suelo (urbano, urbanizable, programado o no programado y no urbanizable, industrial, de reserva o para la protección ambiental, residencial, institucional, etc.) según su destino urbanístico básico; la calificación aplica para designar la subdivisión de esos tipos de suelo en zonas caracterizadas por específicos contenidos o aprovechamientos urbanísticos; y en este sentido, va ligada a la técnica de la zonificación, que nace cuando se tiende a separar la edificación destinada a residencia de las instalaciones industriales. Queda claro que las regulaciones contenidas en el reglamento de zonificación vienen a coadyuvar en el delineamiento del contenido del derecho de propiedad, en tanto el contenido del mismo es el resultado del régimen constitucional y legal de la propiedad, en tanto no es un derecho absoluto, sino sujeto a regulaciones en virtud del reconocimiento del elemento fundamental de la función social de la propiedad, y de las contingencias de la convivencia urbana. La legitimidad de las regulaciones o limitaciones contenidas en las normas de zonificación está condicionada a los siguientes principios: a) sólo componen la zonificación, las normas que tengan carácter general, sea, que abarquen una categoría de bienes, también calificados por su ubicación espacial, en tanto que tal ubicación no sea singularizadora, y b) las regulaciones de zonificación no pueden ser ilimitadas, en tanto debe de preservar el núcleo esencial del derecho de propiedad (de uso, disfrute, gozo y disposición, no en sentido irrestricto); caso contrario se estará ante una supresión del derecho, sea una expropiación. De manera que, la zonificación no puede conllevar la anulación o paralización de las manifestaciones del derecho de propiedad, que en modo alguno deben de confundirse con las expresiones o significado patrimonial de la propiedad. Sólo existe obligación de indemnizar por la imposición de estas medidas cuando alcancen el núcleo esencial de este derecho, definido por la jurisprudencia constitucional en la posibilidad de realizar algún tipo de explotación en el bien, tal vez, no el querido por su titular. De tal suerte, serán legítimas las limitaciones que se impongan a la propiedad que permitan al propietario la posibilidad de explotar "normalmente" el bien, salvo, claro está, la parte o función afectada por la limitación impuesta por el Estado, con lo cual se respeta el uso natural del bien, al mantenerse su valor como medio de producción o valor económico en el mercado. (En este sentido, entre otras, véanse las sentencias número 0796-91, de las quince horas diez minutos delveintiséis de abril de mil novecientos noventa y uno; número 5893-95, de las nueve horas cuarenta y ocho minutos del veintisiete de octubre de mil novecientos noventa y cinco, y número 2345-96, de las nueve horas veinticuatro minutos del diecisiete de mayo de mil novecientos noventa y seis.) Así lo señaló la Corte Plena en relación con las limitaciones a imponer a la propiedad cuando traspasan el límite señalado, en sesión extraordinaria del dieciséis de junio de mil novecientos ochentra y tres:

"[...] es decir «limitaciones» como las llama el artículo 45, pero no despojo de la propiedad privada ni privación de un atributo primario del dominio, porque impedir el goce de los bienes equivale, al menos en este caso, a una forma de En igual sentido se pronunció la Sala Constitucional en las citadas sentencias número 5097-93 y 2345-96; bajo las siguientes consideraciones:

"IV.) Para la Sala los límites razonables que el Estado puede imponer a la propiedad privada, de acuerdo con su naturaleza, son constitucionalmente posibles en tanto no vacíen su contenido. Cuando ello ocurre deja de ser ya una limitación razonable para convertirse en una privación del derecho mismo" (sentencia número 5097-93, supra citada); "Es decir, pueden limitarse los atributos de la propiedad, en tanto el propietario reserve para sí la posibilidad de explotar normalmente el bien, excluida claro está, la parte o la función afectada por la limitación impuesta por el Estado. Fuera de estos parámetros, si el bienestar social exige sacrificios de uno o de algunos únicamente, debe ser indemnizado, lo mismo que ocurre cuando el sacrificio que se impone al propietario es de tal identidad, que lo hace perder en su totalidad el bien. Así, la limitación a la propiedad resiste el análisis constitucional, cuando la afectación a los atributos esenciales de la propiedad que son aquellos que permiten el uso natural de la cosa dentro de la realidad socio-económica actual, no hace desaparecer la naturaleza del bien o haga imposible el uso de la cosa, porque el Estado imponga requisitos de autorización o de aprobación tan complejos que impliquen de hecho, la imposibilidad de usufructuar el bien" (sentencia número 2345-96, supra citada).

Es así, el artículo 24 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, determina el contenido de estos reglamentos de la siguiente manera: a) la determinación de los usos de la tierra; b) lo relativo a la localización, altura y área de construcción de las edificaciones; c) la superficie y dimensiones de los lotes, lo cual tiene directa incidencia en la determinación de la densidad de la tierra; d) el tamaño de los retiros, patios y demás espacios abiertos, y cobertura del lote por edificios y estructuras; e) la provisión de espacio para estacionamientos, carga y descarga de los vehículos fuera de las calles; f) tamaño, ubicación y características de los rótulos o anuncios publicitarios; y g) cualquier otro detalle arquitectónico o urbanístico relativo al uso del suelo, cuya regulación tenga interés para la comunidad local. Por tal motivo, resulta obligado reservar las zonas que tienen una especial afectación en razón de su uso, tales como las que están cerca de los aeropuertos, las que tienen una afectación por protección de los patrimonios forestal e histórico y arquitectónico, o patrimonio natural del Estado, que derivan de los artículos 50 y 89 de la Constitución Política, según lo ordena el artículo 25 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana; b.- el de FRACCIONAMIENTO y URBANIZACIÓN: que conforme al artículo 32 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, pretende determinar bajo qué condiciones una municipalidad ha de permitir o regular el fraccionamiento y los proyectos de urbanizaciones en su jurisdicción, para lo cual se disponen requisitos correspondientes al acceso a la vía pública, cesión de áreas para uso público, normas para construcción de calles y aceras, pavimentos, cañerías, drenajes pluviales y sanitarios, electrificación y alumbrado público, entre otros. En este sentido debe resaltarse la importancia para el Derecho Urbanístico del control de las acciones de fraccionamiento, lo cual no ofrece duda alguna. Al respecto, señala el Tribunal Superior Contencioso Administrativo:

“IV.- De lo dicho, cabe insistir, que el control del desarrollo urbano como competencia de las municipalidades, implica tanto la potestad de dictar planes reguladores, pero sobre todo, implica la competencia para “controlar” el fraccionamiento de terrenos por medio de los mismos planes reguladores y con el otorgamiento del correspondiente visado municipal al plano respectivo, tal y como lo expresa el numeral 33 de la citada Ley de Planificación Urbana. En el mismo orden de cosas, según el artículo 10 inciso 2) de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, corresponde a la Dirección de Urbanismo del Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, visar los planos correspondientes en cuanto a proyectos de urbanización o fraccionamiento para efectos de urbanización en forma previa a la aprobación municipal (artículo 33 ibídem). Se trata de una competencia que se traduce en una función de control por parte de la Dirección de Urbanismo en relación con la planificación y control urbanístico de las municipalidades (artículos 7, inciso 3) y 9 de la supra indicada ley. Se convierten en asesores o vigilantes pudiendo informar o bien hasta denunciar a las Municipalidades, respecto de una eventual infracción a la ley o al plan regulador local, pudiendo incluso emitir un acto de suspensión de determinada obra, en la que se hubiere comprobado la infracción a la ley en materia de urbanismo. Según el artículo 36, inciso b) ibídem, las municipalidades no pueden otorgar los respectivos visados a planos para proyectos urbanísticos en áreas sujetas a control cuando no cuenten con el permiso de rigor (visado de la Dirección de Urbanismo).” (Sección Tercera, Tribunal Superior Contencioso Administrativo, sentencia número 791-2002 de las diez horas diez minutos del veintisiete de setiembre del año dos mil dos.) (El resaltado no es del original.)

Y es que, en efecto, el omitir los controles (visados) para efectos de fraccionamiento es una de las formas más comunes y peligrosas de burlar los estándares urbanísticos y dar al traste con todos los instrumentos de regulación en la materia, lo que provoca serias consecuencias. Entre éstas, podemos citar la imposibilidad de planificar y suministrar servicios básicos, la construcción de conjuntos de vivienda en zonas de alto riesgo por emergencias naturales o la edificación en zonas que por sus características no deben ser destinadas a construcciones, por ser de recarga acuífera o tener un alto valor desde el punto de vista ambiental; solo por citar algunos ejemplos; c.- el MAPA OFICIAL: que conforme al artículo 1 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, "es el plano o conjunto de planos en que se indica con exactitud la posición de los trazados de las vías públicas y áreas a reservar para usos y servicios comunales"; cuyo contenido se regula en los artículos 42 y 43 de la citada Ley:

"Artículo 42.- El reglamento del Mapa Oficial establecerá las normas sobre reservas, adquisición, uso y conservación de las áreas necesarias para vías, parques, plazas, edificios y demás usos comunales, expresando la localización y el tamaño de las ya entregadas al servicio público y de las demarcadas solo preventivamente." "Artículo 43.- El Mapa Oficial, junto con los planos o el catastro que lo complemente, constituirá registro especial fehaciente sobre propiedad y afectación a dominio público de los terrenos o espacios ya entregados a usos públicos”; d.- el de RENOVACIÓN URBANA: cuyo contenido está determinado en los artículos 51 permite de la Ley de referencia, de la siguiente manera:

"Artículo 51.- El Reglamento de Renovación Urbana contendrá las regulaciones que localmente se adopten para conservar, rehabilitar o remodelar las áreas urbanas defectuosas, deterioradas o en decadencia, tomando en cuenta la inconveniente parcelación o edificación, la carencia de servicios y facilidades comunales, o cualquier otra condición adversa a la seguridad, salubridad y bienestar generales"; que resulta de trascendental importancia, sobre todo tratándose de la protección del patrimonio histórico arquitectónico, o para la salvaguarda de la seguridad de los habitantes de un barrio; e.- y finalmente, el de CONSTRUCCIONES; que pretende regular técnicamente todos los requisitos que debe cumplir cualquier tipo de construcción conforme a la definición del concepto dada en el artículo 1 de la Ley de referencia, que la tiene como "toda estructura que se fije o se incorpore a un terreno; incluye cualquier obra de edificación, reconstrucción, alteración o ampliación que implique permanencia." Así, su objetivo es fijar las normas para la planificación, diseño y construcción de edificios, calles, campos deportivos, instalaciones industriales y de maquinaria y todas aquellas obras adicionales a éstas, en todo lo relativo a la arquitectura, ingeniería civil, eléctrica, mecánica o sanitaria, con el fin de fomentar, asegurar y proteger la salud, economía, comodidad y bienestar común mediante requisitos que garanticen en tales obras su solidez, estabilidad, seguridad, salubridad, iluminación y ventilación adecuadas.

VIII.- DE LA NATURALEZA JURÍDICA DE LOS PLANES REGULADORES Y SU CONTENIDO.- Las regulaciones urbanísticas, que según se indicó, comprenden un conjunto muy variados de normas; producto de la acción de las diversas entidades públicas que intervienen en esta materia; de donde encontramos, normas legales, normas de carácter reglamentario con valor ley (ley en sentido material), y por supuesto, normas reglamentarias. De tal suerte, que bien podemos concluir, que nuestro ordenamiento jurídico urbanístico está conformado por normas de distinta naturaleza, precisamente en virtud de dos factores importantes, en primer lugar, por el órgano o institución de la que dimana (sea, la Asamblea Legislativa, el Poder Ejecutivo o Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, o las municipalidades); y en segundo lugar, y como derivado del anterior, él ámbito de cobertura de la regulación, sea, de vinculación nacional, regional o local. Así, las regulaciones urbanísticas de orden legal no resultan un problema jurídico, ni en la doctrina, ni en la jurisprudencia, toda vez que las mismas son legítimas, siempre y cuando se aprueben mediante votación calificada, esto es, con el voto mínimo de treinta y ocho diputados, en razón de su contenido; en los términos previstos en el párrafo segundo del artículo 45 de la propia Constitución Política, en tanto de ellas, se imponen limitaciones de interés solcial. No está de más reiterar que este requisito de votación calificada no es meramente formal, sino sustancial, en cuanto implica el necesario consenso entre las diversas fracciones de los partidos políticos que integran la Asamblea Legislativa. Por ello, no hay mayor discusión acerca de la legitimidad y rango normativo de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, que cumple a cabalidad con el requisito constitucional, al haber sido aprobada en cumplimiento del requisito constitucional. Ahora bien, en tanto las regulaciones urbanísticas constituyen un conjunto de normas heterogéneas, precisamente por derivar de diversas instancias públicas, y en consecuencia, como manifestación de diversas instancias del poder público (Poder Legislativo, poder Administrativo y poder local). Es nuestro criterio, que el análisis de estas regulaciones debe partir del contenido del artículo 45 constitucional, cuyo párrafo segundo legitima el establecimiento de limitaciones de interés social a la propiedad, siempre y cuando las mismas sean establecidas mediante ley calificada, requisito sustancial y no formal, al implicar el consenso legislativo para su adopción. En este sentido, tal y como lo ha considerado la Sala Constitucional en su jurisprudencia, las limitaciones y regulaciones de orden urbanístico son de interés social, en tanto se imponen precisamente para facilitar la convivencia en sociedad, y se traducen en impedimentos u obligaciones para el propietario, y que en su mayoría, tienen un origen bastante antiguo en nuestro ordenamiento jurídico, al derivar -muchas de ellas- de disposiciones del Código Civil, que data de mil ochocientos ochenta y ocho. La jurisprudencia constitucional ha reconocido dos tipos interés social que legitiman -o justifican- la imposición de limitaciones a la propiedad: estos son las relativos a la protección del ambiente y las de orden urbanístico, estas últimas, a partir del desarrollo que se hace en la sentencia número 4205-96, supra citada. De manera, que en sentido estricto, debiera de estimarse que los planes urbanísticos -todos en general, sea los de ámbito nacional, regional y local-, en razón de su contenido, tienen el rango normativo de leyes en sentido material, toda vez que impone obligaciones, deberes y limitan derechos, en particular el ejercicio del derecho de propiedad, tal y cual lo señala el jurista argentino Edgardo O. SCOTTI :

"Un plan para determinado núcleo urbano implica no sólo establecer políticas destinadas a la adecuada organización de las actividades en el espacio, sino significa orientar y condicionar las acciones de los sectores públicos y privados mediante la utilización de instrumentos jurídicos que, mediante estímulos, exigencias o prohibición es, delimitan el ejercicio del derecho de propiedad y las demás funciones y usos que pueden desarrollarse en el ámbito urbano."(Derecho y Planeamiento Urbano.Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires. Argentina. 1983. p. 77.)

A este respecto, no queda duda de la directa incidencia de los planes urbanísticos sobre el ejercicio de los derechos fundamentales de la propiedad privada y de la libertad de empresa, en tanto del contenido de sus regulaciones, se infiere también el desarrollo de la industria y comercio (artículos 45 y 47 de la Constitución Política), así como la consiguiente tutela de otro derecho fundamental, sea, la de un ambiente ambiente y ecológicamente equilibrado (artículo 50 de la Constitución Política); tal y como lo consideró la Sala Constitucional en sentencia número 5303-93:

"... la limitación a la propiedad impuesta por un plan regulador es constitucionalmente posible, debido a que el derecho de propiedad no es ilimitado, antes bien, existe un marco general dentro del que puede actuar el propietario y que debe ser compatible con el contenido constitucional de ese derecho. Por lo expresado, a juicio de este Tribunal, la limitación impuesta, en tanto ajustada a un plan regulador vigente, no violenta como se sugiere en el recurso el artículo 45 de la Constitución Política, en tanto ese plan regulador no desconstitucionalice la propiedad privada que se vea afectada por ese instrumento. A contrario sensu, si las limitaciones exceden los parámetros mínimos de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad, resultarían contrarias a la Constitución Política.".- Así, se ha estimado que el contenido que se impone en los diversos planes urbanísticos -en su completa dimensión, sea los nacionales, regionales y locales- es acorde con la exigencia constitucional, por derivar de una disposición legal –la Ley de Planificación Urbana-, que sí fue aprobada en cumplimiento del condicionante constitucional –dos tercios del total de los miembros de la Asamblea Legislativa-, en virtud de lo cual, esa legitimación se transfiere a los mismos. Y aunando a lo anterior, debe considerarse que, los planes regionales, en este caso, el Plan Regional de Desarrollo Urbano, del Gran Área Metropolitana, tiene ese carácter en virtud de expreso mandato legal, conforme al artículo 64 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, en tanto indican textualmente:

"Artículo 64.- El Plan Regulador Metropolitano, sus reglamentos y las enmiendas respectivas, adquirirán fuerza de ley para todas las municipalidades del circuito que haya acordado su adopción."El resaltado no es del original.)

Finalmente, respecto de los planes reguladores municipalidades, podemos defender este valor –de ley en sentido material- con base en los siguientes motivos: a) en razón de su contenido, que impone obligaciones para los propietarios y limitaciones a la propiedad, según se indicó anteriormente; b.) en razón de su procedimiento reforzado de aprobación, que constituye una manifestación de la democracia directa; en tanto para la aprobación de estas regulaciones, se requiere, como requisito esencial, la celebración de una audiencia oral y pública, en los términos previstos en el artículo 19 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana; y asimismo, el plan se adopta e impone mediante acuerdo del Concejo municipal, órgano deliberativo de los municipios; y c) por equiparación legal, de lo dispuesto en el transcrito artículo 64 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana. Ergo, si una ordenación urbanística a nivel regional adquiere el rango de ley para la Municipalidad que lo adopta, y ello es por acuerdo del Concejo, lo propio es que también esa condición la adquiera el que ha sido gestado por el propio municipio y rige únicamente su circunscripción territorial. En todo caso, nuestro Tribunal Constitucional, ha señalado de manera clara y precisa, que los planes reguladores, no obstante ser regulaciones reglamentarias emanadas de las municipalidades, tienen el rango normativo de las leyes en sentido material. En tal sentido pueden consultarse las sentencias número 2006-13330, de las diecisiete horas treinta y tres minutos del seis de diciembre del dos mil seis; 2007-5575; de las quince horas veinticuatro minutos del veinticinco de abril del dos mil siete y 2008-18438, de las diecisiete horas cincuenta y seis minutos del once de diciembre del dos mil ocho.

IX.- DEL OTORGAMIENTO Y EFECTOS DE LOS USOS DE SUELO.- Habiéndose hecho referencia a la competencia de las municipalidades en el ámbito del urbanismo local y el contenido y trascendencia de las regulaciones urbanísticas; se procede a clarificar el contenido y efectos de los usos de suelo, en atención a que el contenido de la decisión impugnada, es precisamente la determinación de un uso no conforme, respecto de la actividad pretendida por la interesada. En efecto, los certificados de uso del suelo son actos administrativos de naturaleza declarativa y no constitutiva, en tanto acreditan hechos o circunstancias, de manera que no crean ni modifican situaciones jurídicas –tal y como lo señala la jurisprudencia administrativa, así por ejemplo Procuraduría General de la República en sus dictámenes número C-327-2001 y C-357-2003–, toda vez que se trata de un acto jurídico concreto por medio del cual la Administración (local o el Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, según corresponda, esto es si se trata de un fraccionamiento, en el primero caso, o de una urbanización en el segundo), acredita la conformidad o no del uso del suelo con lo establecido en la zonificación respectiva; conforme lo dispone el artículo 28 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana. En este sentido es que debe tenerse en cuenta que la doctrina y la jurisprudencia – tanto constitucional como contencioso-administrativa- ha señalado que los planes urbanísticos son disposiciones normativas en los cuales se disciplina el uso del suelo, de manera que inciden sobre los derechos privados (derecho de propiedad) predeterminando los modos de goce y de utilización del bien. Así, se prohibe el otorgamiento de visado cuando el uso pretendido sea incompatible con el dispuesto en la respectiva regulación. En forma concordante, del Reglamento de Zonificación del Uso del Suelo de la GAM, se entiende que todo inmueble tiene una vocación urbanística que está declarada en el plan director y por lo mismo, en su artículo 12 se señala que todo interesado debe obtener previamente el certificado correspondiente en el que se haga constar el uso permitido, que tendrá una vigencia de un año natural desde el momento en que se expide, agregando el artículo 12.4 que en caso de no haber iniciado las obras en el año de vigencia, se deberá renovarse el permiso. Luego el artículo 13 señala en forma expresa:

"El certificado indicará el uso y no se interpretará como un permiso definitivo para hacer uso, ocupación, ampliaciones, remodelaciones, construcción o fraccionamiento. El Alineamiento y el Certificado de Uso de suelo tendrán una vigencia de un año a partir de su emisión." (El subrayado no es del original.)

De tal suerte, que por medio de la certificación de uso del suelo no se decide cuál es el uso permitido, en tanto éste ya ha sido previamente determinado en el reglamento de zonificación, que integra el plan regulador local; de manera que simplemente se acredita cuál es el uso debido según lo establecido reglamentariamente, además de hacer constar si el uso que se le está dando a un determinado terreno es o no conforme con dicha reglamentación, con lo cual, es un acto meramente declarativo, sin crear, modificar o extinguir ninguna situación jurídica, como sí ocurre con los actos administrativos constitutivos. Por esta razón la expedición del certificado del uso del suelo no puede asimilarse a una licencia de construcción, en tanto no resulta legítimo alegar que se constituye en un acto declarativo de derechos. De manera que es precisamente por su naturaleza declarativa, que los certificados de uso del suelo no dan lugar, por sí mismos, a la adquisición de un derecho subjetivo ni consolidan, por sí mismos, situación jurídica alguna. La certificación de uso del suelo es meramente descriptiva respecto de una situación fáctica determinada en relación con lo dispuesto normativamente, en razón de lo cual, por su medio, no resulta posible consolidar ninguna situación jurídica preexistente al acto certificante.

X.- Sin embargo, es importante tener en cuenta que el certificado de uso del suelo, como acto administrativo declarativo que es, sí se constituye en un acto de gran importancia, en tanto su contenido y función es acreditar hechos o situaciones jurídicas que sirven de base para la adopción de actos administrativos por medio de los cuales sí se crean, modifican o extinguen situaciones jurídicas, tal es el caso, por ejemplo, de las autorizaciones para construir o para tramitar patentes municipales para ejercer determinadas actividades, para cuya adopción requiere –sine qua non– del correspondiente certificado de uso del suelo. En virtud de lo anterior, es que salta a la vista la importancia de que los mismos sean otorgados conforme al bloque de legalidad, esto es, a las regulaciones urbanísticas, sean éstas los planes reguladores urbanísticos propios de cada cantón o de los planes regionales (por ejemplo, el GAM) o de las dictadas por el Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo, de aplicación supletoria en ausencia de las propias locales (Transitorio II de la Ley de Planificación Urbana y sentencias número 4205-96 y 2003-11397 de la Sala Constitucional).”