Urban control of public entities: application of Article 75 of the Construction LawControl urbanístico de entes públicos: aplicación del artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones

N° 1269 - 2009 N° 1269 - 2009 CONTENTIOUS-ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL. THIRD SECTION. SECOND JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF SAN JOSÉ. Goicoechea, at sixteen hours thirty minutes on the twenty-sixth of June of two thousand nine.

This Tribunal hears, as improper hierarch, the appeal filed by Helio Fallas Venegas, of legal age, with identification number CED59583, resident of Montes de Oca, and Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, against the agreement adopted by the Municipal Council of Montes de Oca in session N° 79/2007, Article 5.1, Point N° 6 of October 29, 2007, which ordered – as pertinent – to declare "...without merit the appeal filed against the resolution of the Mayor in which he declares with merit the motion to revoke filed by IAFA, and to order the lifting of the closure order since there was no aspect of legality that could lead us to revoke the appealed resolution. All without prejudice to noting that this Municipal Council does not share the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República...". Dr. Francisco Gólcher Valverde, of legal age, single, psychiatrist, resident of La Uruca, with identification number CED77481, participates in this appellate process in his capacity as President of the Board of Directors of the Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia, which has the status of interested third party in this appellate procedure.

Judge Rojas Morales writes, and:

CONSIDERING:

I).- PROVEN FACTS:

For a correct resolution of this matter, the following is deemed proven: 1) That on August 9, 2007, the Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia (hereinafter IAFA) requested from the Municipality of Montes de Oca a certificate of conforming land use (certificado de uso conforme de suelo) to construct a 2,400 square meter building to be dedicated to addiction treatment. On the 13th of that same month and year, the Director of Planning and Urbanism and the land-use technician of the local commune certified the non-compatible use of the cited project with the local Regulatory Plan (Plan Regulador), which classifies the referenced zone as predominantly residential use in which constructions exceeding 500 square meters cannot be erected (folios 62, 63, 64); 2) By official letter CU-e-1400-09-2007 of September 12, 2007, the Urban Control Coordinator ordered the following: a- the closure of the project started "without municipal endorsement"; b.- the elimination of works that encroach upon municipal setbacks (retiros municipales), which are those located outside the official construction line indicated by the Topography Department; c.- to warn the IAFA representative to obtain the construction permit (licencia de construcción) before the Municipality of Montes de Oca, prior to carrying out any constructive work (folio 67, 68); 3) By official letter CU-e-1401-09-2007 of September 12, 2007, the Director of Urban Planning and the Urban Control Coordinator of the Municipality informed the IAFA representatives that the construction in question is not excluded from the municipal permit process and that the closure of the works ordered in the previous official letter is maintained (folio 69 to 71); 4) On September 17, 2007, the President of the IAFA Board of Directors filed a motion to revoke with a subsidiary appeal against official letters CU-e-1400-09-2007 and CU-e-1401-09-2007 (folios 33 and 47); 5) On September 19, 2005, a group of residents of Dirección1511 sent an official letter to the local government in which they state "we are categorically opposed" to the construction of the referenced center in a residential neighborhood, as established by the Regulatory Plan (folio 97, 99); 6) On September 21, 2007, the then Minister of Housing, Fernando Zumbado Jiménez, informed the Mayor of Montes de Oca that in session N° 3 of the Council of the Social Sector and Fight Against Poverty of September 19, 2007, a motion was approved in the following sense: "It is agreed to support the construction of the National Treatment Center for children and adolescents with drug dependency, in conditions of vulnerability," a process that has been halted by the Municipality of Montes de Oca, requesting a favorable resolution for the continuation of the project (official letter DM-979-09-07 on folio 109); 7) By official letter D.ALC.1024-2007, dated September 20, 2007, the Mayor of Montes de Oca consulted the Procuraduría General de la República as follows: "1) If the exception established in article 75 of Law of Constructions (Ley de Construcciones) number 833 – of not needing a municipal permit – also exempts from the requirement of having a Certificate of Conforming Land Use, as required by article 28 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana)?; 2) Is the Central Government of the Republic and its Institutions exempt from complying with the local regulations of the Regulatory Plans?, if so, what is the scope of the legal powers granted to the Municipalities in this matter and especially the principle of Municipal Autonomy?; 3) Is it legally possible for the Central Government of the Republic and its institutions to construct a work or building, even against what the Zoning Regulations of the current Regulatory Plans establish?" (folio 11 to 115); 8) By Opinion C-341-2007 of September 26, 2007, the Deputy Attorney General Andrea Calderón Gassmann, with authorization from the Attorney General of the Republic, responds to the consultation in the following terms: "Conclusions. Based on the foregoing, this Procuraduría General concludes that: 1.- Pursuant to numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction permit for public buildings; 2.- According to the same numeral, decentralized entities are also exempt, provided that the constructed works are supervised by the competent body in the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes; 3.- municipal land-use certificates (certificados de uso de suelo municipales) have strictly declaratory effects and do not constitute, extinguish, or modify legal situations. They do not produce the effects of a municipal permit; 4.- In administrative and constitutional jurisprudence, the land-use certificate is conceptualized as a prerequisite for obtaining a municipal authorization that does have a constitutive character, for example, a construction permit or a patent. 5.- Therefore, if the State is not subject to the obligation to request a construction permit from the local municipality, it should also not be required a land-use certificate, given that the latter makes sense precisely insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction permit, since it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure involving obtaining said permit. The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement specific to a power that, in this particular case of exception, the Municipal Government cannot exercise; 6.- The urban planning power (potestad de ordenamiento urbano) is a function inherent to the Municipality, as it forms part of the concept framed by 'local services and interests'; 7.- In the exercise of its powers in matters of urban planning, the Municipality is subject to the law; 8.- The exemption in favor of the State that releases it from the obligation to obtain a construction permit has a legal basis, thus forming part of the legal framework that every municipality must respect in the exercise of its powers in matters of urban planning." (folio 125 to 144); 9).- By resolution D.ALC. 157-2007 at 13:00 hours on September 28, 2007, the Mayor's Office resolved the appeal filed by the IAFA representatives as follows: "In conformity with the legal grounds presented, and opinion C-341-2007 of the Procuraduría General de la República, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction permit for public buildings and for land use, IT IS ORDERED TO RENDER THE CLOSURE ACT WITHOUT EFFECT. The Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia may continue with the development of the works. It is warned to the appellant that although it is true they do not need land use or a construction permit, they do have the duty to inform the respective Municipality and coordinate with it, with due advance notice, the works and projects they intend to carry out in the Canton of Montes de Oca."; 10) The President of the Organized Roosevelt Neighborhood Committee and the President of the Roosevelt Association filed an appeal against the previous resolution (folio 154, 155, 157); 11) The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca in its ordinary session N° 79/2007, Article N° 5.1, Point N° 6 of October 29, 2007, ordered to declare "...without merit the appeal filed against the resolution of the Mayor in which he declares with merit the motion to revoke filed by IAFA, and to order the lifting of the closure order since there was no aspect of legality that could lead us to revoke the appealed resolution. All without prejudice to noting that this Municipal Council does not share the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República" (folios 168, 174); 12).- Against the previous resolution, the residents of Dirección1511 filed motions to revoke with a subsidiary appeal (folio 175, 176); 13) The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, in ordinary session N° 83/2007, Article N° 10, Point N° 3 of November 26, 2007, agreed: "To reject and declare without merit in all its aspects the motion to revoke filed by Mr. Helio Fallas Venegas and Mrs. Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, residents of Roosevelt Neighborhood, against the agreement of article 5.1 point 6 of Ordinary Session N° 79-2007 of the Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, held on October 29, 2007, for being in accordance with law. The subsidiary appeal being timely and in proper form, it is admitted before the Third Section of the Superior Contentious-Administrative Tribunal of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José...", articulation by virtue of which this Tribunal hears the present matter (folios 160, 162).

II).- UNPROVEN FACTS:

• 1)That the Dirección de Obras of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes authorized the IAFA's minor detoxification project in Barrio Roosevelt after verifying compliance with current urban planning requirements (there is no probative evidence on this point); 2) That the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) ordered the construction of a center for the detoxification of minors in a residential zone of the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca (the IAFA Director did not provide evidence of this statement); 3) That the detoxification center for minors built in Barrio Roosevelt complies with local and national urban planning regulations (the conformity of the work with the local regulatory plan was not proven in the appellate procedure. The tribunal verified in the corresponding judicial inspection that the facilities lack the requirements demanded by Law 7600).

III).- OBJECT OF THE APPEAL:

The appellants indicate that the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República does not entail the non-application of the Regulatory Plan, which cannot be ignored under any concept. The Municipality is bound by Law, and this grants local governments the competence to issue regulatory plans and development regulations, without exempting anyone from their observance (articles 15 and following). Along the same lines, numeral 57 indicates that construction works cannot be executed against what is provided in that law, and article 58 of the same normative body establishes that municipalities cannot permit works that do not respect land-use regulations. Regarding article 75 of the Law of Constructions, it is clear that State institutions are exempt from the corresponding permit, not from compliance with the Regulatory Plan, nor its development regulations. In any case, for such exemption to be applicable, the constructive works must be under the "supervision" of the MOPT, and in the specific case of IAFA, the work is being carried out by a consulting firm. The appellant party adds that article 87 of the Urban Planning Law obligates the Municipality to monitor compliance with urban development provisions, while numeral 88 ibidem obligates the closure of works that contravene the legal system. In summary, no public entity is exempt from complying with the Regulatory Plan, and the appellants understand that the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República, which serves as the basis for adopting the challenged administrative act, has not stated otherwise. The correct conclusion is that an exemption from a construction permit CANNOT derive a license – authorization – to set aside the local regulatory plan. The local government cannot give approval to a work that falls outside the lawful use of the canton, which causes serious harm to the residents.

IV).- SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS BY THIS TRIBUNAL:

In the present case, the binding nature of public entities to local planning and the current content and scope of numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions are under discussion. To resolve the articulations raised by the appellants, the local government decided to consult the matter with the Procuraduría General de la República, and that body responded to the request in opinion number C-341-2007, which binds the consultant in the terms established by its Organic Law, but not this Tribunal as a two-phase improper hierarch, which exercises a constitutional function when examining the legality of the Municipal Council agreement (article 173 of the Political Constitution); an analysis that in the specific case covers the cited opinion, insofar as it serves as the basis for adopting the challenged act.

• V)ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 75 OF THE LAW OF CONSTRUCTIONS:

It is important to point out, first of all, that the Law of Constructions, Decree Law N° 833, enacted on November 4, 1949, recognized – even before the enactment of the current Constitution – the competence of local governments in matters of urban planning. This is extracted, with complete clarity, from numeral 1 of that normative body, which literally indicates:

"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 lands, without prejudice to the powers that laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies." (emphasis by the Tribunal).

Within the same order, numeral 2 of the cited normative body provided for the subjection of all urban planning activity to the provisions of local governments in this matter, which it classified as "regulations" and which later – 1968 – the Urban Planning Law would call "Regulatory Plans" for land. Article 2 of the Law of Constructions prescribes:

"This law governs throughout the Republic. No building, structure, or element thereof shall be constructed, adapted, or repaired in the future, unless it meets the conditions specified by the respective Regulations. Neither shall demolitions or excavations be made on private property, nor shall the public right-of-way be occupied, nor works carried out on it, without subjecting to the provisions of said Regulations." (emphasis by the Tribunal).

In full accordance with the previous provision, numeral 87 of the cited law provides that local governments shall exercise surveillance over the works executed in their jurisdiction, including among the aspects to control "the use given to it"; in addition, compliance with other urban planning provisions. The Tribunal considers that this control – while numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions is in force – is subsequent "ex post", since – as will be analyzed later – the initial "ex ante" authorization corresponds to the Dirección de Obras of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes.

Along the same lines as the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law, numeral 169 of the Political Charter, enacted on November 7, 1949 (just a few days after that Decree-Law), recognized full autonomy for local governments within their jurisdiction, which involves the regulatory power over the local urban environment, which is part of the "defense of local interests", just as the Constitutional Tribunal clearly indicated in ruling number 6706-93 at 15:21 hours on December 21, 1993, and as the Procuraduría General de la República itself admits in Consultation N° C-341-2007 that has served as the basis for the challenged agreement.

With complete clarity, numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions establishes that public buildings – constructed by the central government – as well as those constructions carried out by "other minor entities", shall not require a "municipal permit (licencia municipal)", subjecting the exclusion from municipal control to their being "authorized and supervised" by the Dirección de Obras Públicas. The cited article literally states:

"Public buildings, that is, buildings constructed by the Government of the Republic, do not need a municipal permit. Neither do they need it for buildings constructed by other State dependencies, provided they are authorized and supervised by the Dirección de Obras Públicas." (the highlighting is not from the original).

The Procuraduría General de la República pointed out – in the cited opinion, which in turn refers to what was stated in Opinion N° C-192-1995 of September 5, 1995 – the following: "that is, in accordance with numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions, the State does not need to require a municipal permit to execute the works pertinent to the construction of its buildings. As has been emphasized in legal opinion OJ-106-2002 of June 24, 2002, it is a subjective exemption that operates solely and exclusively in favor of the State and its institutions." The consulted body maintains that the dispensation from the permit enshrined in numeral 75 of the Decree-Law of Constructions is due to the existence of a "subjective exemption" established by the Urban Planning Law; however, for the Tribunal, it is not possible to reach that conclusion based on the current regulatory framework. Indeed, the 1% tax on constructions, like the tax exemption for entities and bodies that construct public works of "social interest", is established in our legal system in article 70 of the Urban Planning Law N° 4240 of November 15, 1968, and not before. That is, the tax on constructions and the corresponding tax exemption were created in article 70 of the Urban Planning Law, that is, nineteen years after the enactment of Decree Law N° 833 of 1949.

In the present matter, it is not under discussion whether the works erected by public institutions of "social interest" enjoy or do not enjoy a tax exemption. What is under discussion – and this is how the consultation was posed to the advisory body of the Municipality – is whether article 75 of the Law of Constructions – applied in the year 2008, the date of the consultation – prevents the Municipality from exercising its police power in urban planning matters. To address this point, the Procuraduría introduces the topic of the "land-use certificate", indicating to the local government of Montes de Oca that it, as an institution of Urban Planning Law "....is demandable and makes sense insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction permit, given that it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure involving obtaining said permit. Therefore, if in a specific case – provided for by law – the State and its institutions are exempt from requiring a permit from the municipality to construct a public building, it is not logical to require the interested entity to obtain a land-use certificate. The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement specific to a power that, in this particular case of exemption, the Municipal Government cannot exercise. In the case at hand, it is clear that article 75 of the Law of Constructions establishes that the constructions of public buildings are not subject to the power of control that the law grants to municipalities in matters of urban zoning through the construction permit, and therefore, to all the requirements that obtaining such a permit entails." – the highlighting is not from the original.

Without entering here to analyze the eventual supervening unconstitutionality of article 75 of the Law of Constructions (see Voto Nº Nº 5445-99 of the Constitutional Chamber), since this does not correspond to this Tribunal, the fact is that this collegiate body, in application of the criteria of legal hermeneutics generally accepted by doctrine and jurisprudence, must depart from the conclusions reached by the cited consultative body, as set forth below.

VI.- ON THE CONCEPT OF PERMIT AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF "EX ANTE" CONTROL IN THE CONSTRUCTIVE ACTIVITY OF PUBLIC ENTITIES: By virtue of the fact that numeral 75 of the Law of Constructions exempts some public institutions from obtaining the municipal permit, it is essential to unravel the meaning of what is exempted by the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law. The permit is an authorization to carry out a specific activity. It has been defined as "... one of the typical examples of an act consisting of an administrative authorization and, more specifically, in an act of prior verification. Thus, through the urban planning permit, the Administration verifies that the intended urban planning activity can be authorized because the applicant subject has fulfilled the duties or requirements demandable by the legal system." (Diccionario Jurídico Espasa. Editorial Espasa Calve S.A. Madrid, 2001, p. 914).

It is clear to the Tribunal that article 75 of Decree Law N° 833 exempts – in the year 1949 – the public entities cited therein (Central Government and other minor bodies) from the preventive "ex ante" authorization that local governments carry out when granting a permit to erect a specific construction, an authorization that – it is worth pointing out – both the Political Constitution and the Urban Planning Law subsequently entrusted to local governments. Now then, article 75 – the Tribunal understands – did not exclude public entities from the initial control over their buildings; it simply transferred it to the Dirección de Obras of the MOPT, to which it entrusted the function of "authorizing" those projects and "supervising" their execution. From the foregoing, it follows that Law N° 833 did not exempt the constructions of public institutions from prior urban planning control; it simply transferred it to a specific body of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, namely the Dirección de Obras, which currently has a specialized department for this purpose called "Dirección de Edificaciones Nacionales", an administrative body that, in a correct application of the same Law of Constructions, would have to – prior to authorizing a constructive project – verify that the building presented to it for prior authorization conforms to the current legal provisions, be they local – contained in regulatory plans – or national – e.g., environmental viability certificate required by the Organic Law of the Environment, Law 7600 regarding access for persons with disabilities, architectural heritage law regarding facades and structural characteristics, land-use certificate, placement of fire hydrants, etc.

The Tribunal must note that the subjection of public entities to technical studies and certificates is not new; quite the contrary, it was born to obligate those entities to adhere to their contents, and it was much later that such a requirement was extended to private individuals. The first legislation that established the need for an "environmental assessment" as a technical study was the North American one in 1969, known as the National Environmental Policy Act. The law required an environmental statement or report to undertake any public project, including the development of policies, plans, and programs that, in their development, could significantly affect the environment. In Europe, in 1985, Directive 85/337/EEC of June 27, 1985 was approved, requiring the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Subsequently, the field of application of these studies was broadened until they were applied to all plans and programs of the States, which was established in Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 27, 2001.

As national jurisprudence has repeatedly held, urban planning matters are the non-green – gray – part of environmental law, the binding nature of its institutes for subjects of public and private law thus being undeniable (on this topic, one may consult from the Constitutional Chamber Voto Nº 2003 - 03656 of May 7, 2003, from the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice Nº 000507 of June 17, 2004, and from this same section of the Tribunal, Nº 176 - 2009 of January 30, 2009).

By mandate of the principle of legality and the hermetic completeness of the legal system, only when the legally demandable urban planning requirements are fulfilled could the Dirección General de Obras Públicas "authorize" a specific public project, since it goes without saying that "authorization" implies the prior control that the law entrusted to it. With complete clarity, numeral 2 of Law N° 833 provides:

"This law governs throughout the Republic. No building, (without distinguishing whether it is public or private) structure, or element thereof shall be constructed, adapted, or repaired in the future, unless it meets the conditions specified by the respective regulations." (the highlighting and the inserted clarification are not from the original).

Within the same line of control falls article 86 of the Law of Constructions, which in a subsequent addition – by Law N° 8641 of June 11, 2008 – entrusted control over the installation of fire hydrants to the Municipal bodies, it being evident, in a systematic interpretation of the norm, that the Dirección de Obras must previously verify compliance with those provisions and that what is provided in the norm, under the charge of the local commune, is a subsequent control that authorizes it, of course, to exercise its urban police power to reestablish the principle of legality within its territory. Provision 87 of the Law of Constructions in its current version literally states:

"Article 87.- The municipality shall exercise surveillance over the works executed in its jurisdiction, as well as over the use given to it. Furthermore, it shall have the mission of monitoring observance of the precepts of this law.

The developer, the entity, or the company promoting public or private works that construct new urbanizations, shopping centers, multi-family housing, constructions subject to the horizontal property regime, industry, and commerce, as well as any other building, shall be responsible for installing the fire hydrants, in accordance with the respective legal system. This provision only applies in cases of buildings whose construction area exceeds 2000 square meters, provided there are no nearby fire hydrants, according to the parameters set forth in current regulations.

The municipalities must verify, in the projects or buildings indicated in the previous paragraph, that the fire hydrants are duly installed and connected to their sources. Compliance with this requirement shall be mandatory for the operating, occupancy, or works acceptance permits." (emphasis by the Tribunal) It was not then – in 1949 – and is not now – 2009 – a discretionary power of the Dirección de Obras to exempt public entities from compliance with current urban planning regulations, that body having the duty to monitor – preventively – that those are complied with by public entities in their building activity; otherwise, that body would have to deny the authorization for the work, since control by the local government over what is built, within the limits of its territory, does not disappear by virtue of the displacement that the law has provided of preventive control to the Dirección de Obras.

Now, the “inspection” function that the law entrusts to the Dirección de Obras is not limited to initial authorization; rather, it involves controlling that what is executed conforms to what was authorized by it.

It must not be lost sight of that the law under examination is of pre-constitutional nature and that it is, later, with the promulgation of the 1949 Constitution—barely a few days later—that autonomy was granted to local governments, which entails—in view of the local interest they defend—attributing to them the competence to dictate urban planning norms within their territory that must be complied with by subjects of public and private law.

A correct hermeneutics of Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones cannot lead us to affirm that—as the Procuraduría indicates in its opinion—the dispensation from the license entails the non-application for public entities of the public-order urban planning norms dictated by local governments. The exemption, being exceptional and privileged, does not constitute a non-application of the rest of the legal system. It suffices to indicate that public entities are subject to the constitutional principle—which we will develop later—that legal norms bind even those who have issued them, a principle that is a clear derivative of that of legality and reasonableness of the law. For this reason, the urban planning norms that the public authority has dictated, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, are of obligatory compliance for all public entities—including, of course, the local governments themselves—without being able to singularly disrespect them. Otherwise, one could reach the absurdity of permitting the construction of dangerous public facilities, in natural protection zones; the location of a prison or an airport in a residential zone, or the erection of a modern and excessively tall building, next to a building declared historical-architectural heritage, impeding, by its characteristics, the contemplation and enjoyment that this type of declaration guarantees. Within the same line of reasoning, a public property could also not be declared uninhabitable, despite the ruinous condition it may have, which would impede urban renewal and, above all, the protection of the city's environment. By the path of exclusion proposed by the Procuraduría, all urban planning and city growth would be at the mercy of public entities, which could thus empty fundamental rights such as health, the enjoyment of a healthy and balanced environment, the right to property, etc., of their essential content.

The Tribunal does not ignore the service vocation of public entities and the need to erect buildings that facilitate the fulfillment of their legal purposes. Without a doubt, the constructive activity of the State—in a broad sense—is of the highest public interest; however, the legal purposes they pursue cannot be achieved against the grain of the regulations established by legal norms, nor by disrespecting the constitutional powers of local governments, whose urban planning norms—of a technical nature—also have the legitimacy of citizen participation in the process of drafting regulatory plans (Article 17 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana).

VII.- MODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM: LEY DE PLANIFICACIÓN URBANA.

The Ley de Planificación Urbana (promulgated in 1968) introduces—as a novelty for the time—the so-called land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo). Article 28 of that normative body provides the following:

"It is prohibited to use or dedicate land, buildings, or structures (public or private) to any use that is incompatible with the established zoning.

Henceforth, interested owners must obtain a municipal certificate that certifies the conformity of the use with the zoning requirements. Existing non-conforming uses must also be recorded with a certificate expressing such circumstance.

Each zoning regulation shall set the date from which such certificates shall be mandatory." (emphasis not in the original).

The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) is an instrument of urban planning law in which the zoning established in the Regulatory Plan is recorded. In some countries, as is the case of Spain (Ley del Suelo Nº 8/2007 of May 28), this instrument does not exist, for which reason the urban planning administration controls compliance with zoning when issuing the corresponding license. The same does not happen in Costa Rica, where the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) has autonomous existence, as it is a requirement not only for erecting a building but also for varying the use of an already erected one and authorizing certain activities in it. The autonomy of the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) with respect to the license was established with complete clarity in ruling of the Sala Constitucional Nº 4336-99 of July 4, 1999, in which it indicated:

"(…) the sense of the cited norms is evident: the issuance of the land certificate cannot be assimilated to a construction license, since its value is constrained to defining the vocation of the property within the current general plan…" By reason of the importance of the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) in our legislation, which is precisely what has been contravened in the case under examination, this collegiate body considers it essential to examine the legislative file N° 2085 that corresponded to the process of the Ley de Planificación Urbana (Law N° 4240), which will allow it to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the exoneration from the license—by the Ley de Construcciones—does not entail the disregard of local zoning, nor does it exempt public entities from complying with said certificate. In Act N° 17—extraordinary session of the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos de Gobierno y Administración on June 7, 1966—, the content of the bill—prepared by the INVU—was discussed, and, in relation to the LAND USE certificate, the following was expressed:

"...The law intends to create, within a series of existing, loosely connected, and sometimes unclear laws (refers to the urban planning regulations existing at that time), sufficient powers, so that the Municipalities are authorized to plan the cities and to apply this plan as the city develops. The fundamental powers that are included are the following: 1) The power to zone the city, this means allocating the different areas of the city, with the objective of avoiding conflicts between uses that are incompatible. One might believe that this type of control originated in the zeal of the State, that is not so; zoning historically came about in England, the United States, and Germany, as a citizens' movement, who, having made investments in residences, were adversely affected by the subsequent development of neighbors who installed industries, or noisy businesses, and then the principle emerged that the right to property includes the right to protect one's own property from incompatible uses by third parties, that is, that property has a social function. This aspect is what is least clearly established in our legislation, although the ley de construcciones says that the municipalities can deny or refuse permits, in accordance with certain rules; however, this has been a power that has been applied very little. That is why we propose clear, simple legislation on the possibility for the INVU and the municipalities to zone the cities into areas of different uses..." (highlights by the Tribunal).

On urban zoning, in Act N° 56 of the extraordinary session of the same Commission on September 30, 1966, the intervention of Engineer Nombre101457—one of the drafters of the bill—is read as follows:

"Chapter II, of section II, goes into more detail on the urban development regulations: there are basically five; first that of zoning, then urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento), then the official map of area reserves for public use. Housing and urban renewal and construction. In quick terms, what zoning does is divide the city into zones of different uses, commercial, industrial, residential, public use, and there can be special zones, for example, slum areas that one wants to control to improve can be classified as improvement areas (...) zoning in our country, we do not want, as a philosophy, to make it too rigid to avoid reactions that could be inconvenient; but it is obvious that there must be instruments to be able to prevent—something that has not yet been possible—in reality, the mixing of uses that are truly incompatible. Just as a residence, which has been the effort of many years of a person, has the right to be protected from having something noisy, bothersome, or something that produces bad odors placed next door, an industry also has the right to protect itself from residences being built nearby that will later complain that this bothers them. There must be a logical, reasonable separation of incompatible uses (...) The right of property—and here we are on the social function of it—is the right to the reasonable use of property, but not to the detriment of the property of others (...) in the existing law, the construction one, there is a generic power that says that the municipalities may deny or refuse construction permits in accordance with planning rules, but the law is not clear as to what can be regulated. This project does say so" (legislative file N° 2085. Highlights not in the original).

The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) can be "conforming", "non-conforming" or "not compatible". There is conformity when the use conforms to the zoning norms. The use is "non-conforming" when, despite being opposed to the zoning, there is a consolidated use prior to the zoning norm, in which case the legislation opts to respect acquired rights. Finally, we are before a "non-compatible use" when the new construction does not conform to the established zoning, as happens in the case under examination. When local governments issue the "land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)", they verify the viability of a new construction with the local norms and, in the event that it is erected in transgression of the latter, they may, in the exercise of their legal control powers, use their urban police power to stop the illegal urban planning activity; this even when they have not issued the initial "authorization" of the work, as occurs with public entities. It must not be forgotten that the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) is an instrument for the protection of the environment (right to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment by uses) and of the right to property (insofar as it protects real estate investment from incompatible uses), which is precisely what the appellant neighbors have been defending. The statutory content of the right to property—widely developed in doctrine—implies that the owner of a property (independently of its nature) can only do what the urban planning norms authorize and that they, in turn, grant the indisputable right to develop their property as permitted by that regulation, hence doctrine and jurisprudence maintain that the granting of a license is of a regulated nature, without any margin of administrative discretion in its granting. A building on the land owned by the IAFA would have no inconvenience whatsoever if it conformed to the implanted zoning norms; the problem arises when the building is constructed against the grain of those norms.

VIII.- ON THE CONTROL POWERS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS:

According to what is established with complete clarity by the Ley de Planificación Urbana, it corresponds to local governments—in accordance with Article 169 of the Constitución Política—to "plan and control urban development, within the limits of their territory" (Article 14 ibidem—highlights by the Tribunal). Planning is materialized in the issuance of local norms regulating the land, and control entails the possibility of exercising the police power in urban planning matters, in the event that the norms required for building are breached. Now then, as has been indicated, Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones excludes public entities from ex ante municipal control; however, that does not imply—the Tribunal insists—that those entities can disregard the current urban planning norms. It is reiterated that the initial control corresponds to the Dirección de Obras, which it will carry out when issuing the corresponding "authorization", which may only be granted in case of strict conformity with the applicable norms (regulated nature of the license). The displacement of the "initial authorization" to the Dirección de Obras does not prevent the local government—as the Procuraduría erroneously affirms—from exercising its urban planning control activity within its territory, since Article 169 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana clearly grants local corporations the power to "control urban development", without such control having been excluded from public buildings. Thus, local governments may, in the exercise of their police power, order the stoppage of any public work—within their territory—if, despite having been "authorized" by the Dirección de Obras, it is erected in contravention of the current urban planning norms. The Tribunal understands that the Dirección de Obras—pursuant to what is established in Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones—may "authorize" the public works indicated therein, which implies, in a correct hermeneutics, fully exercising the prior control of the project, that is, verifying its conformity with the regulations applicable by reason of the matter. The constructive activity of the State, by the rule of the principle of legality enshrined in Article 11 of the Carta Política, is not excluded from the duty to submit to the zoning and other regulations established in the regulatory plans and in the development regulations for those plans.

IX. ON THE NECESSARY INTERSUBJECTIVE COORDINATION IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS

Coordination between the activity of different public subjects seeks, on one hand, to avoid duplication of functions and, on the other, to prevent omissions that harm the current legal order. In this sense, Article 6 of the Código Municipal establishes "that the municipality and the other organs and entities of the Public Administration must coordinate their actions. For this purpose, they must communicate, with due advance notice, the works they plan to execute." The Sala Constitucional, in judgment Nº 5445-99, established the need for coordination between local governments and other public entities; in this regard, that Tribunal stated:

"(…) coordination is the ordering of relations between these diverse independent activities, which takes charge of that concurrence on the same object or entity, to make it useful to a global public plan, without suppressing the reciprocal independence of the acting subjects. As there is no hierarchical relationship among the decentralized institutions, nor of the State itself in relation to the municipalities, the imposition of certain conducts on them is not possible, with which the essential inter-institutional 'concert' arises, in the strict sense, insofar as the autonomous and independent centers of action agree on that preventive and global scheme, in which each one plays a role in view of a mission entrusted to the others. Thus, the relations of the municipalities with other public entities can only be carried out on a plane of equality, resulting in agreed forms of coordination, excluding any imperative form to the detriment of their autonomy, that would allow subjecting the corporate entities to a coordination scheme without their will or against it (…). The defined relationship of cooperation has been understood by the Sala Constitucional, which has repeatedly indicated that for the projects of the different public institutions to be carried out, it must be done with respect for the legal system: first, the norms of constitutional rank, and then, those of legal and regulatory rank, in such a way that, for the Poder Ejecutivo or other public entities to carry out projects of their initiative in a given locality, they must have the respective municipal permits and licenses, if applicable, as indicated in amparo judgment number 02231-96, transcribed, in what is relevant, in Considerando VIII of this judgment. This obligation of coordination between State institutions and municipalities is implicit in the Constitución Política itself (….) as indicated in judgment number 2311-95, supra cited; by which, it is being said that there must be a due and mandatory coordination between the State and the local corporate entities, thus fulfilling what is ordered by this provision, without this implying an invasion of municipal autonomy. Likewise, the Chamber considers that in matters of urban planning, that same relationship of coordination must occur, even when it has been defined—by constitutional provision—that urban planning is the competence of local governments, it should be ordered in accordance with the directives and general guidelines of the National Urban Plan prepared by the Poder Ejecutivo (at the proposal of the Dirección de Urbanismo of the INVU and the Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica) and integrated into the National Development Plan referred to by the Ley de Planificación Nacional, on the understanding that that Plan must be approved by an ordinary law (…).

In the same judgment, the Tribunal Constitucional held the following regarding the observance of the content of regulatory plans by public entities:

"….the regulation of the circulation of vehicles, persons, and livestock on the roads, of gas stations and public parking lots, the definition of road safety, its financing, payment of taxes, fines, and traffic rights, and matters referring to the ownership of motor vehicles (Article 1 of the Ley de Tránsito por Vías Públicas Terrestres) are specific tasks that derive from the general regulation of public roads, which by their nature are national, not local (municipal) topics, and consequently correspond to the Poder Ejecutivo to carry out their regulation; so that it is the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes who dictates and executes the regulation concerning concessions for paid public transportation of persons, defines the location of bus stops, and the signage of public roads, for example. However, in accordance with what is indicated in Considerando X of this judgment, this is a task that the MOPT must develop in coordination with local functions, in the terms indicated in the challenged norm and in what is provided in the analyzed Article 5 of the repealed Código Municipal and Article 7 of the new legal text, so that when the regulation of public roads is dictated, it must be done respecting the local legal system, which is equivalent, in this matter, to it being done in accordance with the regulatory plans dictated by the municipalities for their territorial jurisdiction where they exist, or in coordination with them to resolve what best suits, in jurisdictions where regulatory plans do not exist. (emphasis not in the original).

Thus, it could not be sustained that by provision of Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones, any public entity can enter the territory of the local government and, without coordinating with it, begin to carry out buildings or install structures that—as unfortunately often happens—even destroy some local works, as is the case of the cantonal road network. The principle of coordination, as a derivative of the constitutional one of efficiency of public action (Articles 140, subsection 8, 139, subsection 4, and 191, all of the Carta Suprema), obligates the different public entities—including the central government—to communicate to the local governments that they will begin—or have finished—a work within their territory and that they have the standard authorization of the Dirección de Obras for it; this is so that the municipalities can comply with the mission that the legislator has entrusted to them of controlling public urban planning activity within their territory. It goes without saying that this implies the exercise of their police power in the event that it is deemed that what was authorized infringes the current urban planning norms.

X).- THE SUBMISSION OF PUBLIC ENTITIES TO THE ESTABLISHED NORMS AND PROCEDURES:

It is an essential principle of every Rule of Law that public entities are subject to the current legal norms (principle of legality), without being able to singularly disapply them. The urban transformation activity undertaken by public entities is subject to the block of legality – e.g., compliance with Law 7600, Ley de Patrimonio Arquitectónico, Ley Orgánica del Ambiente, etc. This subjection includes—among others—compliance with the zoning established in the land management plans, which they cannot ignore nor disapply, without violating the current framework of legality and constitutionality, insofar as when dictating norms on zoning, local governments make use of a constitutional power that the remaining public entities cannot ignore or disrespect, especially when it involves the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and the right to property of the canton's neighbors, to whom zoning guarantees not only enjoying their urban environment in accordance with the uses and other conditions established in the urban planning norms, but also that urban property—subject to limitations—will maintain its basic statute. The Tribunal Constitucional pronounced in a similar sense in Voto No. 2009-95 of 10:30 a.m. on April 21, 1995, when analyzing the binding nature of the Asamblea Legislativa to a legal norm it had previously dictated to create new cantons. On that occasion, that high Tribunal indicated that the principle of binding nature of public entities to the established legal procedures is of constitutional rank; consequently—it held—it is forbidden to disregard them even for the same organ that created them. In this regard, the Tribunal Constitucional indicated:

"V.- LEY SOBRE DIVISION TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATIVA (No. 4366 of August 19, 1969).- It is this law, precisely, that the Poder Legislativo has issued to regulate the creation of new cantons. It is necessary to point out that when the Constitución Política sets forth in the final paragraph of Article 168 that the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of all members of the Asamblea Legislativa is required for the creation of a canton, it gives a clear idea of the importance that the original constituent gave to territorial integrity and to all matters related to the territorial subdivision of the Provinces. In the judgment of the Chamber, the general principle of Law that establishes that legal norms bind even the authority that has issued them and, within their competence, their superior, implies that the law that disciplines the functioning of the Asamblea Legislativa for the exercise of a competence that is also constitutional binds it in the specific cases in which it must exercise it, which is nothing more than the application of the general principle of singular non-derogability of the norm for the specific case; a general principle of constitutional rank, as it is applicable to the entirety of the legal system, as a derivation and at the same time a condition of the Rule of Law in its entirety. All of which means, in relation to the present matter, that for the creation of a new municipal territorial entity, the Asamblea Legislativa must observe the law it has issued for such purpose, without prejudice, of course, to its power to repeal or reform it prior to its exercise." (emphasis not in the original).

In accordance with the principle of obligatory nature of legal norms, even for the authority that has issued them, the norms on zoning—and similar ones—are not disposable, not even for the local government that has adopted them, to which it is subject in the first order, and, should it wish to modify them, it must submit to the procedure legally established by the Ley de Planificación Urbana. For all the more reason, no public entity is excluded from the urban planning control that local governments exercise within their territory, which is clearly provided for in the law. Consequently, as indicated by Article 58 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana:

"the municipalities shall not permit construction works: 1) when they do not conform by reason of use, setbacks, coverage (cobertura), and other zoning conditions (...)".

XI).- ON THE FISCAL EXEMPTION: The Procuraduría General de la República is correct in indicating that public entities are exempt from the construction tax (impuesto de construcciones) established by Article 70 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, at a rate of up to 1% on the value of the constructions. The local Government and the Autonomous Institutions enjoy such exemption "whenever the works are of social interest" or are "medical-social assistance or educational" institutions, as is the case of the IAFA examined here. Now then, the tax exemption does not entail, as has been set forth, the non-application of the urban planning norms by the exonerated public entities.

XII).- ON THE ALLEGED COMPLIANCE WITH AN ORDER OF THE TRIBUNAL CONSTITUCIONAL:

The authorities of the IAFA have been stating that the construction of the detoxification center for minors addicted to drugs was done in compliance with an order from the Sala Constitucional—Voto N° 05871-2005—; however, the Tribunal must indicate, after a meticulous review of the cited judgment, that what the Sala Constitucional ordered regarding the need to create a center of this nature does not entail—not even remotely—the affectation of the neighbors' right to property due to the non-application of the urban planning system. At no time did the Tribunal Constitucional indicate the place where such a center had to be built, which should have been done on a site compatible with the zoning established by the local government. It is not possible to realize the process of urban planning and management to which the Ley de Planificación Urbana has aspired since 1968, if public entities are allowed to disapply and disrespect—throughout the territory—norms of public order.

XIII).- COROLLARY:

As in this case a work was erected in the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca, disregarding the local zoning rules, this Tribunal, in the exercise of the constitutional function of legality control entrusted to it by Article 173, second paragraph of the Carta Magna, must annul the contested agreement that has been issued based on opinion N-341-2007 of the Procuraduría General de la República.

POR TANTO:

The appealed agreement is annulled. The administrative route is deemed exhausted.- Nombre625

I. Rocío Rojas Morales Grace Loaiza Sánchez

Asociación vecinos de Dirección1511 organizado c/ Municipalidad de Montes de Oca.

Nombre35676 This Court, as improper hierarchical superior, hears the appeal filed by Helio Fallas Venegas, of legal age, with identification number CED59583, resident of Montes de Oca, and Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, against the agreement adopted by the Municipal Council of Montes de Oca in session No. 79/2007, Article 5.1, Item No. 6 of October 29, 2007, which ordered—as relevant—to declare "...without merit the appeal filed against the ruling of the Mayor in which the appeal for reconsideration (recurso de revocatoria) filed by IAFA is granted, and to order the lifting of the closure order since there was no aspect of legality that could lead us to revoke the appealed ruling. All without prejudice to noting that this Municipal Council does not share the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República...". Dr. Francisco Gólcher Valverde, of legal age, single, psychiatrist, resident of La Uruca, with identification number CED77481, in his capacity as President of the Board of Directors of the Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia, participates in this appeal process as the interested third party in this appeal proceeding.

Drafted by Judge Rojas Morales, and:

**CONSIDERANDO:** **I).- PROVEN FACTS:** For a correct resolution of this matter, the following is considered proven: **1)** That on **August 9, 2007**, the Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia (hereinafter IAFA) requested from the Municipality of Montes de Oca a certificate of compliant land use (certificado de uso conforme del suelo) to construct a 2,400-square-meter building that would be dedicated to the treatment of addictions. **On the 13th of that same month and year**, the Director of Planning and Urbanism and the land use technician of the local commune certified the **non-compatible use** of the cited project with the local **Plan Regulador**, which classifies the referred area as predominantly residential use in which constructions exceeding an area of 500 meters cannot be erected (folios 62, 63, 64); **2)** By **official communication CU-e-1400-09-2007 of September 12, 2007**, the Urban Control Coordinator ordered the following: **a-** the closure of the project initiated *"without municipal approval"*; **b.-** the elimination of works invading municipal setbacks, which are those located outside the official construction line indicated by the Topography Department; **c.-** to warn the IAFA representative to obtain the construction license (licencia de construcción) from the Municipality of Montes de Oca prior to carrying out any construction work (folio 67, 68); **3)** By **official communication CU-e-1401-09-2007 of September 12, 2007**, the Director of Urban Planning and the Urban Control Coordinator of the Municipality informed the IAFA representatives that the construction in question is not excluded from the municipal license procedure and that the closure of the works ordered in the previous communication is maintained (folios 69 to 71); **4)** On **September 17, 2007**, the President of the Board of Directors of the IAFA **filed an appeal for reconsideration with subsidiary appeal (recurso de revocatoria con apelación en subsidio) against official communications** CU-e-1400-09-2007 and CU-e-1401-09-2007 (folios 33 and 47); **5)** On **September 19, 2005**, a group of residents of Dirección1511 addressed a communication to the local government in which they state *"we emphatically oppose"* the construction of the referenced center in a residential neighborhood, as established by the Plan Regulador (folio 97, 99); **6)** On **September 21, 2007**, the then Minister of Housing, Fernando Zumbado Jiménez, informed the Mayor of Montes de Oca that in session No. 3 of the Consejo del Sector Social y Lucha contra la Pobreza (Council of the Social Sector and Fight Against Poverty) of September 19, 2007, a motion was approved stating: *"It is agreed to support the construction of the Centro Nacional de Tratamiento para niños niñas y adolescentes con dependencia de drogas, en condiciones de vulnerabilidad" a process that has been halted by the Municipality of Montes de Oca,"* requesting a favorable resolution for the continuation of the project (official communication DM-979-09-07 from folio 109); **7)** By official communication D.ALC.1024-2007, dated **September 20, 2007**, the Mayor of Montes de Oca consulted the Procuraduría General de la República on the following: *“**1)** Whether the exception established in article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones number 833—of not needing a municipal license—also exempts from the requirement of having a Certificado de Uso de Suelo Conforme, as required by article 28 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana**?**; **2) Is** the Central Government of the Republic and its Institutions exempt from complying with the local regulations of Planes Reguladores?, if so, What is the scope of the legal powers granted to the Municipalities in this matter and especially the principle of Municipal Autonomy**?**; **3) "Is** it legally possible for the Central Government of the Republic and its institutions to construct a work or building, even against what is established by the Zoning Regulations of the current Planes Reguladores**?**"* (folio 11 to 115); **8) By Opinion C-341-2007 of September 26, 2007**, the Deputy Procuradora Andrea Calderón Gassmann, with authorization from the Procuradora General de la República, responds to the consultation in the following terms: *"**Conclusions**. Based on the foregoing, this Procuraduría General concludes that: **1.-** Pursuant to numeral 75 of the Ley de Construcciones, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction license for public buildings; **2.-** According to the same numeral, decentralized entities are also exempt, provided that the built works are supervised by the competent body within the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes; **3.-** municipal land use certificates (certificados de uso de suelo) have strictly declaratory effects and do not create, extinguish, or modify legal situations. They do not produce the effects of a municipal license; **4.-** In administrative and constitutional jurisprudence, the land use certificate is conceptualized as a prerequisite for obtaining a municipal authorization that does have a constitutive character, for example, a construction license or a business license (patente). **5.-** Ergo, if the State is not subject to the obligation to request a local construction license from the municipality, it should also not be required to request a land use certificate, given that the latter makes sense precisely when the Municipality must grant a construction license, since it is conceived as one of the requirements to assess within the procedure involving obtaining said license. The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement specific to a power that, in that particular case of exception, the Municipal Government cannot exercise; **6.-** The power of urban planning is a function inherent to the Municipality, as it forms part of the concept framed by 'local services and interests'; **7.-** In exercising its powers regarding urban planning, the Municipality is subject to the law; **8.-** The exemption in favor of the State that releases it from the obligation to obtain a construction license has a legal basis, and therefore forms part of the legal framework that every municipality must respect when exercising its powers regarding urban planning." (folio 125 to 144); **9).-** By ruling D.ALC. 157-2007 at 1:00 p.m. on **September 28, 2007, the Mayor's Office resolved** the appeal filed by the IAFA representatives as follows: *"In accordance with the legal grounds set forth, and the criteria C-341-2007 of the Procuraduría General de la República, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction license for public buildings and land use, IT IS ORDERED TO SET ASIDE THE CLOSURE ORDER. The Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia may continue with the development of the works. The appellant is warned that although they do not need land use or a construction license, they do have the duty to inform the respective Municipality and coordinate with it, with due advance notice, the works and projects they intend to carry out in the Canton of Montes de Oca."*; **10)** The President of the Committee of Residents of Barrio Roosevelt Organizado and the President of the Asociación Roosevelt filed an appeal against the previous ruling (folio 154, 155, 157); **11)** **The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca in its ordinary session No. 79/2007, Article No. 5.1, Item No. 6 of October 29, 2007**, ordered to declare *"...without merit the appeal filed against the ruling of the Mayor in which the appeal for reconsideration (recurso de revocatoria) filed by IAFA is granted, and to order the lifting of the closure order since there was no aspect of legality that could lead us to revoke the appealed ruling. All without prejudice to noting that this Municipal Council does not share the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República"* (folios 168, 174); **12).-** Against the previous ruling, the residents of Dirección1511 filed appeals for reconsideration with subsidiary appeal (recurso de revocatoria con apelación en subsidio) (folio 175, 176); **13) The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, in ordinary session No. 83/2007, Article No. 10, Item No. 3 of November 26, 2007, agreed:** *"To reject and declare without merit in all its aspects the appeal for reconsideration (recurso de revocatoria) filed by Mr. Helio Fallas Venegas and Mrs. Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, residents of Barrio Roosevelt, against the agreement of article 5.1 item 6 of Ordinary Session No. 79-2007 of the Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, held on October 29, 2007, finding it in accordance with the law. The subsidiary appeal (recurso de apelación en subsidio) being timely and in proper form, it is admitted before the Third Section of the Superior Contentious-Administrative Tribunal of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José...",* an articulation by virtue of which this Court hears this matter (folios 160, 162).

**II).- UNPROVEN FACTS:** **1)** That the Dirección de Obras of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes has authorized the detoxification project for minors in Barrio Roosevelt of the IAFA, after prior verification of compliance with current urban planning requirements (there is no evidence on this point); **2)** That the Sala Constitucional has ordered the construction of a center for the detoxification of minors in a residential area of the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca (the Director of the IAFA did not prove that statement); **3)** That the detoxification center for minors built in Barrio Roosevelt complies with local and national urban planning regulations (the conformity of the work with the local Plan Regulador was not proven in the appeal proceeding. The Court verified in the corresponding judicial inspection that the facilities lack the requirements demanded by Law 7600).

**III).- SUBJECT OF THE APPEAL:** The appellants indicate that the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República does not entail the non-application of the Plan Regulador, which cannot be ignored under any concept. The Municipality is bound by the Law, which grants local governments the competence to issue Planes Reguladores and development regulations, without exempting anyone from their observance (articles 15 and following). Along these lines, numeral 57 states that construction works cannot be executed contrary to the provisions of that law, and article 58 of the same regulatory body establishes that municipalities cannot permit works that do not respect land-use regulations. Regarding article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones, it is clear that State institutions are exempted from the corresponding permit, not from compliance with the Plan Regulador, nor its development regulations. In any case, for such exemption to apply, the construction works must be under the *"supervision"* of the MOPT, and in the specific case of the IAFA, the work is being carried out by a consulting firm. The appellant party adds that article 87 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana obliges the Municipality to monitor compliance with urban development provisions, while numeral 88 ibidem obliges the closure of works that contravene the legal system. In sum, no public entity is exempt from complying with the Plan Regulador, and the appellants understand that the opinion of the Procuraduría General de la República that serves as the basis for adopting the challenged administrative act has not said so. The correct conclusion is that an exemption from a construction permit CANNOT lead to a license—authorization—to set aside the local Plan Regulador. The local government cannot give the green light to a work that departs from the lawful use of the canton, which causes serious harm to the residents.

**IV).- SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS BY THIS COURT:** In the present case, the obligation of public entities to comply with local planning is discussed, as well as the current content and scope of numeral 75 of the Ley de Construcciones. To resolve the claims raised by the appellants, the local government decided to consult the Procuraduría General de la República on the matter, and that body processed the request in opinion number C-341-2007, which binds the consulting party, in the terms provided by its Organic Law, but not this Court as a biphasic improper hierarchical superior, which exercises a **constitutional function** when examining the legality of the agreement of the Municipal Council (article 173 of the Political Constitution); an analysis that in this specific case covers the cited opinion, insofar as it serves as the basis for the adoption of the challenged act.

**V) ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 75 OF THE LEY DE CONSTRUCCIONES:** It is important to point out, first of all, that the Ley de Construcciones, Decree-Law No. 833, enacted on **November 4, 1949**, recognized—even *before* the enactment of the current Constitution—the competence of local governments in matters of urban planning. This is clearly extracted from numeral 1 of that regulatory body, which literally states: *"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 lands**, without prejudice to the powers that laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies."* (emphasis added by the Court).

In the same vein, numeral 2 of the cited regulatory body provided for the subjection of all urban development activity to the provisions of local governments in this matter, which it qualified as *"regulations"* and which later—in 1968—the Ley de Planificación Urbana would call *"Planes Reguladores"* of the land. Article 2 of the Ley de Construcciones prescribes: *"This law applies throughout the Republic. **No Building, structure, or element thereof shall be constructed,** adapted, or repaired in the future, **unless it is under the conditions that the respective Regulations indicate.** No demolitions or excavations shall be made on private property, nor shall public thoroughfares be occupied, nor works carried out in them, without complying with the provisions of said Regulations."* (emphasis added by the Court).

In full agreement with the previous provision, numeral 87 of the cited law states that local governments shall exercise oversight over the works executed in their jurisdiction, including among the aspects to control *"the use given to it"*; as well as compliance with other urban planning provisions.

The Tribunal considers that this control—while Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) is in force—is subsequent, “ex post,” given that—as will be analyzed later—the initial “ex ante” authorization corresponds to the Directorate of Works (Dirección de Obras) of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes).

In the same line as the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law, Article 169 of the Political Constitution (Carta Política), which was enacted on November 7, 1949 (a few days after that Decree-Law), recognized full autonomy (plena autonomía) for local governments within their jurisdiction, which involves the regulatory power over the local urban environment, which is part of the "defense of local interests," as clearly stated by the Constitutional Court in ruling number 6706-93 at 3:21 p.m. on December 21, 1993, and as admitted by the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) itself in Consultation No. C-341-2007, which has served as the basis for the challenged agreement.

Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) very clearly establishes that public buildings—constructed by the central government—as well as those buildings carried out by "other minor entities," will not require a "municipal license (licencia municipal)," subjecting the exclusion from municipal control to the condition that they be "authorized and supervised" by the Directorate of Public Works (Dirección de Obras Públicas). The cited article literally states:

"Public buildings, that is, buildings constructed by the Government of the Republic, do not need a municipal license. Nor do buildings constructed by other State dependencies need one, provided they are authorized and supervised by the Directorate of Public Works (Dirección de Obras Públicas)." (emphasis not in the original).

The Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) stated—in the cited opinion—which in turn refers to what was said in Opinion No. C-192-1995 of September 5, 1995, the following: "that is, in accordance with Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), the State should not require a municipal license to execute the pertinent works for the construction of its buildings. As has been underscored in legal opinion OJ-106-2002 of June 24, 2002, this is a subjective exemption that operates solely and exclusively in favor of the State and its institutions." The consulted body maintains that the dispensation from the license enshrined in Article 75 of the Decree-Law of Constructions is due to the existence of a "subjective exemption" established by the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana); however, for the Tribunal, it is not possible to reach that conclusion based on the current regulatory framework. Indeed, the 1% tax on constructions, as well as the tax exemption for entities and bodies that construct public works of "social interest," is established in our legal system in Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) No. 4240 of November 15, 1968, and not before. That is, the tax on constructions and the corresponding tax exemption were created in Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), that is, nineteen years after the enactment of Decree-Law No. 833 of 1949.

In the present matter, it is not under discussion whether the works built by public institutions of "social interest" enjoy or do not enjoy a tax exemption. What is under discussion—and this is how the consultation was posed to the advisory body of the Municipality—is whether Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones)—applied in the year 2008, the date of the consultation—prevents the Municipality from exercising its police power in urban planning matters. To address this point, the Attorney General's Office introduces the topic of the "certificate of land use (certificado de uso de suelo)," indicating to the local government of Montes de Oca that this certificate, as an institution of Urban Planning Law, "...is enforceable and makes sense insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction license, given that it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure that entails obtaining said license. Ergo, if in a specific case—provided for by law—the State and its institutions are exempt from requiring a license from the municipality to construct a public building, it is not logical to require the interested entity to obtain a certificate of land use (certificado de uso del suelo). The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement inherent to a power that, in this particular case of exemption, the Municipal Government cannot exercise. In the case at hand, it is clear that Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) establishes that the construction of public buildings is not subject to the control power that the law grants to municipalities in matters of urban zoning by way of the construction license, and therefore, to all the requirements that obtaining such a license entails." —emphasis not in the original.

Without entering here into an analysis of the potential subsequent unconstitutionality of Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) (see Ruling No. 5445-99 of the Constitutional Chamber), since that does not correspond to this Tribunal, it is true that this collegiate body, in application of the criteria of legal hermeneutics generally accepted by doctrine and jurisprudence, must depart from the conclusions reached by the cited advisory body, as set forth below.

VI.- ON THE CONCEPT OF LICENSE AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF “EX ANTE” CONTROL IN THE CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY OF PUBLIC ENTITIES: By virtue of the fact that Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) exempts some public institutions from obtaining the municipal license, it is essential to unravel the meaning of what is exempted by the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law. The license is an authorization to carry out a specific activity. It has been defined as "… one of the typical examples of an act consisting of an administrative authorization and, more specifically, a prior verification act. Thus, through the urban planning license, the Administration verifies that the intended urban planning activity can be authorized, because the requesting subject has fulfilled the duties or requirements enforceable by the legal system" (Diccionario Jurídico Espasa. Editorial Espasa Calve S.A. Madrid, 2001, p.914).

It is clear to the Tribunal that Article 75 of Decree-Law No. 833 exempts—year 1949—the public entities cited therein (Central Government and other minor bodies) from the preventive “ex ante” authorization carried out by local governments when they grant a license to erect a specific construction, an authorization that—it is worth noting—both the Political Constitution and the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) later entrusted to local governments. However, Article 75—the Tribunal understands—did not exclude public entities from the initial control over their buildings; it simply transferred it to the Directorate of Works (Dirección de Obras) of the MOPT, which was tasked with the function of "authorizing" those projects and "supervising" their execution. From the foregoing, it follows that Law No. 833 did not exempt the constructions of public institutions from prior urban planning control; it simply transferred it to a specific body of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes), such as the Directorate of Works (Dirección de Obras), which currently has a specialized department for that purpose called the "Directorate of National Buildings (Dirección de Edificaciones Nacionales)," an administrative body that, in a correct application of the same Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), would have to, prior to authorizing a construction project, verify that the building presented to it for prior authorization conforms to the legal provisions in force, whether these are local—contained in regulatory plans (planes reguladores)—or national—e.g., the certificate of environmental viability required by the Organic Environmental Law (Ley Orgánica del Ambiente), Law 7600 regarding access for persons with disabilities, the architectural heritage law regarding facades and structure characteristics, the certificate of land use (certificado de uso de suelo), placement of hydrants, etc.—.

The Tribunal must note that the binding of public entities to technical studies and certificates is not new; quite the contrary, it was created to oblige those entities to adhere to their contents, and it was much later that such a requirement was extended to private individuals. The first legislation that established the need for the "environmental assessment (evaluación ambiental)" as a technical study was the American National Environmental Policy Act in 1969. The law required an environmental statement or report to undertake any public project, including the preparation of policies, plans, and programs that, in their development, could significantly affect the environment. In Europe, in 1985, Directive 85/337/EEC of June 27, 1985, was approved, requiring the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Subsequently, the field of application of these studies was broadened to apply to all plans and programs of the States, which was established in Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 27, 2001.

As national jurisprudence has repeatedly held, urban planning matters constitute the non-green—gray—part of environmental law, making the binding nature of its institutes for subjects of public and private law undeniable, consequently (on this topic, one may consult from the Constitutional Chamber ruling No. 2003-03656 of May 7, 2003, from the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice No. 000507 of June 17, 2004, and from this same section of the Tribunal, No. 176-2009 of January 30, 2009).

By force of the principle of legality and the hermetic plenitude of the legal system, only when the legally enforceable urban planning requirements have been fulfilled could the Directorate General of Public Works (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) "authorize" a specific public project, for it goes without saying that the "authorization" entails the prior control that the law entrusted to it. Article 2 of Law No. 833 very clearly states:

"This law applies throughout the entire Republic. No building, (without distinguishing whether public or private) structure, or element thereof shall be constructed, adopted, or repaired, in the future, except under the conditions that the respective regulations specify." (the emphasis and the clarification introduced are not from the original).

Within the same line of control, Article 86 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) falls, which, in a subsequent addition—by Law No. 8641 of June 11, 2008—entrusted the control over the installation of hydrants to Municipal entities, it being evident, in a systematic interpretation of the norm, that beforehand, the Directorate of Works (Dirección de Obras) must verify that those provisions are complied with, and that what is foreseen in the norm, under the charge of the local commune, is a subsequent control that authorizes it, of course, to exercise its urban police power to reestablish the principle of legality within its territory. Provision 87 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), in its current version, states textually:

"Article 87.- The municipality shall exercise supervision over the works executed in its jurisdiction, as well as over the use given to them. Furthermore, it shall have the mission of supervising the observance of the precepts of this law.

The developer, the entity, or the promoting company of public or private works that construct new urbanizations, shopping centers, multi-family buildings, constructions subject to the horizontal property regime, industry and commerce, as well as any other building, shall be responsible for installing hydrants, in accordance with the respective legal system. This provision only applies in cases of buildings whose construction area exceeds 2000 square meters, provided there are no nearby hydrants, according to the parameters set forth in the current regulations.

The municipalities must verify, in the projects or buildings indicated in the preceding paragraph, that the hydrants are duly installed and connected to their sources." Fulfillment of this requirement <span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:12pt; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">shall be mandatory</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:12pt; font-style:italic\"> for operating permits, operation permits, or </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:12pt; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">acceptance of works</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:12pt; font-style:italic\">.” </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:12pt\">(emphasis by the Court)</span><span> </span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> It was not then—in the year 1949—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> and it is not now—2009—a discretionary power of the Dirección de Obras to exempt public entities from compliance with the urban planning regulations in force, that body having the duty to monitor—preventively—that those regulations are complied with by public entities in their building activity; otherwise, that body would have to</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> deny the authorization</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> for the work, since the control by the local government over what is built, within the limits of its territory, does not disappear by virtue of the shift that the law has ordered of the preventive control to the Dirección de Obras.</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Now, the</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> "monitoring" function that the law</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> entrusts</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> to the Dirección de Obras</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> is not limited to the initial authorization, but rather implies controlling that what is executed conforms to what was</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> authorized by it.</span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> It must not be lost sight of that the law under examination is of a pre-constitutional nature and that it is, subsequently, with the enactment of the Constitution of 1949—barely a few days later—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> that</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">autonomy </span><span>was granted to local governments, which entails—in consideration of the local interest they defend—granting them competence to</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> issue urban planning regulations</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> within their territory that must be complied with by subjects of</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> public and private law. </span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> A correct interpretation of Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones cannot lead us to affirm that—as the Procuraduría indicates in its opinion—the exemption from the license entails the disapplication for public entities of the</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> public-order urban planning regulations issued by local governments. The exemption, being exceptional and privileged, does not constitute a disapplication of the rest of the legal system. It suffices to indicate that public entities are subject to the</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> constitutional principle</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> —which we will develop later—that </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">legal norms bind even those who issued them</span><span>,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> a principle that is a clear derivative of the legality and reasonableness of the law. For this reason, the urban planning regulations that the </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">public authority has issued, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, </span><span>are of mandatory observance for all public entities—including, of course, the local governments themselves—without being able to singularly disregard them. Otherwise, one could reach the absurdity of permitting the construction of hazardous</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> public facilities in natural protection zones;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the siting of a prison or an airport in a residential zone, or</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the erection of a modern and excessively tall building next to a building declared a historical-architectural heritage site, preventing, by its characteristics, the contemplation and enjoyment that such a declaration guarantees. In the same vein, a public property could not be declared uninhabitable either, despite the ruinous condition it may have, which would impede urban renewal and,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> above all, the protection of the city's environment. By the exclusionary approach proposed by the Procuraduría, all urban planning and city growth would be at the mercy of public entities, which could thus empty</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> of their essential content</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> fundamental rights such as health, the enjoyment of a healthy and balanced environment, the right to</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> property,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> etc.</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> The Court does not ignore the service-oriented vocation of public entities and the need to erect buildings that facilitate the fulfillment of their</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> legal purposes. Without a doubt, the construction activity</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> of the State—in a broad sense—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> is</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> of the highest public interest; however, the legal purposes they pursue cannot be achieved against the regulations established by legal norms, nor by disrespecting the constitutional powers of local governments, whose urban planning regulations—of a technical nature—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> also have</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">the legitimacy</span><span> of citizen participation in the process of drafting regulatory plans (Article 17</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> of the Ley de Planificación Urbana).</span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> VII.- MODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM: LEY DE PLANIFICACIÓN URBANA.</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> The</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Ley de Planificación Urbana</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> (</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">enacted</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> in 1968</span><span>) introduces—as a novelty for the time—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the so-called </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)</span><span>. Article 28 of that regulatory body provides the following:</span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 42.6pt 0pt 24.85pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">"It is forbidden to use or dedicate land, buildings, or structures </span><span>(public or private)</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> </span><span style=\"font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">to any use that is incompatible with the established zoning.</span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 42.6pt 0pt 24.85pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> Hereafter, </span><span style=\"font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">interested owners</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> must obtain </span><span style=\"font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">a municipal certificate</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> certifying </span><span style=\"font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">the conformity </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">of the use with the zoning requirements. Existing </span><span style=\"font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">non-conforming </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">uses shall also be recorded by means of a certificate expressing such circumstance</span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 42.6pt 0pt 24.85pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> Each zoning regulation shall set the date from which such certificates will be mandatory</span><span>".(emphasis is not from the original).</span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-right:2.55pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) is an instrument of urban planning law in which</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the zoning established in the Regulatory Plan is recorded. In</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> some</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> countries,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> as is the case in</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Spain</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> ( </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:14pt\">Ley del Suelo</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:14pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:14pt\"> Nº 8/2007 of May 28</span><span>), this instrument does not exist, which is why the urban planning administration controls zoning compliance when issuing the corresponding license. The situation is different in Costa Rica, where the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) has an </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">autonomous</span><span> existence, inasmuch as it is a requirement not only for erecting a building, but also for changing the use of an already</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> erected one and authorizing certain activities in it. The autonomy of the land-use certificate from the license was established with complete clarity in Constitutional Chamber ruling Voto 4336-99 of July 4, 1999, which stated:</span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 94.7pt 0pt 28.35pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">“(…)the meaning of the cited norms is evident: the issuance of the land-use certificate cannot be equated to a construction permit, since its value is confined to defining the intended use (vocación) of the property within the current general plan…”</span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-right:42.6pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Given the importance of the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) in our legislation, which is precisely the one that</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> in the</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> case under examination has been violated, this collegiate body deems it essential to examine the</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> legislative file N° 2085 that corresponded to the process of</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the Ley de Planificación Urbana (Ley N° 4240), which will allow certifying, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the exemption from the license—by the Ley de Construcciones—does not entail the disregard of local zoning, nor does it exempt public entities from complying with the aforementioned certificate. In the minutes</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Acta N° 17—extraordinary session of the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos de Gobierno y Administración on June 7, 1966—,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> the content of the bill—prepared by the INVU—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> was discussed and, in relation</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> to the LAND-USE certificate the following was expressed:</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 31.95pt 0pt 24.85pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">"...The law seeks to create, within a series of existing laws,</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> somewhat disconnected, sometimes unclear </span><span>(referring to the urban planning regulations existing at that time)</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">, sufficient powers, so that the </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">Municipalities </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">are authorized to plan cities and to apply this plan as the city develops. The fundamental </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">powers </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">included are the following: </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">1)</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> Power to </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">zone</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> the city, this means designating the different areas of the city, in order to avoid conflicts between uses that are incompatible. One might believe that this type of control originated in the State's zeal, that is not so, </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">zoning historically arose in England, the United States, and Germany,</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> as a movement of citizens who, having made investments in residences, were adversely affected, following the development of neighbors who installed industries, or noisy businesses, and </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">then the principle emerged</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\"> that the right to property includes the right to protect one's own property from incompatible uses,</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> by third parties, that is, property has a social function. This aspect is what is least clearly established in our legislation, although the Ley de Construcciones says that municipalities</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> may deny or refuse permits, in accordance with certain rules, however, that has been a power that has been applied very little. That is why we propose clear, simple legislation, on the possibility for the INVU and the municipalities to zone cities, in areas of different uses...\". (emphasis by the Court) </span></p><p style=\"margin-top:0pt; margin-left:3.55pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Regarding urban zoning, in</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> Acta N° 56 of the extraordinary session of the same Comisión</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> on September 30, 1966, the intervention of Ingeniero Nombre101457—one of the drafters of the bill—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> reads as follows:</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> </span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 39.05pt 0pt 24.85pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:14pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-style:italic\">"Chapter II, of section II, goes into more detail on the urban development regulations: there are basically five; first, zoning, then urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento), then the official map of reserves of areas for public use. Housing and urban renewal and construction. In quick terms, </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">zoning is about dividing the city into zones of different uses,</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> commercial, industrial, residential,</span><span> </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">public use,</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> and there may be special zones, for example, slum areas that one wishes to control to improve, they can be classified as improvement areas</span><span> (.</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">..) zoning in our country, we do not want, as a philosophy, to make it too rigid to avoid reactions that could be inconvenient; but it is </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">obvious that there must be instruments, to be able to prevent</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> ,—something that has not yet been possible—</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> in reality, </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">the mixing of uses that are truly incompatible. </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">Just as a residence, which has been the effort of many years of a person, has the right to be protected, from having something noisy, annoying, or something that produces bad odors placed next to it, like an industry, it also has the right to be protected from having dwellings built in its vicinity that will later complain that this bothers them. There must be a logical, reasonable separation of incompatible uses (...) The right to property</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> —and here we are on the social function of it—, is the right to reasonable use of property, but not to the detriment of the property of others (...) in the law, the Ley de Construcciones, there exists a generic power that says</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> that municipalities may deny or refuse construction permits in accordance with planning rules, but the law is not clear as to what it can regulate. This bill does say so\" (legislative file N° 2085. The emphasis is not from the original).</span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 3.55pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span>&#xa0;</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo),</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> </span><span>&#xa0;</span><span>can be </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">"conforming (conforme)",</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\"> "non-conforming (no conforme)" or "non-compatible (no compatible)"</span><span>.</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> There is conformity when the use conforms to the zoning norms. The use is "</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">non-conforming (no conforme)"</span><span> when, despite being contrary to the zoning, there is a consolidated use pre-dating the zoning norm, in which case the legislation chooses to respect</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> acquired rights. Finally, we have a "</span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">non-compatible use (uso no compatible)" </span><span>when the new construction does not conform to the established zoning, as happens in the case under examination.</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> When local governments issue the </span><span style=\"font-style:italic\">"land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)",</span><span> they verify the viability of a new construction with local norms and, if it is erected in violation of the latter, they may, in the exercise of their legal control powers,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> use their urban police power to halt the illegal urban planning activity; this even when they have not issued the initial "authorization" for the work,</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> as occurs with public entities. It must not be forgotten that the land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) is an</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> instrument for the protection of the environment</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> </span><span>(right to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment through uses) and</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> of the</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> </span><span>right to property (insofar as it protects real estate investment from incompatible uses)</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">,</span><span> which is precisely what the appellant neighbors have been defending. The </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">statutory content of the right to property</span><span> —widely developed in doctrine—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> implies that the owner of a property (regardless of its nature) can only do what the urban planning norms</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> authorize and that they grant them—in turn—</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> </span><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">the indisputable right</span><span> to develop their property in accordance with</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> what that regulation permits, hence the doctrine and case law hold that the granting of a</span><span>&#xa0;</span><span> license is of a regulated nature, without any margin of administrative discretion in its granting. A building on the land owned by IAFA would have no problem whatsoever if it conformed to the established zoning norms; the problem arises when the building is done against those norms. </span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 3.55pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"font-weight:bold\"> VIII.- OF THE CONTROL POWERS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS:</span><span> </span></p><p style=\"margin:0pt 3.55pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; font-size:18pt; background-color:#ffffff\"><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> As clearly stated in the Ley de Planificación Urbana, it is the responsibility of local governments—in accordance with Article 169 of the Constitución Política—</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-style:italic\">"</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic\">to plan and </span><span style=\"font-weight:bold; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\">control</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-style:italic\"> urban development, within the limits of their territory\"</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> (Article 14 thereof—emphasis by the Court).</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; text-decoration:underline\">Planning</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> is materialized in the issuance of local norms</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> regulating the land and, the </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; text-decoration:underline\">control</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> entails the possibility of exercising the police power in urban planning matters, in the event of non-compliance with</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> the applicable norms regarding building.</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> Now, as has been indicated,</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> Article 75 of the Ley de</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> Construcciones excludes from municipal </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-style:italic\">ex ante </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">control public entities;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> however, this does not imply—the Court insists—that those entities may disregard the urban planning norms in force. It is reiterated that the initial control corresponds to the Dirección de Obras, which it will perform when issuing the corresponding</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> "authorization", which may only be granted in</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> the case of strict conformity with the applicable norms (regulated nature of the license). The shift of the "initial authorization" to the Dirección de Obras, does not prevent</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> the local government—as the Procuraduría erroneously affirms—from exercising its </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-weight:bold\">urban planning control</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> activity within its territory, since Article 169 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana clearly grants local corporations the power to</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-style:italic\">"control urban development"</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">, without such control having been excluded from public buildings. That being the case,</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> local governments may, in the exercise of their police power, order the stoppage of any public work—within their territory—if, despite having been</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> "authorized" by the Dirección de Obras,</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> it is erected</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> in contravention of the</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> urban planning norms in force.</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> The Court understands that,</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> the Dirección de Obras—pursuant to the provisions of</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones—may “authorize”</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> public works indicated therein, which implies, in a correct interpretation,</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> fully exercising the prior control of the project, that is, verifying the</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline\"> </span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">conformity thereof</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\">&#xa0;</span><span style=\"line-height:150%; font-size:16pt\"> with the regulations applicable on the basis of subject matter.</span></p> The State's constructive activity, by virtue of the principle of legality enshrined in numeral 11 of the Political Charter, is not excluded from the duty to submit to the zoning and other regulations established in the regulatory plans (planes reguladores) and, in the development regulations of those plans.

**IX. OF THE NECESSARY INTER-SUBJECTIVE COORDINATION IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS**.

The coordination between the activity of different public subjects seeks, on one hand, to avoid duplication of functions and, on the other, to prevent omissions that harm the current legal order. In this sense, Article 6 of the Municipal Code establishes *"that the municipality and the other organs and entities of the Public Administration shall coordinate their actions. For this purpose, they shall communicate, with due advance notice, the works they project to execute."* The Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional), in judgment No. 5445-99, established the need for coordination between local governments and other public entities; regarding this, said Court pointed out:

*"(...) coordination is the ordering of relations between these various independent activities, which takes charge of that concurrence in a same object or entity, to make it useful for a global public plan, without suppressing the reciprocal independence of the agent subjects. Since there is no hierarchical relationship of the decentralized institutions, nor of the State itself in relation to the municipalities, the imposition of certain conducts upon these is not possible, whereby the essential inter-institutional 'concert' arises, in a strict sense, insofar as the autonomous and independent centers of action agree on that preventive and global scheme, in which each one fulfills a role with a view to a mission entrusted to the others. Thus, the relations of the municipalities with other public entities can only be carried out on a plane of equality, resulting in agreed forms of coordination, with the exclusion of any imperative form to the detriment of their autonomy, which would allow subjecting the corporate entities to a coordination scheme without their will or against it (...). The defined cooperation relationship has been understood by the Constitutional Chamber, which has repeatedly indicated that for the projects of the different public institutions to be carried out, it must be done with respect for the legal system: firstly, constitutional norms, and then, those of legal and regulatory rank, in such a way that, for the Executive Branch (Poder Ejecutivo) or other public entities to carry out projects of their initiative in a determined locality, they must have the respective municipal permits and licenses, if applicable, as indicated in amparo judgment number 02231-96, transcribed, in what is relevant, in Considerando VIII of this judgment. This obligation of coordination between State institutions and the municipalities is implicit in the Political Constitution itself (….) as indicated in judgment number 2311-95, cited above; with which, it is being said that there must exist a due and mandatory coordination between the State and the local corporate entities, thus fulfilling what is ordered by this provision, without this implying an invasion of municipal autonomy. Likewise, the Chamber considers that in matters of urban planning, this same relationship of coordination must occur, even when it has been defined -by constitutional provision- that urban planning is the competence of local governments, it must be ordered in accordance with the general guidelines and directives of the National Urban Plan (Plan Nacional de Urbanismo) elaborated by the Executive Branch (at the proposal of the Urban Planning Directorate of the INVU and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy) and integrated into the National Development Plan referred to by the National Planning Law, on the understanding that this Plan must be approved by an ordinary law (...).*" In the same judgment, the Constitutional Court held the following regarding the observance of the content of regulatory plans by public entities:

*"....the regulation of the movement of vehicles, persons, and livestock on the roads, of gas stations and public parking lots, the definition of road safety, its financing, payment of taxes, fines, and traffic rights, and what refers to the ownership of motor vehicles (Article 1 of the Law of Transit on Public Land Roads) are specific tasks that derive from the general ordering of public roads, which by their nature are national, not local (municipal) issues, and that consequently fall to the Executive Branch to regulate; so that it is the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) that dictates and executes the ordering regarding concessions of remunerated public transportation of persons, defines the location of bus stops, and the signaling of public roads, for example. However, in accordance with what is indicated in Considerando X of this judgment, this is a task that the MOPT must develop in coordination with local functions, in the terms indicated in the challenged norm and in the provisions of the analyzed Article 5 of the repealed Municipal Code and Article 7 of the new legal body, so that when the ordering of public roads is dictated, it must be done respecting the local legal system, which is equivalent in this matter, that it must be done in accordance with the regulatory plans dictated by the municipalities for their territorial jurisdiction where they exist, or in coordination with them to resolve what is most convenient, in jurisdictions where regulatory plans do not exist.* (the highlighting is not from the original).

Thus, it could not be sustained that by provision of numeral 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), any public entity may enter the territory of the local government and, without coordinating with it, begin constructing buildings or installing structures that –as unfortunately frequently happens– even destroy some local works, as is the case of the cantonal road network (red vial cantonal). The principle of coordination, as a derivative of the constitutional principle of **efficiency** of public action (Articles 140, subsection 8, 139, subsection 4, and 191, all of the Supreme Charter), obligates the different public entities –including the central government– to communicate to local governments that they will begin –or have completed– work within their territory and that they have the standard authorization from the Directorate of Works (Dirección de Obras) for this; this is so that the municipalities can fulfill the mission entrusted to them by the legislator of controlling public urban planning activity within their territory. It goes without saying that this implies the exercise of their police power (poder de policía) in the event that what has been authorized is deemed to infringe the current urban planning regulations.

**X).- THE SUBJECTION OF PUBLIC ENTITIES TO THE ESTABLISHED NORMS AND PROCEDURES:** It is an essential principle of every Rule of Law (Estado de Derecho) that public entities are subject to the current legal norms (principle of legality), without being able to singularly disapply (desaplicar) them. The urban transformation activity undertaken by public entities is subject to the legality block (bloque de legalidad) – e.g., compliance with Law 7600, the Architectural Heritage Law (Ley de Patrimonio Arquitectónico), the Organic Environmental Law (Ley Orgánica del Ambiente), etc. –. This subjection includes –among others– compliance with the zoning established in the land-use plans, which they cannot ignore or disapply, without violating the current legality and constitutionality framework, insofar as when dictating zoning norms, local governments make use of a **constitutional competence** that the remaining public entities cannot ignore or disrespect, especially when this involves the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and the property right of the canton's neighbors, to whom the zoning guarantees not only enjoyment of their urban environment in accordance with the uses and other conditions established in the urban planning regulations, but also that urban property –subject to limitations– will maintain its basic statute. In a similar sense, the Constitutional Court pronounced itself in Voto No. 2009-95 of 10:30 hours on April 21, 1995, when analyzing **the binding effect of a legal norm that the Legislative Assembly had previously dictated** for creating new cantons. On that occasion, that high Court indicated that the ***principle of the binding nature of public entities to the established legal procedures***, **is of constitutional rank**, consequently –it held– it is forbidden to disregard them even for the very body that created them. In this regard, the Constitutional Court stated:

*"V.- LAW ON ADMINISTRATIVE TERRITORIAL DIVISION (No. 4366 of August 19, 1969).- It is precisely this law that the Legislative Branch has issued to regulate the creation of new cantons. It is necessary to point out that when the Political Constitution establishes in the final paragraph of Article 168 that the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the total membership of the Legislative Assembly is required for the creation of a canton, it gives a clear idea of the importance that the original constituent gave to territorial integrity and all matters related to the territorial subdivision of the Provinces. In the Chamber's opinion, the general principle of Law that establishes that legal norms bind even the authority that has dictated them and, within its competence, its superior, implies that the law that disciplines the functioning of the Legislative Assembly for the exercise of a competence, also constitutional, binds it in the concrete cases in which it must exercise it, which is nothing other than the application of the general principle of the singular non-derogability of the norm for the specific case; a general principle of constitutional rank, as it is applicable to the totality of the legal system, as a derivation and at the same time a condition of the Rule of Law in its integrity. All of which means, in relation to the present matter, that for the creation of a new municipal territorial entity, the Legislative Assembly must observe the law it has enacted for that purpose, of course, without prejudice to its power to repeal or reform it prior to its exercise."* (the highlighting is not from the original).

In accordance with the principle of mandatory compliance of ***legal norms, including for the authority that has dictated them,*** the norms regarding zoning –and other similar ones– are not disposable, not even for the local government that has adopted them, to which it is subject in the first order, and in the event it wishes to modify them, it must submit to the procedure legally established by the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana). By greater reason, no public entity is excluded from the urban planning control exercised by local governments within their territory, which is clearly provided for in the law. Consequently, as indicated by numeral 58 of the Urban Planning Law:

*"municipalities shall not permit construction works: 1) when they do not conform, for reasons of use, setbacks, coverage, and other zoning conditions* *(...)".* **XI).- ON THE TAX EXEMPTION**: The Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) is correct in indicating that public entities are exempt from the construction tax established by Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law, in a percentage of up to 1% of the value of the constructions. Such exemption benefits the local Government and the Autonomous Institutions *"provided they are works of social interest"* or institutions *"of medical-social or educational assistance"* as is the case of the IAFA examined here. However, as has been set forth, the tax exemption does not entail the disapplication of urban planning regulations by the exempted public entities.

**XII).- ON THE ALLEGED COMPLIANCE WITH AN ORDER OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT:** The authorities of the IAFA have been indicating that the construction of the detoxification center for minors addicted to drugs was carried out in compliance with an order of the Constitutional Chamber – Voto N° 05871-2005 –, however, the Court must indicate, after a meticulous review of the cited judgment, that what was ordered by the Constitutional Chamber regarding the need to create a center of this nature does not entail –not even remotely– the affectation of the property right of the neighbors due to the disapplication of the urban planning legal system. At no time did the Constitutional Court indicate the place where such a center had to be built, which should have been done in a site compatible with the zoning established by the local government. It is not possible to realize the urban planning and ordering process to which the Urban Planning Law has aspired since 1968, if public entities are allowed to disapply and disrespect –throughout the territory– public order norms.

**XIII).- COROLLARY:** As in this case, a work was erected in the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca, disregarding the local zoning rules, this Court, in exercise of the constitutional function of legality control entrusted to it by numeral 173, second paragraph, of the Magna Carta, must annul the challenged agreement that was issued based on opinion N-341-2007 of the Attorney General's Office.

**POR TANTO:** The appealed agreement is annulled. The administrative channel is deemed exhausted.

**Name625** Rocío Rojas Morales Grace Loaiza Sánchez &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Asociación vecinos de Dirección1511 organized c/ Municipalidad de Montes de Oca.

Nombre35676 &nbsp; **IV).- SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS BY THIS COURT:** In the present case, the subjection of public entities to local planning and the current content and scope of Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) are under discussion. To resolve the issues raised by the appellants, the local government sought to consult the matter with the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría General de la República), and that body addressed the request in opinion (dictamen) number C-341-2007, which binds the party requesting it, under the terms established by its Organic Law, but does not bind this Court, as an improper two-phase hierarchical superior, which exercises a **constitutional function,** when examining the legality of the Municipal Council's agreement (Article 173 of the Political Constitution); an analysis that, in this specific case, covers the aforementioned opinion, insofar as it serves as the basis for the adoption of the challenged act.

**V) ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 75 OF THE CONSTRUCTION LAW**:

It is important to note, first of all, that the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), Decree-Law N°833, enacted on **November 4, 1949**, recognized—even *before* the enactment of the current Constitution—the competence of local governments in matters of urban planning. This is clearly drawn from Article 1 of that regulatory body, which literally states:

*"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 **and in the buildings and constructions erected on the lands thereof**, without prejudice to the powers that the laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies".* (emphasis by the Court).

In the same vein, Article 2 of the cited regulatory body provided for the subjection of all urban development activity to the provisions of local governments in this matter, which it described as *"regulations"* (reglamentos) and which later—1968—the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) would call *"Land-Use Plans"* (Planes Reguladores). Article 2 of the Construction Law prescribes:

*"This law shall apply throughout the Republic. **No Building**, structure, or element thereof shall be built,** adopted, or repaired, in the future, **except under the conditions set forth by the respective Regulations.** Nor shall demolitions or excavations be carried out on private property, nor shall the public thoroughfare be occupied, nor works performed on it, without adhering to the provisions of said Regulations"* (emphasis by the Court).

In full accordance with the preceding provision, Article 87 of the cited law provides that local governments shall exercise oversight over the works executed within their jurisdiction, including among the aspects to be controlled *“the use given to it”*; in addition to compliance with other urban planning provisions.

The Court considers that this control—while Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones is in force—is subsequent, *“ex post”*, since—as will be analyzed later—the initial *“ex ante”* authorization corresponds to the Dirección de Obras of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes.

In the same line as the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law, Article 169 of the Political Constitution, which was enacted on November 7, 1949 (only a few days after that Decree-law), recognized local governments’ full autonomy within their jurisdiction, which involves the regulatory power over the local urban environment, a power that forms part of the *“defense of local interests”*, as the Constitutional Court clearly indicated in judgment number 6706-93 of 15:21 hours on December 21, 1993, and as the Procuraduría General de la República itself admits in Consulta N°C-341-2007, which served as the basis for the challenged agreement.

With complete clarity, Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones establishes that public buildings—constructed by the central government—as well as those buildings constructed by *“other lesser entities”*, will not require a *“municipal license”*, making the exclusion from municipal control subject to them being *“authorized and supervised”* by the Dirección de Obras Públicas. The cited article literally states:

*" Public buildings, that is, buildings constructed by the Government of the Republic, do not need a municipal license. Nor do buildings constructed by other State agencies need one, provided they are authorized and supervised by the Dirección de Obras Públicas."* (the emphasis is not from the original).

The Procuraduría General de la República indicated—in the cited opinion—which in turn refers to what was stated in Opinion N° C-192-1995 of September 5, 1995, the following: *“that is, in accordance with Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones, the State does not need to require a municipal license to execute the works pertinent to the construction of its buildings. As has been underscored in legal opinion OJ-106-2002 of June 24, 2002, this is a subjective exemption that operates solely and exclusively in favor of the State and its institutions.”* The consulted body maintains that the dispensation from the license enshrined in Article 75 of the Decreto-Ley de Construcciones is due to the fact that a *“subjective exemption”* exists established by the Ley de Planificación Urbana; however, for the Court, it is not possible to reach that conclusion based on the current regulatory framework. Indeed, the 1% tax on constructions, like the tax exemption for entities and bodies that construct public works of *“social interest”*, was established in our legal system in Article 70 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana N° 4240 of November 15, 1968, and not before. That is, the tax on constructions and the corresponding tax exemption were created in Article 70 of the Ley de Planificación Urbana, that is, nineteen years after the enactment of Decreto Ley N° 833 of 1949.

In the present matter, what is under discussion is not whether the works erected by public institutions of “social interest” enjoy or not a tax exemption. What is under discussion—and this is how the consultation was posed to the advisory body of the Municipality—is whether Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones—applied in the year 2008, the date of the consultation—prevents the Municipality from exercising its police power in urban planning matters. To address this point, the Procuraduría introduces the topic of the *“land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)”*, indicating to the local government of Montes de Oca that this, as an institution of Urban Planning Law *“...is demandable and makes sense insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction license, given that it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure that entails obtaining said license. Ergo, if in a specific case—provided for by law—the State and its institutions are exempted from requiring a license from the municipality to construct a public building, it is not logical to require the interested entity to obtain a land-use certificate. The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement specific to a power that, in this particular case of exemption, the Municipal Government cannot exercise. In the situation at hand, it is clear that Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones establishes that the constructions of public buildings are not subject to the power of control that the law grants to the municipalities in matters of urban zoning by way of the construction license, and therefore, to all the requirements associated with obtaining such license.”* —the emphasis is not from the original—.

Without analyzing here the potential supervening unconstitutionality of Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones (see Voto Nº 5445-99 of the Sala Constitucional), since this does not correspond to this Court, the truth is that this collegiate body, in application of the criteria of legal hermeneutics generally accepted by doctrine and jurisprudence, must depart from the conclusions reached by the cited consultative body, as set forth below.

**VI.- ON THE CONCEPT OF LICENSE AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF *“EX ANTE”* CONTROL IN THE CONSTRUCTIVE ACTIVITY OF PUBLIC ENTITIES**: By virtue of the fact that Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones exempts some public institutions from obtaining a municipal license, it is essential to unravel the meaning of what is exempted by the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law. A license is an authorization to carry out a specific activity. It has been defined as *“... one of the typical examples of an act consisting of an administrative authorization and, more specifically, a prior verification act. Thus, through the urban planning license, the Administration verifies that the intended urban planning activity can be authorized, because the requesting subject has fulfilled the duties or requirements demandable by the legal system.”* (Diccionario Jurídico Espasa. Editorial Espasa Calve S.A. Madrid, 2001, p.914).

It is clear to the Court that Article 75 of Decreto Ley N° 833 exempts—year 1949—the public entities cited therein (Central Government and other lesser bodies) from the preventive *“ex ante”* authorization that local governments carry out when they grant a license to erect a specific construction, an authorization that—it is worth mentioning—both the Political Constitution and the Ley de Planificación Urbana later entrusted to local governments. Now, Article 75—the Court understands—did not exclude public entities from the initial control of their buildings; it simply transferred it to the Dirección de Obras of the MOPT, to which it assigned the function of *“authorizing”* those projects and of *“supervising”* their execution. From the foregoing, it follows that Ley N° 833 did not exempt the constructions of public institutions from prior urban planning control; it simply transferred it to a specific body of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, such as the Dirección de Obras, which currently has a specialized department for that purpose called the *“Dirección de Edificaciones Nacionales”*, an administrative body that, in a correct application of the Ley de Construcciones itself, would have to—prior to authorizing a construction project—verify that the building presented for its prior authorization conforms to the legal provisions in force, whether local—contained in regulatory plans (planes reguladores)—or national—e.g., environmental viability certificate (certificado de viabilidad ambiental) required by the Ley Orgánica del Ambiente, Law 7600 regarding access for persons with disabilities, the architectural heritage law regarding facades and structural characteristics, land-use certificate, installation of hydrants, etc.—.

The Court must note that the binding of public entities to technical studies and certificates is not new; on the contrary, it was born to oblige those entities to comply with their contents, and it was much later that such a requirement was extended to private parties. The first legislation that established the need for an *“environmental assessment (evaluación ambiental)”* as a technical study was the North American legislation in the year 1969, and it was known as the National Environmental Policy Act. The law required an environmental statement or report to undertake any public project, including the elaboration of policies, plans, and programs that, in their development, could significantly affect the environment. In Europe, in the year 1985, Directive 85/337/EEC of June 27, 1985 was approved, requiring an assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Subsequently, the scope of application of these studies was broadened to apply them to all State plans and programs, which was established in Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 27, 2001.

As national jurisprudence has repeatedly held, urban planning matters constitute the non-green—gray—part of environmental law, thus making the binding nature of its institutes for subjects of public and private law undeniable (on this topic, see from the Sala Constitucional, Voto Nº 2003 - 03656 of May 7, 2003; from the Sala Primera of the Corte Suprema de Justicia, Nº 000507 of June 17, 2004; and from this same Section of the Court, Nº 176 - 2009 of January 30, 2009).

By force of the principle of legality and the hermetic fullness of the legal system, only when the legally demandable urban planning requirements are fulfilled could the Dirección General de Obras Públicas *“authorize”* a specific public project, since it goes without saying that the “authorization” presupposes the prior control that the law entrusted to it. Article 2 of Ley N° 833 clearly provides:

*“This law governs in the entire Republic. No building*, (without distinguishing whether it is public or private) *structure or element thereof will be constructed, adopted or repaired, in the future, if not under the conditions that the respective regulations specify.”* (the emphasis and the clarification introduced are not from the original).

Within the same line of control falls Article 86 of the Ley de Construcciones, which in a later addition—via Law nº 8641 of June 11, 2008—entrusted the control over the installation of hydrants to Municipal entities, it being evident, in a systematic interpretation of the norm, that, beforehand, the Dirección de Obras must verify compliance with those provisions, and that what is foreseen in the norm, under the responsibility of the local commune, is a subsequent control that authorizes it, of course, to exercise its urban police power to reestablish the principle of legality within its territory. Provision 87 of the Ley de Construcciones in its current version states literally:

“**Article 87.-** *The municipality* shall exercise *surveillance* over the *works executed in its jurisdiction*, as well as over *the use* given to them. In addition, it shall have the mission of monitoring the observance of the precepts of this law.

*The developer, the entity*, or the company promoting *public or private works* that construct new residential developments, shopping centers, multifamily buildings, constructions subject to the horizontal property regime, industry and commerce, as well as *any other building*, shall be responsible for installing hydrants, in accordance with the respective legal system. This provision applies only in cases of buildings whose construction area exceeds 2000 square meters, provided there are no nearby hydrants, according to the parameters set forth in the current regulations.

*The municipalities shall verify*, in the projects or buildings indicated in the previous paragraph, that the hydrants are duly installed and connected to their sources. Compliance with this requirement *shall be mandatory* for permits for operation, operation, or *acceptance of works*.” (the Court emphasizes).

It was not then—in the year 1949—and it is not now—2009—a discretionary power of the Dirección de Obras to dispense public entities from compliance with current urban planning regulations, that body having the duty to supervise—preventively—that those regulations are complied with by public entities in their building activity; otherwise, that body would have to deny authorization for the work, since control by the local government over what is built, within the limits of its territory, does not disappear by virtue of the displacement that the law has ordered of preventive control to the Dirección de Obras. Now, the “supervision” function that the law entrusts to the Dirección de Obras is not limited to the initial authorization; rather, it presupposes controlling that what is executed conforms to what was authorized by it.

One must not lose sight of the fact that the law under examination is of a pre-constitutional nature and that it was subsequently, with the enactment of the 1949 Constitution—only a few days later—that **autonomy** was granted to local governments, which entails—in attention to the local interest they defend—attributing competence to issue urban planning regulations within their territory that must be complied with by subjects of public and private law.

A correct hermeneutics of Article 75 of the Ley de Construcciones cannot lead us to affirm that—as the Procuraduría indicates in its opinion—the dispensation of the license entails the non-application for public entities of the urban planning norms of public order issued by local governments. The exemption, being exceptional and privileged, does not constitute a non-application of the rest of the legal system.

It suffices to indicate that public entities are subject to the constitutional principle—which we will develop later—that **legal norms bind even those who issued them**, a principle that is a clear derivative of legality and reasonableness (razonabilidad) of the law. For this reason, urban planning norms that the **public authority has issued, in the exercise of its constitutional powers,** are mandatorily binding for all public entities—including, of course, local governments themselves—without being able to violate them individually. Otherwise, it could lead to the absurdity of permitting the construction of dangerous public facilities in natural protection areas; the siting of a prison or an airport in a residential zone; or the erection of a modern and excessively tall building next to a structure declared as architectural historical heritage, preventing, by its characteristics, the contemplation and enjoyment guaranteed by this type of declaration. Within the same line of reasoning, a public property could not be declared uninhabitable either, despite the ruinous condition it may have, which would prevent urban renewal and, above all, the protection of the city's environment. Through the path of exclusion proposed by the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría), all urban planning and city growth would be at the mercy of public entities, which could thus empty fundamental rights such as health, the enjoyment of a healthy and balanced environment, the right to property, etc., of their essential content.

The Court is not unaware of the service vocation of public entities and the need to erect buildings that facilitate the fulfillment of their legal purposes. Without a doubt, the construction activity of the State—in a broad sense—is of the highest public interest; however, the legal purposes they pursue cannot be achieved against the regulations established by legal norms, nor by violating the constitutional powers of local governments, whose urban planning norms—of a technical nature—also have the **legitimacy** of citizen participation in the process of drafting regulatory plans (Article 17 of the Urban Planning Law, Ley de Planificación Urbana).

**VII.- MODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL ORDER: URBAN PLANNING LAW (Ley de Planificación Urbana).** The Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) (**enacted in 1968**) introduces—as a novelty for the time—the so-called **land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)**. Article 28 of that regulatory body provides the following:

"*Prohibits (Prohíbese) the use or dedication of land, buildings, or structures* (public or private) *to any use that is incompatible with the established zoning.* *Henceforth, interested owners must obtain a municipal certificate accrediting the conformity of the use with the zoning requirements. Existing non-conforming uses must also be recorded with a certificate expressing such circumstance.* *Each zoning regulation will set the date from which said certificates will be mandatory*." (emphasis not in original).

The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) is an instrument of urban planning law in which the zoning established in the Regulatory Plan (Plan Regulador) is recorded. In some countries, such as the case of Spain (Land Law No. 8/2007 of May 28, Ley del Suelo Nº 8/2007 de 28 de mayo), this instrument does not exist, which is why the urban planning administration controls compliance with zoning upon issuing the corresponding permit. The same does not occur in Costa Rica, where the land-use certificate has an **autonomous** existence, as it is a requirement not only for erecting a building but also for changing the use of an already constructed one and for authorizing certain activities within it. The autonomy of the land-use certificate with respect to the permit was clearly established in the ruling of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) No. 4336-99 of July 4, 1999, in which it stated:

*“(…) the meaning of the cited norms is evident: the issuance of the land-use certificate cannot be equated to a construction permit, since its value is limited to defining the vocation of the property within the current general plan…”* Due to the importance of the land-use certificate in our legislation, which is precisely what has been contravened in the case under examination, this collegiate body deems it essential to examine the legislative file No. 2085, which corresponded to the process of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana, Law No. 4240), which will demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the exemption from the permit—by the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones)—does not entail disregard for local zoning, nor does it exempt public entities from complying with the aforementioned certificate. In record No. 17—extraordinary session of the Permanent Government and Administration Affairs Committee (Comisión Permanente de Asuntos de Gobierno y Administración) on June 7, 1966—the content of the bill—drafted by INVU—was discussed, and in relation to the LAND-USE certificate, the following was expressed:

*"...The law intends to create, within a series of existing, loosely connected, sometimes unclear laws* (referring to the urban planning regulations existing at that time)*, sufficient powers so that the **Municipalities** are authorized to plan cities and to apply this plan as the city develops. The fundamental **powers** included are the following: **1)** Power to **zone** the city, this means designating the different areas of the city, with the aim of avoiding conflicts between uses that are incompatible. It might be thought that this type of control originated in State zeal, that is not so, **zoning historically emerged in England, the United States, and Germany,** as a movement of citizens who, having made investments in residences, were adversely affected, after [sic] development by neighbors who installed industries or noisy businesses, and **then the principle emerged that the right to property includes the right to protect one's own property from incompatible uses** by third parties, that is, that property has a social function. This aspect is what is least clearly established in our legislation, although the construction law says that municipalities can deny or refuse permits, according to certain rules; however, this has been a power that has been applied very little. That is why we propose clear, simple legislation on the possibility for INVU and the municipalities to zone cities into areas of different uses...".* (emphasis by the Court) Regarding urban zoning, in Record No. 56 of the extraordinary session of the same Committee on September 30, 1966, the intervention of Engineer Jenkins—one of the drafters of the bill—reads as follows:

*"Chapter II, of section II, goes into more detail on urban development regulations: they are basically five; first, zoning, then urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento), then the official map of area reservations for public use, housing and urban renewal, and construction. In brief terms, **what zoning does is divide the city into zones of different uses,** commercial, industrial, residential, **public use,** and there can be special zones, for example, slum areas that one wishes to control to improve can be classified as improvement areas (...) zoning in our country, we do not philosophically want to make it too rigid to avoid reactions that could be inconvenient; but it is **obvious that there must be instruments to prevent** , -something that has not yet been possible- in reality, **the mixing of uses that are truly incompatible.** Just as a residence, which has been the effort of many years of a person, has the right to be protected from something noisy, bothersome, or something that produces bad odors being placed next to it, such as an industry, it also has the right to be protected from housing being built nearby that will later complain that this bothers them. There must be a logical, reasonable separation of incompatible uses (...) The right to property—and here we are at its social function—is the right to the reasonable use of property, but not to the detriment of the property of others (...) in the existing construction law, there is a generic power that says municipalities may deny or refuse construction permits in accordance with planning rules, but the law is not clear as to what can be regulated. This bill does say it."* (legislative file No. 2085. Emphasis not in original).

The land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo) can be *"conforming", "non-conforming",* or *"not compatible"*. Conformity exists when the use conforms to the zoning norms. The use is *"non-conforming"* when, despite contradicting the zoning, there is a consolidated use predating the zoning norm, in which case the legislation chooses to respect acquired rights. Finally, we are faced with a *"use not compatible"* when the new construction does not conform to the established zoning, as occurs in the case under examination. When local governments issue the *"land-use certificate",* they verify the viability of a new construction with local norms, and if it is erected in violation of the latter, they may, in the exercise of their legal control powers, use their urban police power to stop the illegal urban development activity; this even when they have not issued the initial "authorization" for the work, as occurs with public entities. It should not be forgotten that the land-use certificate is an instrument for protecting the environment (the right to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment by uses) and the right to property (insofar as it protects real estate investment from incompatible uses), which is precisely what the appellant neighbors have been defending. The **statutory content of the right to property**—widely developed in doctrine—implies that the owner of a property (regardless of its nature) can only do what urban planning norms authorize and that they, in turn, grant him the indisputable right to develop his property in accordance with what those regulations permit, hence doctrine and jurisprudence maintain that the granting of a permit is a regulated matter, with no margin for administrative discretion in its issuance. A building on the land owned by IAFA would face no obstacle if it conformed to the established zoning norms; the problem arises when the building is constructed contrary to those norms.

**VIII.- THE CONTROL POWERS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS:** As clearly provided by the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), it is incumbent upon local governments—in accordance with Article 169 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política)—to *"**plan and control** urban development, within the limits of their territory"* (Article 14 ibidem—emphasis by the Court). The planning is materialized in the issuance of local norms regulating land, and the control entails the possibility of exercising police power in urban planning matters, should the enforceable building norms be breached. Now, as has been indicated, Article 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones) excludes public entities from *ex ante* municipal control; however, this does not imply—the Court insists—that those entities may disregard the existing urban planning norms. It is reiterated that the Dirección de Obras is responsible for the initial control to be carried out when issuing the corresponding "authorization," which may only be granted in the case of strict conformity with the applicable norms (regulated nature of the permit). The displacement of the "initial authorization" to the Dirección de Obras does not prevent the local government—as the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría) erroneously asserts—from exercising its **urban planning control** activity within its territory, since Article 169 of the Urban Planning Law clearly grants local corporations the power to *"control urban development"*, without such control having been excluded from public buildings. Thus, local governments may, in the exercise of their police power, order the stoppage of any public work—within their territory—if, despite having been "authorized" by the Dirección de Obras, it is constructed in contravention of existing urban planning norms. The Court understands that the Dirección de Obras—pursuant to the provisions of Article 75 of the Construction Law—may "authorize" the public works indicated therein, which implies, in a correct hermeneutic, fully exercising prior control of the project, that is, verifying the conformity of the same with the applicable regulations by reason of the subject matter. The construction activity of the State, by force of the principle of legality enshrined in numeral 11 of the Political Charter (Carta Política), is not excluded from the duty to submit to zoning and other regulations established in regulatory plans and in the development regulations of those plans.

**IX. THE NECESSARY INTERSUBJECTIVE COORDINATION (COORDINACIÓN INTERSUBJETIVA) IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS.** Coordination between the activities of different public subjects seeks, on the one hand, to avoid duplication of functions and, on the other, to prevent omissions that harm the existing legal order. In this sense, Article 6 of the Municipal Code (Código Municipal) establishes *“that the municipality and the other organs and entities of the Public Administration must coordinate their actions. To this end, they must communicate, with due advance notice, the works they plan to execute”*. The Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional), in judgment No. 5445-99, established the need for coordination between local governments and other public entities, regarding which that Court stated:

“(…) **coordination is the ordering of relations between these diverse independent activities, dealing with this concurrence on the same object or entity, to make it useful for a global public plan, without suppressing the reciprocal independence of the acting subjects**. As there is no hierarchical relationship of the decentralized institutions, nor of the State itself in relation to the municipalities, the imposition of certain conducts on the latter is not possible, which gives rise to the indispensable inter-institutional "**concerted action (concierto)**", in the strict sense, insofar as the autonomous and independent centers of action agree on that preventive and global scheme, in which each one plays a role with a view to a mission entrusted to the others." Thus, **the relations of the municipalities with other public\r\nentities can only be carried out on a plane of equality, resulting in\r\nagreed forms of coordination, excluding any\r\nimperative form to the detriment of their autonomy, which would allow subjecting the\r\ncorporate entities to a coordination scheme without their will or against it (…).** The\r\ndefined cooperation relationship has been understood by the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional),\r\n*which has repeatedly indicated that for the projects of the different public institutions to be carried out, it must be done with respect for the\r\nlegal system: first, constitutional norms, and\r\nthen, those of legal and regulatory rank*, *so that, for\r\nthe Executive Branch or other public entities to carry out projects on their own\r\ninitiative in a specific locality, they must have the respective\r\nmunicipal permits and licenses, if applicable, as indicated in\r\nprotection judgment (sentencia de amparo) number 02231-96, transcribed, in the relevant part, in Considerando\r\nVIII of this judgment.* This obligation of coordination\r\nbetween State institutions and the municipalities is implicit in\r\nthe Political Constitution (Constitución Política) itself\r\n(….) as\r\nindicated in judgment number 2311-95, cited above; with\r\nwhich, **it is being said that there must be due and mandatory\r\ncoordination between the State and local corporate entities, thus fulfilling\r\nwhat is ordered by this provision, without this implying an invasion of\r\nmunicipal autonomy.** Likewise, the Chamber considers that **in matters of\r\nurban planning, this same coordination relationship must exist**,\r\neven though it has been defined—by constitutional provision—that urban planning\r\nis the competence of local governments, it should be ordered in\r\naccordance with the general guidelines and lineaments of the National Urban Development Plan\r\nelaborated by the Executive Branch (at the proposal of the Urban Planning Directorate of the\r\nINVU and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy) and integrated into the National Development Plan\r\nreferred to by the National Planning Law, on the understanding that this Plan\r\nmust be approved by an ordinary law (…).

In the same judgment, the Constitutional Court held the following regarding the observance of the content of regulatory plans (planes reguladores) by public entities:

*“….the\r\nregulation of the circulation of vehicles, persons, and livestock on\r\nroads, of gas stations and public parking lots, the definition of road\r\nsafety, its financing, payment of taxes, fines, and traffic\r\nrights, and matters relating to the ownership of motor vehicles (article\r\n1 of the Law of Transit on Public Land Roads) are specific tasks\r\nthat derive from the general ordering of public roads, which by their\r\nnature are national topics, not local (municipal), and that\r\nconsequently correspond to the Executive Branch to carry out their regulation; so\r\nthat it is the Ministry of Public Works and Transport that dictates and\r\nexecutes the ordering regarding concessions of public remunerated\r\ntransport of people, defines the location of bus stops, and the\r\nsignage of public roads, for example. However, in accordance with\r\nwhat is stated in Considerando X of this judgment, this is a task that the\r\nMOPT must develop in coordination with local\r\nfunctions, under the terms indicated in the challenged norm and in what is provided\r\nin the analyzed Article 5 of the repealed Municipal Code and Article 7 of the\r\nnew legal body**, so that when the ordering of public roads\r\nis dictated, it must be done respecting the local legal system, which\r\nis equivalent in this matter, that it must be done according to the regulatory plans\r\ndictated by the municipalities for their territorial jurisdiction where\r\nthey exist, or in coordination with them to resolve what is most convenient,** **in\r\njurisdictions where there are no regulatory plans**. (the\r\nhighlighting is not from the original).* Thus, it could not be sustained that by provision of numeral 75 of the Construction Law, any public entity can enter the territory of the local government and, without coordinating with it, begin to carry out buildings or install structures that—as unfortunately happens frequently—even destroy some local works such as the cantonal road network. The coordination principle derived from the constitutional principle of **efficiency** of public action (articles 140, subsection 8, 139, subsection 4, and 191 all of the Supreme Charter) obligates the different public entities—including the central government—to communicate to local governments that they will begin—or have finished—work within their territory and that for this purpose they have the standard authorization from the Office of Works (Dirección de Obras); this so that the municipalities can fulfill the mission entrusted to them by the legislator of controlling public urban development activity within their territory. It goes without saying that this implies the exercise of their police power (poder de policía) in case it is deemed that what is authorized infringes the current urban planning norms.

**X).- THE SUBJECTION OF PUBLIC ENTITIES TO THE ESTABLISHED NORMS AND PROCEDURES:** It is an essential principle of every State of Law (Estado de Derecho) that public entities are subject to the current legal norms (principle of legality), without being able to disapply them singularly. The urban transformation activity undertaken by public entities is subject to the legality block (bloque de legalidad) – e.g., compliance with Law 7600, the Architectural Heritage Law, the Organic Law of the Environment, etc. -. That subjection includes—among others—compliance with the zoning established in the land-use regulatory plans, which they cannot ignore or disapply, without violating the current legal and constitutional framework, insofar as when dictating norms on zoning, local governments make use of a **constitutional competence** that the remaining public entities cannot ignore or disrespect, especially when this involves the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and the property right of the canton's residents, to whom the zoning guarantees not only the enjoyment of their urban environment according to the uses and other conditions established in the urban planning norms, but also that the urban property—subject to limitations—will maintain its basic statute. In a similar sense, the Constitutional Court pronounced itself in Ruling (Voto) No. 2009-95 at 10:30 a.m. on April 21, 1995, when analyzing **the binding nature of a legal norm that the Legislative Assembly had previously dictated** for the creation of new cantons. On that occasion, that high Court indicated that the ***principle of the binding nature (vinculatoriedad) of public entities to established legal procedures***, **is of constitutional rank**, consequently—it sustained—it is prohibited to disregard them even for the same body that created them. In this regard, the Constitutional Court stated:

*"**V.- LAW ON ADMINISTRATIVE TERRITORIAL DIVISION (No. 4366 of August 19, 1969)**.- It is precisely this law that the Legislative Branch has issued to regulate the creation of new cantons. It is necessary to point out that by setting the Political Constitution in the final paragraph of Article 168, that the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the totality of the members of the Legislative Assembly is required for the creation of a canton, it gives a clear idea of the importance that the original constituent gave to territorial integrity and to all the matter related to the territorial subdivision of the Provinces. In the judgment of the Chamber, **the general principle of Law that establishes that legal norms are binding even on the authority that has dictated them and, within its competence, on its superior, implies that the law that disciplines the functioning of the Legislative Assembly for the exercise of a competence, also constitutional, binds it in the specific cases in which it has to exercise it, which is nothing more than the application of the general principle of the singular non-derogability of the norm for the specific case; a general principle of constitutional rank, as it is applicable to the entirety of the legal system, as a derivation and at the same time a condition of the State of Law in its entirety**. All of which means, in relation to the present matter, that for the creation of a new municipal territorial entity the Legislative Assembly must observe the law that it has dictated for such purpose, of course, without prejudice to its power to repeal or reform it prior to its exercise." (the highlighting is not from the original).* In accordance with the principle of the binding nature of **legal norms, even for the authority that has dictated them**, the norms on zoning—and other similar ones—are not available, not even to the local government that has adopted them, to which it is subject in the first order, and if it wishes to modify them, it must undergo the procedure legally established by the Urban Planning Law. By greater reason, no public entity is excluded from the urban planning control exercised by local governments within their territory, which is clearly provided for in the law. Consequently, as indicated by numeral 58 of the Urban Planning Law:

*"municipalities shall not permit construction works: 1) when they do not conform, for reasons of use, retiros (setbacks), coverage (cobertura), and other conditions of the zoning* *(...)"* .

**XI).- ON THE TAX EXEMPTION**: The General Attorney's Office (Procuraduría General) of the Republic is correct in indicating that public entities are exempt from the construction tax established by Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law, at a rate of up to 1% of the value of the constructions. This exemption is enjoyed by the local Government and the Autonomous Institutions *"provided that they are works of social interest"* or of institutions *"of medical-social or educational assistance"* as is the case of the IAFA examined here. However, the tax exemption does not entail, as has been stated, the disapplication of the urban planning norms by the exempted public entities." &nbsp; &nbsp; On the 13th of that same month and year, the Director of Planning and Urbanism and the land-use technician of the local commune certified the non-compatible use (uso no compatible) of the aforementioned project with the local Regulatory Plan (Plan Regulador), which classifies the referred area as predominantly residential, where constructions may not be erected on an area greater than 500 meters (folios 62, 63, 64); 2) By means of official letter CU-e-1400-09-2007 of September 12, 2007, the Urban Control Coordinator ordered the following: a- the closure of the project initiated "without municipal endorsement"; b.- the removal of works that encroach upon the municipal setbacks, which are those located outside the official construction line indicated by the Department of Topography; c.- to warn the representative of IAFA to obtain the construction license (licencia de construcción) from the Municipality of Montes de Oca before undertaking any construction work (folio 67, 68); 3) By means of official letter CU-e-1401-09-2007 of September 12, 2007, the Director of Urban Planning and the Urban Control Coordinator of the Municipality informed the officials of IAFA that the construction in question is not excluded from the municipal license procedure and that the closure of the works ordered in the previous official letter remains in effect (folio, 69 to 71); 4) On September 17, 2007, the President of the Board of Directors of IAFA filed a motion for reversal with subsidiary appeal (recurso de revocatoria con apelación en subsidio) against official letters CU-e-1400-09-2007 and CU-e-1401-09-2007 (folios 33 and 47); 5) On September 19, 2005, a group of neighbors from Dirección1511 sent an official letter to the local government stating "we flatly oppose" the construction of the referred center in a residential neighborhood, as established by the Regulatory Plan (folio 97, 99); 6) On September 21, 2007, the then Minister of Housing, Fernando Zumbado Jiménez, notified the Mayor of Montes de Oca that in Session No. 3 of the Council of the Social Sector and the Fight against Poverty of September 19, 2007, a motion was approved to the following effect: "It is agreed to support the construction of the National Treatment Center for boys, girls, and adolescents with drug dependency, in conditions of vulnerability," a process that has been halted by the Municipality of Montes de Oca, requesting a favorable resolution for the continuation of the project (official letter DM-979-09-07 on folio 109); 7) By means of official letter D.ALC.1024-2007, dated September 20, 2007, the Mayor of Montes de Oca consulted the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (Procuraduría General de la República) on the following: "1) If the exception established in Article 75 of Construction Law No. 833—of not needing a municipal license—also exempts from the requirement of having a Certificate of Conforming Land Use (Certificado de Uso de Suelo Conforme), as required by Article 28 of the Urban Planning Law?; 2) Is the Central Government of the Republic and its Institutions exempt from complying with the local regulations of the Regulatory Plans? If so, what is the scope of the legal powers granted to the Municipalities in this matter, and especially the principle of Municipal Autonomy?; 3) Is it legally possible for the Central Government of the Republic and its institutions to construct a work or building, even against what is established by the Zoning Regulations of the current Regulatory Plans?" (folio 11 to 115); 8) By means of Opinion C-341-2007 of September 26, 2007, Deputy Attorney General Andrea Calderón Gassmann, with authorization from the Attorney General of the Republic, responded to the consultation in the following terms: "Conclusions. Based on the foregoing, this Office of the Attorney General concludes that: 1.- Pursuant to Section 75 of the Construction Law, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction license for public buildings; 2.- According to the same section, decentralized entities are also exempt, provided that the built works are supervised by the competent body within the Ministry of Public Works and Transport; 3.- municipal land-use certificates have strictly declaratory effects and do not constitute, extinguish, or modify legal situations. They do not produce the effects of a municipal license; 4.- In administrative and constitutional case law, the land-use certificate is conceptualized as a prerequisite to obtain a municipal authorization that does have a constitutive nature, for example a construction license or a business permit; 5.- Ergo, if the State is not subject to the obligation of requesting a construction license from the local municipality, neither should it be required to obtain a land-use certificate, given that the latter makes sense precisely insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction license, as it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure leading to obtaining said license. The contrary would imply the contradiction of requiring a requirement pertaining to a power that, in this specific exceptional case, the Municipal Government cannot exercise; 6.- The power of urban planning is an inherent function of the Municipality, as it forms part of the concept framed by "local services and interests"; 7.- In the exercise of its powers in the matter of urban planning, the Municipality is subject to the law; 8.- The exemption in favor of the State that releases it from the obligation to obtain a construction license has a legal basis, and therefore forms part of the legal framework that every municipality must respect in the exercise of its urban planning powers." (folio 125 to 144); 9).- By means of resolution D.ALC. 157-2007 at 1:00 p.m. on September 28, 2007, the Mayor's Office resolved the motion filed by the officials of IAFA as follows: "In accordance with the stated legal grounds and Opinion C-341-2007 of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, the State is exempt from the obligation to request a construction license for public buildings and from land-use requirements, IT IS ORDERED TO RENDER WITHOUT EFFECT THE CLOSURE ORDER. The Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence may continue with the development of the works. The appellant is advised that, while it is true they do not need a land-use certificate or a construction license, they do have the duty to inform the respective Municipality and coordinate with it, with due anticipation, the works and projects they intend to carry out in the Canton of Montes de Oca."; 10) The President of the Committee of Neighbors of Organized Roosevelt Neighborhood and the President of the Roosevelt Association filed an appeal (recurso de apelación) against the previous resolution (folio 154, 155, 157); 11) The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, in its ordinary session No. 79/2007, Article No. 5.1, Point No. 6 of October 29, 2007, ordered to declare "...without merit the appeal filed against the resolution of the Mayor in which he grants the motion for reversal filed by IAFA, and to order the lifting of the closure order since there was no aspect of legality that could lead us to revoke the appealed resolution. All without prejudice to noting that this Municipal Council does not share the opinion of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic" (folios 168, 174); 12).- Against the previous resolution, the neighbors from Dirección1511 filed a motion for reversal with subsidiary appeal (folios 175, 176); 13) The Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, in ordinary session No. 83/2007, Article No. 10, Point No. 3 of November 26, 2007, resolved: "To reject and declare without merit in all its aspects the motion for reversal filed by Mr. Helio Fallas Venegas and Mrs. Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, neighbors of Roosevelt Neighborhood, against the agreement of article 5.1 point 6 of Ordinary Session No. 79-2007 of the Municipal Council of Montes de Oca, held on October 29, 2007, as it is in accordance with the law. The subsidiary appeal being timely and in proper form, it is admitted before the Third Section of the Superior Contentious-Administrative Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José...", a procedural posture by virtue of which this Court hears the present matter (folios 160, 162).

II).- UNPROVEN FACTS: 1) That the Directorate of Works of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport authorized the IAFA detoxification project for minors in Roosevelt Neighborhood after verifying compliance with current urban planning requirements (there is no evidentiary element on this point); 2) That the Constitutional Chamber ordered the construction of a center for the detoxification of minors in a residential area of the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca (the Director of IAFA did not substantiate that affirmation); 3) That the detoxification center for minors built in Roosevelt Neighborhood complies with local and national urban planning regulations (conformity of the work with the local regulatory plan was not substantiated in the recourse procedure. The court confirmed during the corresponding judicial inspection that the facilities lack the requirements demanded by Law 7600).

III).- OBJECT OF THE APPEAL: The appellants indicate that the opinion of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic does not entail the non-application of the Regulatory Plan, which cannot be ignored under any concept. The Municipality is bound by the Law, and this grants local governments the competence to issue regulatory plans and development regulations, without exempting anyone from their observance (Articles 15 and following). In this same line, Section 57 indicates that construction works cannot be executed against the provisions of that law, and Article 58 of the same regulatory body establishes that municipalities cannot permit works that do not respect the regulations on land use. Regarding Article 75 of the Construction Law, it is clear that State institutions are exempted from the corresponding permit, not from compliance with the Regulatory Plan, nor its development regulations. In any case, for such exemption to proceed, the construction works must be under the "supervision" of the MOPT, and, in the specific case of IAFA, the work is being done by a consulting firm. The appellant party adds that Article 87 of the Urban Planning Law obliges the Municipality to monitor compliance with urban development provisions, while Section 88 of the same body of law obliges the closure of those works that contravene the legal system. In sum, no public entity is exempt from complying with the Regulatory Plan, and the appellant understands the opinion of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic that serves as the basis for the adoption of the challenged administrative act has not stated otherwise. The correct conclusion is that an authorization—permission—to set aside the local regulatory plan cannot be derived from the exemption from a construction permit. The local government cannot give approval to a work that falls outside the lawful use of the canton, which brings serious harm to the neighbors.

IV).- SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS BY THIS COURT: In the present case, the binding nature of public entities to local planning and the current content and scope of Section 75 of the Construction Law are under discussion. To resolve the procedural postures raised by the appellants, the local government decided to consult the matter with the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, and that body responded to the inquiry in opinion number C-341-2007, which binds the consulting party, in the terms stipulated by its Organic Law, but does not bind this Court as an improper two-phase hierarchical superior, which exercises a constitutional function when examining the legality of the agreement of the Municipal Council (Article 173 of the Political Constitution); an analysis that, in the specific case, covers the aforementioned opinion, insofar as it serves as the basis for the adoption of the challenged act.

• V)ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 75 OF THE CONSTRUCTION LAW: It is important to note, first of all, that the Construction Law, Decree-Law No. 833, promulgated on November 4, 1949, recognized—even before the promulgation of the current Constitution—the competence of local governments in matters of urban planning. This is clearly extracted from Section 1 of that regulatory body, which literally states: "The municipalities of the Republic are responsible for ensuring that cities and other towns meet the necessary conditions of safety, healthiness, comfort, and beauty in their public thoroughfares and in the buildings and constructions erected on the lands thereof, without prejudice to the powers that the laws grant in these matters to other administrative bodies." (emphasis by the Court). In the same order, Section 2 of the aforementioned regulatory body provided for the subjection of all urban planning activity to the provisions of local governments in this matter, which it qualified as "regulations" and which later—in 1968—the Urban Planning Law would call "Regulatory Plans" for land use. Article 2 of the Construction Law prescribes: "This law governs throughout the Republic. No building, structure, or element thereof shall be constructed, adapted, or repaired, in the future, except under the conditions stipulated by the respective Regulations. Neither shall demolitions or excavations be carried out on private property, nor shall the public thoroughfare be occupied, nor works carried out therein, without complying with the provisions of said Regulations" (emphasis by the Court). In full concordance with the previous provision, Section 87 of the aforementioned law provides that local governments shall exercise oversight over the works executed in their jurisdiction, including among the aspects to be controlled "the use given to them"; additionally, compliance with other urban planning provisions. The Court considers that this control—while Section 75 of the Construction Law is in force—is subsequent "ex post," since—as will be analyzed later—the initial authorization "ex ante" corresponds to the Directorate of Works of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Along the same lines as the aforementioned pre-constitutional Decree-Law, Section 169 of the Political Constitution, which was promulgated on November 7, 1949 (a few days after that Decree-law), recognized local governments with full autonomy within their jurisdiction, which involves the regulatory power over the local urban environment, which is part of the "defense of local interests," as the Constitutional Court clearly indicated in judgment number 6706-93 at 3:21 p.m. on December 21, 1993, and as the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic itself admits in Consultation No. C-341-2007 that has served as the basis for the challenged agreement. With complete clarity, Section 75 of the Construction Law establishes that public buildings—constructed by the central government—as well as those constructions carried out by "other minor entities," shall not require a "municipal license," subjecting the exclusion from municipal control to the condition that they are "authorized and supervised" by the Directorate of Public Works. Literally, the aforementioned article provides: "Public buildings, that is, buildings constructed by the Government of the Republic, do not need a municipal license. Nor do buildings constructed by other state dependencies need it, provided they are authorized and supervised by the Directorate of Public Works." (the highlights are not from the original). The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic indicated—in the aforementioned opinion—which in turn refers to what was stated in Opinion No. C-192-1995 of September 5, 1995, the following: "that is, in accordance with Section 75 of the Construction Law, the State need not request a municipal license to execute the pertinent works for the construction of its buildings." As has been underscored in legal opinion OJ-106-2002 of June 24, 2002, this is a subjective exemption that operates solely and exclusively in favor of the State and its institutions." The consulted body maintains that the dispensation from the license enshrined in numeral 75 of the Construction Decree-Law is due to the existence of a "subjective exemption" established by the Urban Planning Law; however, for this Court, it is not possible to reach that conclusion from the current regulatory framework. Indeed, the 1% tax on constructions, as well as the tax exemption for entities and bodies that build public works of "social interest," is established in our legal system in Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law No. 4240 of November 15, 1968, and not before. That is, the tax on constructions and the corresponding tax exemption were created in Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law, that is, nineteen years after the enactment of Decree-Law No. 833 of 1949.

In the present matter, it is not in dispute whether the works of "social interest" erected by public institutions enjoy a tax exemption or not. What is in dispute—and this is how the consultation was posed to the advisory body of the Municipality—is whether Article 75 of the Construction Law—applied in the year 2008, the date of the consultation—prevents the Municipality from exercising its police power in urban planning matters. To address this point, the Attorney General's Office introduces the topic of the "land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)," indicating to the local government of Montes de Oca that this, as an institution of Urban Planning Law, "...is demandable and makes sense insofar as the Municipality must grant a construction license, given that it is conceived as one of the requirements to be assessed within the procedure for obtaining said license. Ergo, if in a specific case—provided for by law—the State and its institutions are exempted from requiring a license from the municipality to construct a public building, it is not logical to require the interested entity to obtain a land-use certificate. The contrary would imply the contradiction of demanding a requirement specific to a power that, in this particular case of exemption, the Municipal Government cannot exercise. In the case at hand, it is clear that Article 75 of the Construction Law establishes that the construction of public buildings is not subject to the control power that the law grants to municipalities in matters of urban zoning through the construction license, and therefore, to all the requirements that obtaining such a license entails"—emphasis is not from the original.

Without analyzing here the eventual supervening unconstitutionality of Article 75 of the Construction Law (see Voto Nº 5445-99 of the Constitutional Chamber), since this does not fall within the purview of this Court, the truth is that this collegiate body, applying the criteria of legal hermeneutics generally accepted by doctrine and jurisprudence, must depart from the conclusions reached by the aforementioned advisory body, as set forth below.

VI.- ON THE CONCEPT OF LICENSE AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF "EX ANTE" CONTROL IN THE CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY OF PUBLIC ENTITIES: By virtue of the fact that numeral 75 of the Construction Law exempts some public institutions from obtaining a municipal license, it is essential to unravel the meaning of what is exempted by the cited pre-constitutional Decree-Law. The license is an authorization to carry out a specific activity. It has been defined as "... one of the typical examples of an act consisting of an administrative authorization and, more specifically, a prior verification act. Thus, through the urban planning license, the Administration verifies that the intended urban planning activity can be authorized, because the requesting subject has fulfilled the duties or requirements demandable by the legal system" (Diccionario Jurídico Espasa. Editorial Espasa Calve S.A. Madrid, 2001, p.914).

It is clear to the Court that Article 75 of Decree-Law No. 833 exempts—in the year 1949—the public entities cited therein (Central Government and other minor bodies) from the preventive "ex ante" authorization that local governments perform when granting a license to erect a specific construction, an authorization that—it is worth noting—the Political Constitution and the Urban Planning Law subsequently entrusted to local governments. However, Article 75—the Court understands—did not exclude public entities from the initial control over their buildings; it simply transferred it to the Directorate of Works of the MOPT, which was entrusted with the function of "authorizing" those projects and "monitoring" their execution. From the foregoing, it follows that Law No. 833 did not exempt the constructions of public institutions from prior urban planning control; it simply transferred it to a specific body of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which is the Directorate of Works, which currently has a specialized department for that purpose called "National Buildings Directorate (Dirección de Edificaciones Nacionales)," an administrative body that, in a correct application of the Construction Law itself, would have to—prior to authorizing a construction project—verify that the building presented to it for prior authorization conforms to the legal provisions in force, whether local—contained in regulatory plans—or national—e.g., environmental feasibility certificate required by the Organic Environmental Law, Law 7600 regarding accessibility for disabled persons, architectural heritage law regarding facades and structural characteristics, land-use certificate, installation of hydrants, etc.—.

The Court must note that the binding of public entities to studies and technical certificates is not new; quite the contrary, it was born to compel those entities to adhere to their contents and it was much later that such a requirement was extended to private individuals. The first legislation that established the need for an "environmental assessment (evaluación ambiental)" as a technical study was the North American one in 1969 and was known as the National Environmental Policy Act. The law demanded an environmental statement or report to undertake any public project, including the elaboration of policies, plans, programs that, in their development, could significantly affect the environment. In Europe, in 1985, Directive 85/337/EEC of June 27, 1985, was approved, requiring the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Subsequently, the scope of application of these studies was broadened to apply to all plans and programs of the States, which was established in Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 27, 2001.

As national jurisprudence has repeatedly held, urban planning matters represent the non-green—gray—part of environmental law, making the binding nature of its institutes for subjects of public and private law undeniable, consequently (on the topic, one can consult from the Constitutional Chamber, Voto Nº 2003 - 03656 of May 7, 2003, from the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, No. 000507 of June 17, 2004, and from this same section of the Court, No. 176 - 2009 of January 30, 2009).

By imperative of the principle of legality and the hermetic completeness of the legal system, only when the legally demandable urban planning requirements have been fulfilled could the General Directorate of Public Works "authorize" a specific public project, since it goes without saying that "authorization" entails the prior control that the law entrusted to it. With complete clarity, numeral 2 of Law No. 833 states:

"This law is in force in the entire Republic. No building, (without distinguishing whether it is public or private), structure, or element thereof shall be constructed, adopted, or repaired in the future, except under the conditions that the respective regulations indicate" (the emphasis and the clarification introduced are not from the original).

Along the same lines of control, Article 86 of the Construction Law is inscribed, which in a subsequent addition—by Law No. 8641 of June 11, 2008—entrusted the control over the installation of hydrants to Municipal entities, it being evident, in a systematic interpretation of the norm, that, beforehand, the Directorate of Works must verify compliance with those provisions, and that what is provided for in the norm, under the responsibility of the local commune, is a subsequent control that authorizes it, of course, to exercise its urban police power to reestablish the principle of legality within its territory. The provision 87 of the Construction Law, in its current version, textually states:

"Article 87.- The municipality shall exercise surveillance over the works executed in its jurisdiction, as well as over the use given to them. Additionally, it shall have the mission of monitoring the observance of the precepts of this law.

The developer, the entity, or the promoting company of public or private works that build new developments, shopping centers, multi-family buildings, constructions subject to the condominium regime, industry, and commerce, as well as any other building, shall be responsible for installing hydrants, in accordance with the respective legal system. This provision only applies in cases of buildings whose construction area exceeds 2000 square meters, provided there are no nearby hydrants, according to the parameters set forth in the current regulations.

Municipalities must verify, in the projects or buildings indicated in the preceding paragraph, that the hydrants are duly installed and connected to their sources. Compliance with this requirement shall be mandatory for operating, functioning, or works acceptance permits." (The Court emphasizes).

It was not then—in 1949—nor is it now—2009—a discretionary power of the Directorate of Works to exempt public entities from compliance with current urban planning norms, that body having the duty to monitor—preventively—that those norms are complied with by public entities in their building activity; otherwise, that body would have to deny the authorization for the work, since the control by the local government over what is built, within the limits of its territory, does not disappear by virtue of the displacement of preventive control to the Directorate of Works ordered by law. Furthermore, the "surveillance" function that the law entrusts to the Directorate of Works is not limited to the initial authorization; rather, it entails controlling that what is executed conforms to what was authorized by it.

It should not be lost sight of that the law under examination is of a pre-constitutional nature and that it is subsequently, with the enactment of the 1949 Constitution—a few days later—that autonomy was granted to local governments, which entails—given the local interest they defend—attributing competence to them to issue urban planning norms within their territory that must be complied with by subjects of public and private law.

A correct hermeneutics of Article 75 of the Construction Law cannot lead us to affirm that—as the Attorney General's Office indicates in its opinion—the dispensation from the license entails the non-application, for public entities, of the public-order urban planning norms issued by local governments. The exemption, insofar as it is exceptional and privileged, does not constitute a non-application of the rest of the legal system. It suffices to indicate that public entities are subject to the constitutional principle—which we will develop later—that legal norms obligate even those who have issued them, a principle that is a clear derivative of the legality and reasonableness of the law. For this reason, the urban planning norms that the public power has issued, in the exercise of its constitutional competences, are of mandatory observance for all public entities—including, of course, the local governments themselves—without being able to singularly disrespect them. Otherwise, one could reach the absurdity of permitting the construction of dangerous public facilities in natural protection zones; the siting of a prison or an airport in a residential zone, or the erection of a modern and excessively tall building next to a building declared as historical-architectural heritage, impeding, by its characteristics, the contemplation and enjoyment that this type of declaration guarantees. Along the same lines, a public property could not be declared uninhabitable either, despite the ruinous condition it may have, which would prevent urban renewal and, above all, the protection of the city's environment. Through the avenue of exclusion proposed by the Attorney General's Office, all urban planning and the growth of cities would be at the mercy of public entities, which could thus empty of their essential content fundamental rights such as health, the enjoyment of a healthy and balanced environment, the right to property, etc.

The Court does not ignore the service-oriented vocation of public entities and the need to erect buildings that facilitate the fulfillment of their legal purposes.

Without any doubt, the construction activity of the State—in a broad sense—is of the highest public interest; however, the legal purposes it pursues cannot be achieved by contravening the regulations established by legal norms, nor by disregarding the constitutional powers of local governments, whose urban planning regulations—of a technical nature—also possess the legitimacy of citizen participation in the process of drafting regulatory plans (article 17 of the Urban Planning Law).

**VII.- MODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK: URBAN PLANNING LAW.** The Urban Planning Law (enacted in 1968) introduced—a novelty for the time—the so-called **land-use certificate (certificado de uso de suelo)**. Article 28 of this regulatory body provides the following:

*"It is forbidden to exploit or dedicate land, buildings, or structures (public or private) to any use that is incompatible with the established zoning.* *Hereafter, interested property owners must obtain a municipal certificate (certificado municipal) accrediting the conformity of the use with the zoning requirements. Existing non-conforming uses must also be recorded with a certificate expressing such circumstance.* *Each zoning regulation shall set the date from which said certificates will be mandatory."* (emphasis not in original).

The land-use certificate is an urban law instrument recording the zoning established in the Regulatory Plan. In some countries, such as Spain (Land Law No. 8/2007 of May 28), this instrument does not exist, which is why the urban planning administration controls compliance with zoning when issuing the corresponding license. The situation is not the same in Costa Rica, where the land-use certificate has an autonomous existence, as it is a requirement not only for erecting a building but also for changing the use of an already erected one and authorizing certain activities within it. The autonomy of the land-use certificate from the license was established very clearly in Constitutional Chamber ruling No. 4336-99 of July 4, 1999, which stated:

*"(...) the meaning of the cited norms is evident: the issuance of the land certificate cannot be equated to a construction license, since its value is limited to defining the vocation of the property within the current general plan..."* Due to the importance of the land-use certificate in our legislation, which is precisely what has been contravened in the case under review, this collegiate body considers it essential to examine legislative file No. 2085, corresponding to the processing of the Urban Planning Law (Law No. 4240), which will allow proof, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the exemption from the license—pursuant to the Construction Law—does not entail the non-observance of local zoning, nor does it exempt public entities from complying with the aforementioned certificate. In Act No. 17—extraordinary session of the Permanent Commission on Government and Administration Affairs on June 7, 1966—the content of the bill—drafted by the INVU—was discussed, and regarding the land-use certificate, the following was stated:

*"...The law aims to create, within a series of existing laws that are loosely connected and sometimes unclear (referring to the urban planning regulations existing at that time), sufficient powers so that the Municipalities are authorized to plan cities and to apply this plan as the city develops. The fundamental powers included are the following: 1) The power to zone the city, meaning to designate the different areas of the city, with the objective of avoiding conflicts between uses that are incompatible. It might be believed that this type of control originated from State oversight; that is not the case. Zoning historically emerged in England, the United States, and Germany as a movement of citizens who, having made investments in residences, were adversely affected by the subsequent development of neighbors who installed industries or noisy businesses, and then the principle emerged that property rights include the right to protect one's own property from non-compatible uses by third parties; that is, property has a social function. This aspect is what is least clearly established in our legislation. Although the construction law says that municipalities may deny or reject permits according to certain rules, this has been a power that has been applied very little. That is why we propose clear, simple legislation on the possibility for the INVU and municipalities to zone cities into areas of different uses..."* (emphasis by the Court).

Regarding urban zoning, in Act No. 56 of the extraordinary session of the same Commission on September 30, 1966, the intervention of Engineer Nombre101457—one of the drafters of the bill—reads as follows:

*"Chapter II of Section II goes into more detail on urban development regulations: there are basically five; first zoning, then urbanization and subdivision (fraccionamiento), then the official map of areas reserved for public use, housing and urban renewal, and construction. In quick terms, zoning divides the city into zones of different uses—commercial, industrial, residential, public use—and there may be special zones; for example, slum areas that are intended to be controlled for improvement may be classified as improvement areas (...) Regarding zoning in our country, our philosophy is not to make it overly rigid to avoid reactions that could be inconvenient; but it is obvious that instruments must exist to prevent—something that has still not been possible—in reality, the mixing of uses that are truly incompatible. Just as a residence, which is the result of many years of effort by a person, has the right to be protected from having something noisy, bothersome, or that produces bad odors built next door, such as an industry, that industry also has the right to protect itself from having residences built nearby whose occupants will later complain that it bothers them. There must be a reasonable, logical separation of incompatible uses (...) The right of property—and here we are dealing with its social function—is the right to reasonable use of the property, but not to the detriment of the property of others (...) In the existing construction law, there is a generic power stating that municipalities may deny or reject construction permits according to planning rules, but the law is not clear on what can be regulated. This bill does say so."* (legislative file No. 2085. Highlighting not in original).

The land-use certificate can be "conforming (conforme)", "non-conforming (no conforme)", or "non-compatible (no compatible)". There is conformity when the use adheres to the zoning regulations. The use is "non-conforming" when, despite being contrary to the zoning, there is a consolidated use predating the zoning regulation, in which case the legislation chooses to respect acquired rights. Finally, we are faced with a "non-compatible use" when the new construction does not adhere to the established zoning, as is the case under review. When local governments issue the "land-use certificate", they verify the viability of a new construction against local regulations, and should it be erected in violation of these regulations, they may, in the exercise of their legal control powers, use their urban police power to halt the illegal urban development activity; this is the case even when they have not issued the initial "authorization" for the work, as occurs with public entities. It should not be forgotten that the land-use certificate is an instrument for protecting the environment (the right to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment regarding uses) and property rights (insofar as it protects real estate investment from incompatible uses), which is precisely what the petitioning neighbors are defending. The statutory content of property rights—extensively developed in legal doctrine—implies that the owner of a property (regardless of its nature) can only do what urban planning regulations authorize, and that these regulations, in turn, grant them the indisputable right to develop their property in accordance with what those regulations permit; hence, doctrine and jurisprudence hold that the granting of a license is of a regulated nature, leaving no margin for administrative discretion in its issuance. A building on the land owned by the IAFA would pose no problem whatsoever if it adhered to the established zoning regulations; the problem arises when the building is constructed in contravention of those regulations.

**VIII.- THE CONTROL POWERS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS:** As clearly stipulated by the Urban Planning Law, it corresponds to local governments—in accordance with Article 169 of the Political Constitution—*"to **plan and control** urban development within the limits of their territory"* (Article 14 of the same law—emphasis by the Court). Planning is realized through the issuance of local land-regulating norms, and control entails the possibility of exercising police power in urban planning matters, should the applicable building regulations be breached. Now, as has been indicated, Article 75 of the Construction Law excludes public entities from *ex ante* municipal control; however, this does not imply—the Court insists—that these entities may disregard the prevailing urban planning regulations. It is reiterated that it is the responsibility of the Office of Public Works (Dirección de Obras) to carry out the initial control when issuing the corresponding "authorization," which may only be granted in cases of strict conformity with the applicable regulations (the regulated nature of the license). The shift of the "initial authorization" to the Office of Public Works does not prevent the local government—as the Attorney General's Office erroneously asserts—from exercising its urban planning control activity within its territory, since Article 169 of the Urban Planning Law clearly grants local corporations the power to *"control urban development"*, without such control having been excluded from public buildings. That being the case, local governments may, in the exercise of their police power, order the suspension of any public work—within their territory—if, despite having been "authorized" by the Office of Public Works, it is erected in contravention of the prevailing urban planning regulations. The Court understands that the Office of Public Works—pursuant to the provisions of Article 75 of the Construction Law—may "authorize" the public works indicated therein, which, in a correct hermeneutical interpretation, implies fully exercising prior control of the project, that is, verifying its conformity with the applicable regulations by reason of subject matter. The construction activity of the State, by mandate of the principle of legality enshrined in numeral 11 of the Political Constitution, is not excluded from the duty to submit to the zoning and other regulations established in the regulatory plans and in the development regulations of those plans.

**IX. THE NECESSARY INTER-SUBJECTIVE COORDINATION IN URBAN PLANNING MATTERS.** Coordination between the activities of different public subjects seeks, on the one hand, to avoid duplication of functions and, on the other, to prevent omissions that harm the prevailing legal order. In this sense, Article 6 of the Municipal Code establishes *“that the municipality and the other bodies and entities of the Public Administration must coordinate their actions. For this purpose, they must communicate, with due notice, the works they plan to execute.”* The Constitutional Chamber, in ruling No. 5445-99, established the need for coordination between local governments and other public entities, noting in this regard:

*“(...) coordination is the ordering of the relationships between these diverse independent activities, which addresses their concurrence on a single object or entity to make it useful for a global public plan, without suppressing the reciprocal independence of the acting subjects. Since there is no hierarchical relationship of the decentralized institutions, nor of the State itself in relation to the municipalities, it is not possible to impose certain behaviors on them, which gives rise to the indispensable strict inter-institutional 'agreement,' in which the autonomous and independent centers of action agree on that preventive and global scheme, where each one plays a role in view of a mission entrusted to the others.”* Thus, *the relationships of municipalities with other public entities can only be conducted on a plane of equality, resulting in agreed forms of coordination, with the exclusion of any imperative form to the detriment of their autonomy, which would allow subjecting corporate entities to a coordination scheme without their will or against it (…).* *This defined cooperation relationship has been understood by the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional), which has repeatedly stated that for the projects of the various public institutions to be carried out, it must be done with respect for the legal system: first, constitutional-level norms, and then, legal and regulatory-level norms, such that, for the Executive Branch or other public entities to carry out projects on their own initiative in a specific locality, they must have the respective municipal permits and licenses, if applicable, as indicated in amparo ruling number 02231-96, transcribed, in relevant part, in Considerando VIII of this ruling.* *This obligation of coordination between State institutions and municipalities is implicit in the Political Constitution itself (….) as indicated in ruling number 2311-95, cited above; with which, it is being said that there must be proper and obligatory coordination between the State and local corporate entities, thus complying with what is ordered by this provision, without this implying an invasion of municipal autonomy.* Likewise, the Chamber considers that *in matters of urban planning, this same relationship of coordination must exist*, even though it has been defined - by constitutional provision - that urban planning falls under the competence of local governments, it should be ordered in accordance with the general directives and guidelines of the National Urban Development Plan (Plan Nacional de Urbanismo) prepared by the Executive Branch (at the proposal of the Urban Planning Directorate (Dirección de Urbanismo) of the INVU and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy) and integrated into the National Development Plan referred to in the National Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Nacional), on the understanding that this Plan must be approved by an ordinary law (…).

In the same ruling, the Constitutional Court held the following regarding the observance of the content of regulatory plans (planes reguladores) by public entities:

*“….the regulation of the circulation of vehicles, persons, and livestock on roadways, of gas stations and public parking lots, the definition of road safety, its financing, payment of taxes, fines, and traffic rights, and matters concerning the ownership of motor vehicles (Article 1 of the Ley de Tránsito por Vías Públicas Terrestres) are specific tasks derived from the general ordinance of public roadways, which by their nature are national, not local (municipal), issues, and consequently, it falls to the Executive Branch to carry out their regulation; so that it is the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) who dictates and executes the ordinance regarding concessions for remunerated public transport of persons, defines the location of bus stops, and the signaling of public roadways, for example. However, in accordance with what is stated in Considerando X of this ruling, this is a task that the MOPT must develop in coordination with local functions, under the terms indicated in the challenged norm and in the provisions of the analyzed Article 5 of the repealed Municipal Code (Código Municipal) and Article 7 of the new legal body, so that when dictating the ordinance of public roadways, it must be done respecting the local legal order, which in this matter means that it must be done in accordance with the regulatory plans (planes reguladores) dictated by the municipalities for their territorial jurisdiction where they exist, or in coordination with them to resolve what is most suitable, in jurisdictions where no regulatory plans (planes reguladores) exist.* (emphasis not in original).

Thus, it could not be maintained that by provision of numeral 75 of the Construction Law (Ley de Construcciones), any public entity may enter the territory of the local government and, without coordinating with it, begin to construct buildings or install structures that – as unfortunately often happens – even destroy some local works, such as the cantonal road network. The principle of coordination, as derived from the constitutional principle of **efficiency** of public action (articles 140, subsection 8, 139, subsection 4, and 191 all of the Supreme Charter (Carta Suprema)) obliges the various public entities – including the central government – to notify local governments that they will begin – or have completed – works within their territory and that they have the standard authorization from the Construction Directorate (Dirección de Obras) for this; this is so that municipalities can fulfill the mission entrusted to them by the legislator of controlling public urban development activity within their territory. It goes without saying that this implies the **exercise of their police power (poder de policía)** in the event that it is deemed that what was authorized infringes the **current urban planning norms**.

** X).- THE SUBMISSION OF PUBLIC ENTITIES TO ESTABLISHED NORMS AND PROCEDURES:** ** ** It is a fundamental principle of any Rule of Law State (Estado de Derecho) that public entities are subject to the current legal norms (principle of legality), without being able to singularly disapply them. The urban transformation activity undertaken by public entities is subject to the body of legality (bloque de legalidad) – e.g., compliance with Law 7600, the Architectural Heritage Law (Ley de Patrimonio Arquitectónico), the Organic Environmental Law (Ley Orgánica del Ambiente), etc. -. This subjection includes - among others - compliance with the zoning (zonificación) established in land-use plans, which they cannot ignore or disapply, without violating the current legal and constitutional framework, inasmuch as when dictating norms on zoning, local governments make use of a **constitutional competence** that the remaining public entities cannot ignore or disrespect, especially when this involves the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and the right to property of the canton's residents, to whom the zoning guarantees not only the enjoyment of their urban environment according to the uses and other conditions established in the urban planning norms, but also that urban property - subject to limitations - will maintain its basic statute. In a similar sense, the Constitutional Court pronounced itself in Voto No. 2009-95 of 10:30 a.m. of April 21, 1995, when analyzing **the binding nature of the Legislative Assembly to a legal norm that it had previously dictated** for creating new cantons. On that occasion, that high Court indicated that the *principle of binding nature of public entities to established legal procedures*, **is of constitutional rank**, consequently - it held - it is prohibited to disregard them even for the very body that created them. In this regard, the Constitutional Court stated:

*" V.- LEY SOBRE DIVISION TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATIVA (No. 4366 of August 19, 1969) .- It is precisely this law that the Legislative Branch has issued to regulate the creation of new cantons. It is necessary to point out that when the Political Constitution establishes in the final paragraph of Article 168 that the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the total membership of the Legislative Assembly is required for the creation of a canton, it gives a clear idea of the importance that the original constituent gave to territorial integrity and all matters related to the territorial subdivision of the Provinces. In the opinion of the Chamber,* ***the general principle of Law establishing that legal norms bind even the authority that has dictated them and, within their competence, their superior, implies that the law governing the functioning of the Legislative Assembly for the exercise of an equally constitutional competence, binds it in specific cases where it must exercise it, which is nothing more than the application of the general principle of singular non-derogability of the norm for the specific case; a general principle of constitutional rank, as it is applicable to the entirety of the legal system, as a derivation and at the same time a condition of the Rule of Law State (Estado de Derecho) in its entirety*** *.* *All of which means, in relation to the present matter, that for the creation of a new municipal territorial entity, the Legislative Assembly must observe the law it has dictated for such purpose, without prejudice, of course, to its power to repeal or reform it prior to its exercise*". (emphasis not in original).

In accordance with the principle of obligatory nature of *legal norms, including for the authority that has dictated them,* the norms on zoning - and other similar ones - are not available, not even for the local government that has adopted them, to which it is subject in the first order, and must, in the event it wishes to modify them, submit to the procedure legally established by the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana). By greater reason, no public entity is excluded from the urban development control exercised by local governments within their territory, which is clearly provided for in the law. Consequently, as indicated by numeral 58 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana):

*"municipalities shall not permit construction works: 1) when they do not conform, for reasons of use, setbacks, coverage, and other zoning conditions* *(...)"* .

** XI).- ON TAX EXEMPTION**: The Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) is correct in indicating that public entities are exempt from the construction tax established by Article 70 of the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana), at a rate of up to 1% of the value of the constructions. The local Government and Autonomous Institutions enjoy such exemption *"provided they are works of social interest"* or of institutions *"of medical-social assistance or educational"* as is the case of the IAFA examined here. However, the tax exemption does not entail, as has been set forth, the disapplication of urban planning norms by the exempted public entities.

** XII).- ON THE ALLEGED COMPLIANCE WITH AN ORDER FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT:** The authorities of the IAFA have been claiming that the construction of the detoxification center for minors addicted to drugs was done in compliance with an order from the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) - Voto N° 05871-2005 -, however, the Court must indicate, after a thorough review of the cited ruling, that what was ordered by the Constitutional Chamber regarding the need to create a center of this nature, does not entail - not even remotely - the affectation of the property rights of the neighbors due to the disapplication of urban planning regulations. At no time did the Constitutional Court indicate the place where such a center had to be built, which should have been done in a site compatible with the zoning established by the local government. It is not possible to realize the urban planning and ordinance process to which the Urban Planning Law (Ley de Planificación Urbana) has aspired since 1968, if public entities are allowed to disapply and disrespect - throughout the territory - public order norms.

** XIII).- COROLLARY:** As in this case a building was erected in the jurisdiction of Montes de Oca, disregarding local zoning rules, this Court, in the exercise of the constitutional function of legality control entrusted to it by numeral 173, second paragraph, of the Magna Carta (Carta Magna), must annul the challenged agreement that was issued based on opinion N-341-2007 of the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República). **POR TANTO:** The appealed agreement is annulled. The administrative process is hereby exhausted.- **Name625** **I. Rocío Rojas Morales** ** Grace Loaiza Sánchez** Asociación vecinos de Dirección1511 organized c/ Municipalidad de Montes de Oca. Name35676

N° 1269 - 2009 N° 1269 - 2009 TRIBUNAL CONTENCIOSO ADMINISTRATIVO. SECCIÓN TERCERA. II CIRCUITO JUDICIAL DE SAN JOSÉ. Goicoechea, a las dieciséis horas treinta minutos del veintiséis de junio del dos mil nueve.

Conoce este Tribunal, como jerarca impropio, del recurso de apelación interpuesto por Helio Fallas Venegas, mayor, con cédula CED59583, vecino de Montes de Oca y, Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, contra el acuerdo adoptado por el Concejo Municipal de Montes de Oca en la sesión N° 79/2007, Artículo 5.1, Punto N° 6 del 29 de octubre de 2007 que dispuso -en lo de interés- declarar "...sin lugar el recurso de apelación interpuesto contra la resolución del señor Alcalde en la que declara con lugar el recurso de revocatoria presentado por el IAFA, y ordenar levantar la orden de clausura toda vez que no había ningún aspecto de legalidad que pudiera llevarnos a revocar la resolución recurrida. Todo sin perjuicio de hacer ver que este Concejo municipal no comparte el dictamen de la Procuraduría General de la República..." . Interviene en este proceso recursivo el Dr. Francisco Gólcher Valverde, mayor, soltero, médico psiquatra, vecino de la Uruca, con cédula CED77481 en su condición de Presidente de la Junta Directiva del Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia, que tiene la condición de tercero interesado en este procedimiento recursivo.

Redacta la Juez Rojas Morales , y:

CONSIDERANDO:

I).- HECHOS PROBADOS:

Para una correcta resolución del presente asunto, se tiene por probado lo siguiente: 1) Que el 09 de agosto de 2007 el Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia (en adelante IAFA) solicitó a la Municipalidad de Montes de Oca certificado de uso conforme de suelo para construir un edificio de 2.400 metros cuadrados que sería dedicado al tratamiento de adicciones. En fecha 13 de ese mismo mes y año, la Directora de Planificación y Urbanismo y el técnico de usos de suelo de la comuna local certificó el uso no compatible del citado proyecto con el Plan Regulador local, el que clasifica la referida zona como de uso predominantemente residencial en la que no se pueden levantar construcciones a una extensión mayor de 500 metros (folios 62, 63,64); 2) Mediante oficio CU-e-1400-09-2007 del 12 de septiembre de 2007, el Coordinador de Control Urbano dispuso lo siguiente: a- la clausura del proyecto iniciado "sin aval municipal"; b.- la eliminación de las obras que invadan los retiros municipales, que son aquellos que se encuentran fuera de la línea de construcción oficial señalada por el Departamento de Topografía; c.- prevenir al representante del IAFA la obtención de la licencia de construcción ante la Municipalidad de Montes de Oca, de previo a realizar cualquier obra constructiva ( folio 67,68 ); 3) Mediante oficio CU-e-1401-09-2007 de 12 de septiembre de 2007, la Directora de Planificación Urbana y el Coordinador de Control Urbano de la Municipalidad le informa a los personeros del IAFA que la construcción en cuestión no está excluida del trámite de licencia municipal y que se mantiene la clausura de las obras dispuesta en el oficio anterior (folio, 69 a71); 4) El 17 de septiembre de 2007, el Presidente de la Junta Directiva del IAFA planteó recurso de revocatoria con apelación en subsidio contra los oficios CU-e-1400-09-2007 y CU-e-1401-09-2007 (folios 33 y 47); 5) En fecha 19 de septiembre de 2005 un grupo de vecinos de Dirección1511 dirigieron oficio ante el gobierno local en el que manifiestan "nos oponemos rotundamente" a la construcción del referido centro en un barrio residencial, según lo establece el Plan Regulador (folio 97, 99); 6) El 21 de septiembre de 2007 el Ministro de Vivienda de entonces, Fernando Zumbado Jiménez pone en conocimiento del Alcalde de Montes de Oca que en la sesión N° 3 del Consejo del Sector Social y Lucha contra la Pobreza del 19 de septiembre de 2007, fue aprobada una moción en el siguiente sentido "Se acuerda apoyar la construcción del Centro Nacional de Tratamiento para niños niñas y adolescentes con dependencia de drogas, en condiciones de vulnerabilidad" proceso que ha sido detenido por la Municipalidad de Montes de Oca" solicitándole una resolución favorable a la continuación del proyecto (oficio DM-979-09-07 de folio 109); 7) Mediante oficio D.ALC.1024-2007 , fechado 20 de septiembre de 2007, el Alcalde de Montes de Oca consulta a la Procuraduría General de la República lo siguiente: "¿ 1) Si la excepción establecida en el artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones número 833- de no necesitar licencia municipal- también exime del requisito de contar con un Certificado de Uso de Suelo Conforme, tal y como lo exige el artículo 28 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana?; 2) ¿Está el Gobierno Central de la República y sus Instituciones exento de cumplir la normativa local de los Planes Reguladores?, si fuese así ¿Cuál es el alcance de las potestades legales otorgadas a las Municipalidades en esta materia y especialmetne el principio de la Autonomía Municipal?; 3) "¿ Es legalmente posible que el Gobierno Central de la República y sus instituciones puedan construir una obra o edificio, aún en contra de lo que establecen los Reglamentos de Zonificación de los Planes Reguladores vigentes?" (folio 11a 115); 8) Mediante Dictamen C-341-2007 de 26 de setiembre de 2007 la Procuradora Adjunta Andrea Calderón Gassmann, con autorización de la Procuradora General de la República evacua la consulta en los siguientes términos: "Conclusiones. Con fundamento en lo expuesto, esta Procuraduría General concluye que: 1.- Conforme el numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones, el Estado se encuentra exento de la obligación de solicitar licencia de construcción para los edificios públicos; 2.- De acuerdo con el mismo numeral, los entes descentralizados también se encuentran exentos, siempre y cuando las obras edificadas sean supervisadas por el órgano competente en el Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes; 3.- los certificados de uso de suelo municipales tienen efectos estrictamente declarativos y no constituyen, extinguen o modifican situaciones jurídicas. No producen los efectos de una licencia municipal; 4.-En la jurisprudencia administrativa y constitucional el certificado del uso del suelo se conceptualiza como un requisito previo para obtener una autorización municipal que sí tiene un carácter constitutivo, verbigracia una licencia de construcción o una patente. 5.- Ergo, si el Estado no se encuentra sujeto a la obligación de requerir a la municipalidad local licencia de construcción, tampoco debe requerírsele el de suel , en razón de que que éste último cobra sentido justamente en tanto la Municpalidad deba otorgar una licencia de construcción, dado que está concebido como uno de los requisitos a valorar dentro del trámite que conlleva la obtención de dicha licencia. Lo contrario implicaría el contrasentido de exigir un requisito propio de una potestad que, en ese particular caso de excepción, el Gobierno Municipal no puede ejercer; 6.- La potestad de ordenamiento urbano es una función inherente al Municipio, pues forma parte del concepto enmarcado por "los servicios e intereses locales"; 7.- En ejercicio de sus potestades en materia de ordenamiento urbano, la Municipalidad se encuentra sometida a la ley; 8.- La exención a favor del Estado y que le libera de la obligación de obtener licencia de construcción tienen asiento legal, por lo que forma parte del marco legal que toda municipalidad debe respetar en ejercicio de sus potestades en materia de planificación urbana." (folio 125 a 144); 9).- Mediante resolución D.ALC. 157-2007 de las 13:00 horas del 28 de septiembre de 2007 la Alcaldía resolvió el recurso interpuesto por los personeros del IAFA de la siguiente manera: "De conformidad con los fundamentos de derecho expuestos, y el criterio C-341-2007 de la Procuraduría General de la República, el Estado se encuentra exento de la obligación de solicitar licencia de construcción para los edificios públicos y del uso del suelo, SE ORDENA DEJAR SIN EFECTO EL ACTO DE CLAUSURA. Puede continuar el Instituto Sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia con el desarrollo de las obras. Se le advierte al recurrente si bien es cierto no necesitan uso de suelo ni licencia de construcción, si tienen el deber de informar a la Municipalidad respectiva y coordinar con ésta, con la debida antelación, las obras y proyectos que pretenden realizar en el Cantón de Montes de Oca."; 10) La Presidenta del Comité de vecinos de Barrio Roosevelt Organizado y el Presidente de la Asociación Roosevelt plantearon contra la anterior resolución recurso de apelación (folio 154,155,157); 11) El Concejo Municipal de Montes de Oca en su sesión ordinaria N° 79/2007, Artículo N° 5.1, Punto N° 6 del 29 de octubre de 2007 dispuso declarar "...sin lugar el recurso de apelación interpuesto contra la resolución del señor Alcalde en la que declara con lugar el recurso de revocatoria presentado por el IAFA, y ordenar levantar la orden de clausura toda vez que no había ningún aspecto de legalidad que pudiera llevarnos a revocar la resolución recurrida. Todo sin perjuicio de hacer ver que este Concejo municipal no comparte el dictamen de la Procuraduría General de la República" (folios 168,174); 12).- Contra la anterior resolución los vecinos de Dirección1511 plantearon recursos de revocatoria con apelación en subsidio (folio 175, 176); 13)El Concejo Municipal de Montes de Oca, en sesión ordinaria N° 83/2007, Artículo N° 10, Punto N° 3 del 26 de noviembre de 2007 acordó: "Rechazar y declarar sin lugar en todos sus extremos el recurso de revocatoria interpuesto por los señores Helio Fallas Venegas y Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo, vecinos del Barrio Roosevelt, contra el acuerdo del artículo 5.1 punto 6 de la Sesión Ordinaria N° 79-2007 del Concejo Municipal de Montes de Oca, celebrada el 29 de Octubre de 2007, por encontrarse ajustado a derecho. Estando en tiempo y forma el recurso de apelación en subsidio, se admite el mismo ante la Sección Tercera del Tribunal Superior Contencioso Administrativo del Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José...", articulación en virtud de la cual conoce este Tribunal del presente asunto (folios 160, 162).

II).- HECHOS NO PROBADOS:

• 1)Que la Dirección de Obras del Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes haya autorizado el proyecto de desintoxicación de menores en Barrio Roosevelt del IAFA previa verificación del cumplimiento de los requisitos urbanísticos vigentes (no hay elementos probatorios sobre este extremo); 2) Que la Sala Constitucional haya ordenado construir un centro para desintoxicación de menores en una zona residencial de la jurisdicción de Montes de Oca (no acreditó el Director del IAFA esa afirmación); 3) Que el centro de desintoxicación para menores construido en barrio Roosevelt cumpla con las normas urbanísticas locales y nacionales (no se acreditó en el procedimiento recursivo la conformidad de la obra con el plan regulador local. El tribunal comprobó en el reconocimiento correspondiente, que las instalaciones adolescen de los requisitos exigidos por la ley 7600).

III).- OBJETO DEL RECURSO:

Indican los recurrentes que el dictamen de la Procuraduría General de la República no conlleva la desaplicación del Plan Regulador, el que no puede ignorarse bajo ningún concepto. La Municipalidad está vinculada a la Ley y esta le otorga a los gobiernos locales competencia para dictar planes reguladores y reglamentos de desarrollo, sin exonerar a nadie de su observancia (artículos 15 y siguientes). En esta misma línea, el numeral 57 señala que, no pueden ejecutarse obras de construcción contra lo dispuesto en esa ley y, el artículo 58 del mismo cuerpo normativo establece que las municipalidades no pueden permitir obras que no respeten las regulaciones sobre uso de suelo. En cuanto al artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones es claro que las instituciones del Estado están exoneradas del permiso correspondiente, no del acatamiento del Plan Regulador, ni de sus reglamentos de desarrollo. En todo caso, para que tal exoneración proceda, las obras constructivas deben estar bajo la "vigilancia" del MOPT y, en el caso concreto del IAFA, la obra la hace una firma consultiva. Agrega la parte apelante que el artículo 87 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana obliga a la Municipalidad a vigilar el cumplimiento de las disposiciones de desarrollo urbano, en tanto el numeral 88 ibídem, obliga a clausurar aquellas obras que contravengan el ordenamiento jurídico. En suma, ningún ente público está exonerado de acatar el Plan Regulador y ello no lo ha dicho -entiende la recurrente- el dictamen de la Procuraduría General de la República que sirve de base a la adopción del acto administrativo impugnado. La conclusión correcta es que de la exoneración de un permiso de construcción NO puede derivarse una licencia -autorización- para hacer a un lado el plan regulador local. El gobierno local no puede dar el visto bueno a una obra que sale del uso lícito del cantón, lo que le depara graves perjuicios a los vecinos.

IV).- ALCANCE DEL ANÁLISIS POR PARTE DE ESTE TRIBUNAL:

En el presente caso se discute la vinculación de los entes públicos a la planificación local y, el contenido y alcance actual del numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones. Para resolver las articulaciones planteadas por los recurrentes, el gobierno local dispuso consultar el tema a la Procuraduría General de la República y ese órgano evacuó la gestión en el dictamen número C-341-2007, que vincula al consultante, en los términos en que lo dispone su Ley Orgánica, más no a este Tribunal como jerarca impropia bifásico, que ejerce una función constitucional, al examinar la legalidad del acuerdo del Concejo Municipal (artículo 173 de la Constitución Política); análisis que en el caso concreto cubre el citado dictamen, en tanto sirve de base a la adopción del acto impugnado.

• V)SOBRE LA APLICACIÓN DEL ARTÍCULO 75 DE LA LEY DE CONTRUCCIONES:

Es importante señalar, en primer término, que la Ley de Construcciones, Decreto Ley N°833, promulgado el 04 de noviembre de 1949 reconoció -incluso antes de la promulgación de la actual Constitución- la competencia de los gobiernos locales en materia de planificación urbana. Así se extrae, con toda claridad, del numeral 1 de ese cuerpo normativo que a la letra indica:

"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 y en los edificios y construcciones que en terrenos de las mismas se levanten si perjuicio de las facultades que las leyes conceden en estas materias a otros órganos administrativos". (destaca el Tribunal).

Dentro del mismo orden, el numeral 2 del citado cuerpo normativo previó la sujeción de toda actividad urbanística a las disposiciones de los gobiernos locales en esta materia, los que calificó como "reglamentos" y que posteriormente -1968-, la Ley de Planificación Urbana llamaría "Planes Reguladores" del suelo. El Artículo 2 de la Ley de Construcciones preceptúa:

"Esta ley rige en toda la República. Ningún Edificio, estructura o elemento de los mismos será construído, adoptado o reparado, en lo futuro, si no es con las condiciones que los Reglamentos respectivos señalen. Tampoco deberán hacerse demoliciones o excavaciones en propiedad particular, ni ocupar la vía pública, ni hacer obras en ella, sin sujetarse a las prevenciones de dichos Reglamentos" (destaca el Tribunal).

En plena concordancia con la anterior disposición, el numeral 87 de la citada ley dispone que los gobiernos locales ejercerán vigilancia sobre las obras que se ejecutan en su jurisdicción, incluyendo dentro de los aspectos a controlar “el uso que se le dé”; además, del cumplimiento de las otras disposiciones urbanísticas. Estima el Tribunal que este control –mientras esté vigente el numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones- es posterior “ex post”, puesto que –como se analizará posteriormente- la autorización inicial “ex ante” corresponde a la Dirección de Obras del Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes.

En la misma línea del citado Decreto-Ley preconstitucional, el numeral 169 de la Carta Política, que se promulgó el 07 de noviembre de 1949 (escasos días después de aquél Decreto-ley), reconoció a los gobiernos locales plena autonomía dentro de su jurisdicción, lo que involucra la potestad regulatoria del entorno urbano local, que hace parte de la "defensa de los intereses locales", tal y como de manera diáfana lo señaló el Tribunal Constitucional en la sentencia número 6706-93 de las 15:21 horas del 21 de diciembre de 1993 y lo admite la propia Procuraduría General de la República en la Consulta N°C-341-2007 que ha servido de base al acuerdo impugnado.

Con toda claridad el numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones establece que los edificios públicos -construidos por el gobierno central-, así como aquellas edificaciones que realicen "otros entes menores", no requerirán de "licencia municipal", sujetando la exclusión del control municipal a que sean “autorizados y vigilados” por la Dirección de Obras Públicas. Literalmente dispone el citado artículo:

" Los edificios públicos, o sean los edificios construidos, por el Gobierno de la República, no necesitan licencia municipal. Tampoco la necesitan edificios construidos por otras dependencias del Estado, siempre que sean autorizados y vigilados por la Dirección de Obras Públicas." (los destacados no son del original).

La Procuraduría General de la República señaló -en el citado dictamen- que a su vez reenvía a lo dicho en el Dictamen N° C-192-1995 del 05 de septiembre de 1995, lo siguiente: "es decir, de conformidad con el numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones, el Estado no debe requerir licencia municipal para ejecutar las obras pertinentes a la construcción de sus edificios. Tal y como se ha subrayado en la opinión jurídica OJ-106-2002 de 24 de junio de 2002, se trata de una exención subjetiva que opera única y exclusivamente a favor del Estado y sus instituciones".El órgano consultado sostiene que la dispensa de la licencia consagrada en el numeral 75 del Decreto-Ley de Construcciones, obedece a que existe una "exención subjetiva" establecida por la Ley de Planificación Urbana; sin embargo, para el Tribunal, no es posible llegar a esa conclusión a partir del marco normativo vigente. En efecto, el impuesto del 1% a las construcciones, al igual que la exención tributaria a los entes y órganos que construyan obras públicas de "interés social", se encuentra establecida en nuestro ordenamiento jurídico en el artículo 70 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana N° 4240 del 15 de noviembre de 1968 y no antes. Es decir, el impuesto a las construcciones y la exención tributaria correspondiente se creó en el artículo 70 de Ley de Planificación Urbana, esto es, diecinueve años después de promulgado el Decreto Ley N° 833 de 1949.

En el presente asunto, no está en discusión si las obras que levantan las instituciones públicas de "interés social" gozan o no de exención tributaria. Lo que está en discusión -y así se planteó la consulta al órgano asesor de la Municipalidad- es si el artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones -aplicado en el año 2008 -fecha de la consulta-, le impide a la Municipalidad ejercer su poder de policía en materia urbanística. Para abordar este extremo, la Procuraduría introduce el tema del "certificado de uso de suelo", indicándole al gobierno local de Montes de Oca que el mismo como institución del Derecho Urbanístico "....resulta exigible y cobra sentido en el tanto la Municipalidad deba otorgar una licencia de construcción, dado que está concebido como uno de los requisitos a valorar dentro del trámite que conlleva la obtención de dicha licencia. Ergo, si en un determinado caso -previsto por la ley- se exime al Estado y a sus instituciones de requerir licencia de la municipalidad para construir un edificio público no resulta lógico requerir a la entidad interesada la obtención de un certificado de uso del suelo. Lo contrario implicaría el contrasentido de exigir un requisito propio de una potestad que, en este particular caso de exención, el Gobierno Municipal no puede ejercer. En el supuesto que nos ocupa, resulta claro que el artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones establece que las construcciones de edificios públicos no se encuentran sujetas a la potestad de control que la ley otorga a las municipalidades en materia de zonificación urbana por la vía de la licencia de construcción, y por ende, a todos los requisitos que apareja la obtención de tal licencia" -los destacados no son del original-.

Sin entrar aquí a analizar la eventual inconstitucionalidad sobrevenida del artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones (ver Voto Nº Nº 5445-99 de la Sala Constitucional), puesto que ello no le corresponde a este Tribunal, es lo cierto que este órgano colegiado, en aplicación de los criterios de hermenéutica jurídica generalmente aceptados por la doctrina y la jurisprudencia, debe separarse de las conclusiones a las que ha llegado el citado órgano consultivo, tal y como se expone de seguido.

VI.- SOBRE EL CONCEPTO DE LICENCIA Y EL DESPLAZAMIENTO DEL CONTROL “EX ANTE” EN LA ACTIVIDAD CONTRUCTIVA DE LOS ENTES PÚBLICOS: En virtud de que el numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones exime a algunas instituciones públicas de la obtención de la licencia municipal, es indispensable desentrañar el significado de lo eximido por el citado Decreto- Ley preconstitucional. La licencia es una autorización para realizar una determinada actividad. Se le ha definido como "… uno de los ejemplos típicos de un acto consistente en una autorización administrativa y, más específicamente en un acto de comprobación previa. Así a través de la licencia urbanística se comprueba por la Administración que la actividad urbanística pretendida puede ser autorizada, porque el sujeto solicitante ha cumplido los deberes o requisitos exigibles por el ordenamiento jurídico" (Diccionario Jurídico Espasa. Editorial Espasa Calve S.A. Madrid, 2001, p.914).

Resulta claro para el Tribunal que, el artículo 75 del Decreto Ley N° 833 exime -año 1949- a los entes públicos ahí citados (Gobierno Central y otros órganos menores) de la autorización preventiva “ex ante”, que realizan los gobiernos locales cuando otorgan una licencia para levantar determinada construcción, autorización que -valga indicarlo-, posteriormente tanto la Constitución Política como la Ley de Planificación Urbana encomendó a los gobiernos locales. Ahora bien, el artículo 75 -entiende el Tribunal- no excluyó a los entes públicos del control inicial en sus edificaciones, simplemente lo trasladó a la Dirección de Obras del MOPT, al que encargó la función de "autorizar" esos proyectos y de "vigilar" su ejecución. De lo expuesto se sigue que, la Ley N° 833 no eximió a las construcciones de las instituciones públicas del control urbanístico previo, simplemente lo trasladó a un órgano concreto del Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes como lo es la Dirección de Obras, que cuenta actualmente con un departamento especializado para tal propósito denominado “Dirección de Edificaciones Nacionales” órgano administrativo que, en una correcta aplicación de la misma Ley de Construcciones, tendría que, -de previo a autorizar un proyecto constructivo-, verificar que la edificación que se le ha presentado para su autorización previa, se ajuste a las disposiciones legales vigentes, sean estas locales -contenidas en planes reguladores- o nacionales -ej. certificado de viabilidad ambiental que exige la Ley Orgánica del Ambiente, ley 7600 en cuanto a accesos para las personas discapacitadas, ley de patrimonio arquitectónico en cuanto a fachadas y características de la estructura, certificado de uso de suelo, colocación de hidrantes, etc.-.

El Tribunal debe acotar que la vinculación de los entes públicos a estudios y certificados técnicos no es nueva, todo lo contrario, nació para obligar a esos entes a sujetarse a sus contenidos y fue muy posteriormente que tal requisito se extendió a los particulares. La primera legislación que estableció la necesidad de contar con la “evaluación ambiental” como estudio técnico, fue la norteamericana en el año 1969 y fue conocida como la National Environmental Policy Act. La ley exigió una declaración o informe ambiental para emprender cualquier proyecto público, incluyendo la elaboración de políticas, planes, programas que, en su desarrollo pudieran afectar significativamente el ambiente. En Europa, en el año 1985, se aprobó la Directiva 85/337/CEE de 27 de junio de 1985 en que se exigía la evaluación de las repercusiones de ciertos proyectos públicos y privados sobre el medio ambiente. Posteriormente, se ensanchó el campo de aplicación de estos estudios hasta aplicarlos a todos los planes y programas de los Estados, lo que quedó asentado en la Directiva 2001/42/CE del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo de 27 de junio de 2001.

Como lo ha sostenido reiteradamente la jurisprudencia nacional, la materia urbanística es la parte no verde –gris- del derecho ambiental, resultando innegable, en consecuencia, la vinculación de sus institutos para los sujetos de derecho público y privado (sobre el tema se puede consultar de la Sala Constitucional el voto Nº2003 - 03656 de 07 de mayo de 2003, de la Sala Primera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia el Nº 000507 de 17 de junio de 2004 y de esta misma sección del Tribunal la Nº 176 - 2009 de 30 de enero de 2009).

Por imperio del principio de legalidad y de plenitud hermética del ordenamiento jurídico, solo cuando los requisitos urbanísticos legalmente exigibles estuvieren cumplidos, la Dirección General de Obras Públicas podría "autorizar" un determinado proyecto público, pues va de suyo que, la "autorización" supone el control previo que la ley le encomendó. Con toda claridad el numeral 2 la ley N° 833 dispone:

"Esta ley rige en toda la República. Ningún edificio, (sin distinguir si es público o privado) estructura o elemento de los mismos será construido, adoptado o reparado, en lo futuro, si no es con las condiciones que los reglamentos respectivos señalen" (el destacado y la aclaración introducidas no son del original).

Dentro de la misma línea de control se inscribe el artículo 86 de la Ley de Construcciones que en una adición posterior - mediante ley nº 8641 del 11 de junio del 2008- encargó el control sobre la instalación de hidrantes a los entes Municipales, resultando evidente, en una interpretación sistemática de la norma- que, de previo, la Dirección de Obras debe verificar que se cumpla con aquellas disposiciones y que lo previsto en la norma, a cargo de la comuna local, es un control posterior que le autoriza desde luego, ejercer su poder de policía urbano, para restablecer el principio de legalidad dentro de su territorio. Señala textualmente la disposición 87 de la Ley de Construcciones en su versión actual:

“Artículo 87 .- La municipalidad ejercerá vigilancia sobre las obras que se ejecuten en su jurisdicción, así como sobre el uso que se le dé. Además, tendrá la misión de vigilar la observancia de los preceptos de esta ley.

Al desarrollador, la entidad o empresa promotora de obras públicas o privadas que construyan nuevas urbanizaciones, centros comerciales, multifamiliares, construcciones sujetas al régimen de propiedad horizontal, industria y comercio, así como a cualquier otra edificación, les corresponderá instalar los hidrantes, conforme al ordenamiento jurídico respectivo. Esta disposición solo se aplica en casos de edificios cuya área de construcción supere los 2000 metros cuadrados, siempre y cuando no existan hidrantes cercanos, según los parámetros dispuestos en la normativa vigente.

Las municipalidades deberán verificar, en los proyectos o las edificaciones señalados en el párrafo anterior, que los hidrantes se encuentren debidamente instalados y conectados a sus fuentes. El cumplimiento de este requisito será obligatorio para los permisos de funcionamiento, operación o aceptación de obras.” (destaca el Tribunal) No era entonces -en el año 1949- y no es ahora -2009- una facultad discrecional de la Dirección de Obras, dispensar a los entes públicos del cumplimiento de las normas urbanísticas vigentes, teniendo ese órgano el deber de vigilar -preventivamente- que aquellas sean cumplidas por los entes públicos en su actividad edificadora, caso contrario, ese órgano tendría que denegar la autorización para la obra, puesto que el control por parte del gobierno local de lo construido, dentro de los límites de su territorio, no desaparece en virtud del desplazamiento que la ley ha dispuesto del control preventivo a la Dirección de Obras. Ahora bien, la función de “vigilancia” que la ley le encomienda a la Dirección de Obras no se limita a la autorización inicial, antes bien, supone controlar que lo ejecutado se ajuste a lo autorizado por ella.

No debe perderse de vista que la ley bajo examen es de naturaleza pre-constitucional y que es, posteriormente, con la promulgación de la Constitución de 1949 -escasos días después- que se le otorgó autonomía a los gobiernos locales, lo que conlleva -en atención al interés local que defienden- atribuirle competencia para dictar normas urbanísticas dentro de su territorio que deben ser cumplidas por sujetos de derecho público y privado.

Una correcta hermenéutica del artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones no puede llevarnos a afirmar que -como lo indica la Procuraduría en su dictamen-, la dispensa de la licencia conlleva la desaplicación para los entes públicos de las normas urbanísticas de orden público dictadas por los gobiernos locales. La exención en tanto en tanto excepcional y privilegiada, no constituye una desaplicación del resto del ordenamiento jurídico. Basta indicar que los entes públicos están sujetos al principio constitucional -que desarrollaremos posteriormente- de que las normas jurídicas obligan incluso a quienes las han emitido, principio que es un claro derivado del de legalidad y razonabilidad de la ley. En razón de ello, resultan de obligado acatamiento para todos los entes públicos –incluyendo desde luego a los propios gobiernos locales- las normas de urbanismo que el poder público haya dictado, en el ejercicio de sus competencias constitucionales, sin poder irrespetarlas singularmente. De lo contrario, se podría llegar al absurdo de permitir la construcción de instalaciones públicas peligrosas, en zonas de protección natural; la ubicación de una cárcel o de un aeropuerto en una zona residencial, o el levantamiento de un edificio moderno y excesivamente alto, al lado de una edificación declarada patrimonio histórico arquitectónico, impidiendo por sus características, la contemplación y disfrute que garantiza este tipo de declaratoria. Dentro del mismo orden de ideas, tampoco podría declararse inhabitable un inmueble público, a pesar de que la condición ruinosa que éste pueda tener, lo que impediría la renovación urbana y sobre todo, la protección del ambiente de la ciudad. Por la vía de exclusión que plantea la Procuraduría, toda la planificación urbana y del crecimiento de las ciudades estaría a merced de los entes públicos, que podrían así vaciar de su contenido esencial derechos fundamentales como la salud, el disfrutar de un ambiente sano y equilibrado, el derecho de propiedad, etc..

No ignora el Tribunal la vocación servicial de los entes públicos y la necesidad de levantar edificaciones que faciliten el cumplimiento de sus fines legales. Sin duda alguna la actividad constructiva del Estado –en sentido amplio- es del más alto interés público, sin embargo, los fines legales que persiguen no pueden ser logrados a contrapelo de las regulaciones establecidas por normas legales, ni irrespetando las competencias constitucionales de los gobiernos locales, cuyas normas urbanísticas -de carácter técnico- tienen, además, la legitimidad de la participación ciudadana en el proceso de elaboración de los planes reguladores (artículo 17 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana).

VII.- MODIFICACIÓN DEL ORDENAMIENTO JURÍDICO: LEY DE PLANIFICACIÓN URBANA.

La Ley de Planificación Urbana (promulgada en 1968) introduce -como novedad para la época- el denominado certificado de uso de suelo. Dispone el artículo 28 de ese cuerpo normativo lo siguiente:

"Prohíbese aprovechar o dedicar terrenos, edificios o estructuras (públicas o privadas) a cualquier uso que sea incompatible con la zonificación implantada.

En adelante los propietarios interesados deberán obtener un certificado municipal que acredite la conformidad del uso a los requirimientos de la zonificación. Los usos ya existentes no conformes, deberán hacerse constar también con certificado que exprese tal circunstancia Cada reglamento de zonificación fijará la fecha a partir de la cual dichos certificados serán obligatorios".(el destacado no es del original).

El certificado de uso de suelo es un instrumento de derecho urbanístico en el que se consigna la zonificación establecida en el Plan Regulador. En algunos países, como es el caso de España ( Ley del Suelo Nº 8/2007 de 28 de mayo), no existe este instrumento, razón por la cual la administración urbanística controla el cumplimiento de la zonificación al extender la correspondiente licencia. No ocurre lo mismo en Costa Rica, en que el certificado de uso de suelo tiene existencia autónoma, en tanto el mismo es requisito no solo para levantar una edificación, sino también para variar el uso de una ya levantada y autorizar determinadas actividades en ella. La autonomía del certificado de uso de suelo respecto de licencia fue establecida con toda claridad en el voto de la Sala Constitucional Nº 4336-99 del 04 de julio de 1999 en que indicó:

“(…)el sentido de las normas citadas es evidente: la expedición del certificado de suelo no puede asimilarse a una licencia de construcción, puesto que su valor se constriñe a definir la vocación del inmueble dentro del plan general vigente…” En razón de la importancia del certificado de uso de suelo en nuestra legislación, que es precisamente el que en el caso bajo examen ha sido contrariado, este órgano colegiado estima esencial examinar el expediente legislativo N° 2085 que correspondió al trámite de la Ley de Planificación Urbana (Ley N° 4240) lo que permitirá acreditar, más allá de toda duda razonable, que la exoneración de la licencia -por la Ley de Construcciones- no conlleva la inobservancia de la zonificación local, ni exime a los entes públicos de cumplir con el citado certificado. En el acta Acta N° 17 -sesión extraordinaria de la Comisión Permanente de Asuntos de Gobierno y Administración del día 07 de junio de 1966-, se discutió el contenido del proyecto de ley -elaborado por el INVU- y, en relación con el certificado de USO DE SUELO se expresó lo siguiente:

"...La ley pretende crear dentro de una serie de leyes que existen, poco conexas, a veces poco claras (se refiere a la normativa urbanística existente en ese momento), poderes suficientes, a fin de que a las Municipalidades se les autorice planificar las ciudades y para aplicar este plan conforme la ciudad se va desarrollando. Los poderes fundamentales que se incluyen son los siguientes: 1) Poder zonificar la ciudad, esto significa destinar las diferentes áreas de la ciudad, con el objeto de evitar conflictos entre usos que son incompatibles. Pudiera creerse que este tipo de control tuvo origen en el celo del Estado, eso no es así, la zonificación históricamente, devino en Inglaterra, Estados Unidos y Alemania, como un movimiento de los ciudadanos, que habiendo hecho inversiones en residencias, eran adversamente afectados, luego (sic) desarrollo de vecinos que instalaban industrias, o comercios bulliciosos, y entonces salió el principio, de que el derecho de propiedad, incluye el derecho de proteger la propiedad propia de usos no compatibles, por parte de terceros, o sea que la propiedad tiene una función social. Este aspecto es lo que menos claramente está establecido en nuestra legislación, aunque en la ley de construcciones dice que las municipalidades pueden negar o denegar permisos, de acuerdo con ciertas reglas, sin embargo, esa ha sido una facultad que se ha aplicado muy poco. Por eso proponemos legislación clara, sencilla, sobre la posibilidad para el INVU y las municipalidades de zonificar las ciudades, en áreas de diferentes usos...". (destaca el Tribunal) Sobre la zonificación urbana, en el Acta N° 56 de la sesión extraordinaria de la misma Comisión de 30 de septiembre de 1966, se lee la intervención del Ingeniero Nombre101457 -uno de los redactores del proyecto de Ley- como sigue:

"El Capítulo II, de la sección II, entra en más detalle sobre los reglamentos de desarrollo urbano: son básicamente cinco; primero el de zonificación, luego urbanización y fraccionamiento, después el mapa oficial de reservas de áreas para uso público. La vivienda y renovación urbana y la construcción. En términos rápidos, la zonificación lo que hace es dividir a la ciudad en zonas de diferentes usos, comercial, industrial, residencial, uso público, y pueden haber zonas especiales, por ejemplo, las áreas de tugurios que se quieran controlar para mejorar, pueden clasificar como áreas de mejorar (...) la zonificación en nuestro país, no queremos como filosofía hacerla demasiado rígida para evitar reacciones que podrían ser inconvenientes; pero si es obvio que tienen que haber instrumentos, para poder evitar , -cosa que todavía no ha sido posible- en realidad, que se mezclen usos que son verdaderamente incompatibles. Tanto en una residencia, que ha sido el esfuerzo de muchos años de una persona, tiene derecho a ser protegida, de que a la par no le pongan algo ruidoso, molesto o algo que produza malos olores, como una industria, tiene el derecho también de protegerse del que en sus cercanías no se construyen viviendas que luego se van a quejar de que esto les molesta. Debe haber separación lógica razonable, de usos incompatibles (...) El derecho de la propiedad -y aquí estamos en la función social de ésta-, es el derecho al uso razonable de la propiedad, pero no en perjuicio de la propiedad de otros (...) en la ley existe, la de construcción, una facultad genérica que dice que las municipalidades podrán negar o denegar permisos de construcción de acuerdo con las reglas de planificación, pero la ley no es clara en cuanto a qué es lo que puede regular .Este proyecto sí lo dice" (expediente legislativo N° 2085. Los destacados no son del original).

El certificado de uso de suelo, puede ser " conforme", "no conforme" o "no compatible". Hay conformidad cuando el uso se ajusta a las normas de zonificación. El uso es "no conforme" cuando, a pesar de que se opone a la zonificación hay un uso consolidado anterior a la norma de zonificación, en cuyo caso la legislación opta por respetar los derechos adquiridos. Finalmente, estamos ante un "uso no compatible" cuando la nueva construcción no se ajusta a la zonificación establecida, como sucede en el caso bajo examen. Cuando los gobiernos locales emiten el "certificado de uso de suelo", constatan la viabilidad de una nueva construcción con las normas locales y, en caso de que aquella se levante en trasgresión a las segundas, podrá en el ejercicio de sus potestades legales de control, utilizar su poder de policía urbano para detener la actividad urbanística ilegal; ello aún cuando no haya emitido la "autorización" inicial de la obra, como ocurre con los entes públicos. No debe olvidarse que el certificado de uso de suelo es un instrumento de protección del ambiente (derecho a disfrutar de un ambiente sano y equilibrado por usos) y del derecho de propiedad ( en tanto protege la inversión inmobiliaria de usos incompatibles), que es justamente lo que vienen defendiendo los vecinos recurrentes. El contenido estatutario del derecho de propiedad -ampliamente desarrollado en doctrina- implica que el propietario de un inmueble (independientemente de su naturaleza) solo puede hacer lo que las normas urbanísticas le autorizan y que ellas le otorgan -a su vez- el derecho indiscutible a desarrollar su inmueble conforme lo permite esa normativa, de ahí que la doctrina y la jurisprudencia sostengan que el otorgamiento de una licencia es de carácter reglado, sin que haya margen de discrecionalidad administrativa en su otorgamiento. Una edificación en el terreno propiedad del IAFA no tendría inconveniente alguno si se ajustara a las normas de zonificación implantadas, el problema surge cuando la edificación se hace a contrapelo de esas normas.

VIII.- DE LA POTESTADES DE CONTROL DE LOS GOBIERNOS LOCALES EN MATERIA DE URBANISMO:

Según lo dispone con toda claridad la Ley de Planificación Urbana, corresponde a los gobiernos locales -conforme al 169 de la Constitución Política- "planificar y controlar el desarrollo urbano, dentro de los límites de su territorio" (artículo 14 ibídem- destaca el Tribunal). La planificación se concreta en la emisión de normas locales reguladoras del suelo y, el control conlleva la posibilidad de ejercer el poder de policía en materia urbanística, en caso de que se incumplan las normas exigibles en materia de edificación. Ahora bien, tal y como se ha venido indicando, el artículo 75 del de la Ley de Construcciones excluye del control municipal ex ante a los entes públicos, sin embargo, ello no implica -insiste el Tribunal- que esos entes puedan desconocer las normas urbanísticas vigentes. Se reitera que corresponde a la Dirección de Obras el control inicial que realizará al emitir la correspondiente "autorización", la que sólo podrá extenderse en caso de estricta conformidad con las normas aplicables (carácter reglado de la licencia). El desplazamiento de la "autorización inicial" a la Dirección de Obras, no impide al gobierno local -como erróneamente lo afirma la Procuraduría- ejercer su actividad de control urbanístico dentro de su territorio, puesto que, el artículo 169 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana de manera diáfana entrega a las corporaciones locales la potestad de "controlar el desarrollo urbano" , sin que tal control haya sido excluido de las edificaciones públicas. Así las cosas, los gobiernos locales podrán en el ejercicio de su poder de policía, ordenar la paralización de toda obra pública -dentro de su territorio- si a pesar de haber sido "autorizada" por la Dirección de Obras ésta se levanta en contravención con las normas urbanísticas vigentes. Entiende el Tribunal que, la Dirección de Obras –al tenor de lo establecido en el artículo 75 de la Ley de Construcciones- podrá “autorizar” obras públicas ahí indicadas, lo que implica en una correcta hermenéutica, ejercer a cabalidad el control previo del proyecto, es decir, verificar la conformidad del mismo con las normativa aplicable por razón de la materia. La actividad constructiva del Estado, por imperio del principio de legalidad consagrado en el numeral 11 de la Carta Política, no está excluido del deber de someterse a la zonificación y demás regulaciones establecidas en los planes reguladores y, en los reglamentos de desarrollo de aquellos planes.

IX. DE LA NECESARIA COORDINACIÓN INTERSUBJETIVA EN MATERIA URBANÍSTICA

La coordinación entre la actividad de los distintos sujetos públicos busca, por una lado evitar duplicidad de funciones y, por el otro, impedir que se produzcan omisiones que lesionen en orden jurídico vigente. En este sentido el artículo 6 del Código Municipal establece “que la municipalidad y los demás órganos y entes de la Administración Pública deberán coordinar sus acciones. Para tal efecto deberán comunicar, con la debida antelación las obras que proyecten ejecutar”. La Sala Constitucional en la sentencia Nº 5445-99 estableció la necesidad de coordinación entre los gobiernos locales, con los demás entes públicos, al respecto señaló ese Tribunal:

“(…) la coordinación es la ordenación de las relaciones entre estas diversas actividades independientes, que se hace cargo de esa concurrencia en un mismo objeto o entidad, para hacerla útil a un plan público global, sin suprimir la independencia recíproca de los sujetos agentes. Como no hay una relación de jerarquía de las instituciones descentralizadas, ni del Estado mismo en relación con las municipalidades, no es posible la imposición a éstas de determinadas conductas, con lo cual surge el imprescindible "concierto" interinstitucional, en sentido estricto, en cuanto los centros autónomos e independientes de acción se ponen de acuerdo sobre ese esquema preventivo y global, en el que cada uno cumple un papel con vista en una misión confiada a los otros. Así, las relaciones de las municipalidades con los otros entes públicos, sólo pueden llevarse a cabo en un plano de igualdad, que den como resultado formas pactadas de coordinación, con exclusión de cualquier forma imperativa en detrimento de su autonomía, que permita sujetar a los entes corporativos a un esquema de coordinación sin su voluntad o contra ella (…).La relación de cooperación definida ha sido comprendida por la Sala Constitucional, que en forma reiterada ha señalado que para que puedan llevarse a cabo los proyectos de las distintas instituciones públicas, debe hacerse con respeto del ordenamiento jurídico: en primer lugar, las normas de rango constitucional, y después, las de rango legal y reglamentarias, de manera tal que, para que el Poder Ejecutivo o los otros entes públicos lleven a cabo proyectos de su iniciativa en una determinada localidad, deben contar con los respectivos permisos y licencias municipales, si es del caso, como lo indicó en sentencia de amparo número 02231-96, transcrita, en lo que interesa, en el Considerando VIII de esta sentencia. Esta obligación de coordinación entre las instituciones del Estado y las municipalidades está implícita en la propia Constitución Política(….) como se indicó en sentencia número 2311-95, supra citada; con lo cual, se está diciendo que debe existir una debida y obligada coordinación entre el Estado y los entes corporativos locales, cumpliéndose así lo ordenado por esta disposición, sin que ello implique una invasión a la autonomía municipal. Igualmente, estima la Sala que en materia de planificación urbana se debe dar esa misma relación de coordinación, aún cuando se ha definido -por disposición constitucional- que la planificación urbana es competencia de los gobiernos locales, la misma debería ordenarse de conformidad con las directrices y lineamientos generales del Plan Nacional de Urbanismo elaborado por el Poder Ejecutivo (a propuesta de la Dirección de Urbanismo del INVU y el Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica) e integrado en el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo a que alude la Ley de Planificación Nacional, en el entendido de que ese Plan debe ser aprobado por una ley ordinaria (…).

En la misma sentencia el Tribunal Constitucional sostuvo sobre la observancia del contenido de los planes reguladores por parte de entes públicos lo siguiente:

“….la regulación de la circulación de los vehículos, personas y semovientes en las vías, de las gasolineras y estacionamientos públicos, la definición de la seguridad vial, su financiamiento, pago de impuestos, multas y derechos de tránsito y lo referente a la propiedad de los vehículos automotores (artículo 1° de la Ley de Tránsito por Vías Públicas Terrestres) son tareas específicas que derivan de la ordenación general de las vías públicas, que por su naturaleza son temas nacionales, no locales (municipales), y que en consecuencia le corresponden al Poder Ejecutivo llevar a cabo su regulación; de manera que es el Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes quien dicta y ejecuta la ordenación referente a las concesiones de transporte público remunerado de personas, define la ubicación de las paradas de buses, y la señalización de las vías públicas, por ejemplo. Sin embargo, de conformidad con lo señalado en el Considerado X de esta sentencia, ésta es una labor que el MOPT debe desarrollar en coordinación con las funciones locales, en los términos señalados en la norma impugnada y en lo dispuesto en el analizado artículo 5 del derogado Código Municipal y del artículo 7 del nuevo cuerpo legal, de manera que al dictarse la ordenación de las vías públicas debe hacerse respetándose el ordenamiento jurídico local, lo que equivale en esta materia, que debe hacerse conforme a los planes reguladores dictados por las municipalidades para su jurisdicción territorial en donde existan, o en coordinación con ellas para resolver lo que mejor convenga, en las jurisdicciones en las que no existan planes reguladores. (el destacado no es del original).

Así las cosas, no podría sostenerse que por disposición del numeral 75 de la Ley de Construcciones, cualquier ente público puede ingresar al territorio del gobierno local y sin coordinar con éste, comenzar a realizar edificaciones o instalar estructuras que –como lamentablemente sucede con frecuencia- destruyen inclusive algunas obras locales como es el caso de la red vial cantonal. El principio de coordinación como derivado del constitucional de eficiencia de la acción pública (artículos 140, inciso 8, 139, inciso 4, y el 191 todos de la Carta Suprema) obligan a los distintos entes públicos –incluido el gobierno central- a comunicar a los gobiernos locales que comenzarán –o han terminado- obra dentro de su territorio y que para ello cuentan con la autorización de estilo de la Dirección de Obras; ello a fin de que las municipalidades puedan cumplir con la misión que les ha encomendado el legislador de controlar la actividad urbanística pública dentro de su territorio. Va de suyo que ello implica el ejercicio de su poder de policía en caso de que se estime que lo autorizado infringe las normas urbanísticas vigentes.

X).-El SOMETIMIENTO DE LOS ENTES PÚBLICOS A LAS NORMAS Y PROCEDIMIENTOS ESTABLECIDOS:

Es principio esencial de todo Estado de Derecho que los entes públicos están sometidos a las normas legales vigentes (principio de legalidad), sin poder desaplicarlas singularmente. La actividad de transformación urbana emprendida por los entes públicos está sujeta al bloque de legalidad – v.gr. cumplimiento de la ley 7600, Ley de Patrimonio Arquitectónico, Ley Orgánica del Ambiente, etc -. Esa sujeción incluye -entre otras- el cumplimiento de la zonificación establecida en los planes ordenadores del suelo, la que no pueden ignorar ni desaplicar, sin violentar el marco de legalidad y constitucionalidad vigentes, en el tanto al dictar normas sobre zonificación, los gobiernos locales hacen uso de una competencia constitucional que no pueden ignorar ni irrespetar los restantes entes públicos, en especial, cuando ello involucra el derecho a un ambiente sano y ecológicamente equilibrado y, el derecho de propiedad de los vecinos del cantón, a los que la zonificación les garantiza no solo disfrutar de su entorno urbano conforme a los usos y demás condiciones establecidos en las normas urbanísticas, sino también que la propiedad urbanística -sujeta a limitaciones- mantendrá su estatuto básico. En similar sentido se pronunció el Tribunal Constitucional en el Voto No. 2009-95 de las 10:30 hors del 21 de abril de l995, al analizar la vinculación de la Asamblea Legislativa a una norma legal que previamente había dictado para crear nuevos cantones. En esa ocasión señaló ese alto Tribunal que el principio de vinculatoriedad de los entes públicos a los procedimientos legales establecidos, es de rango constitucional, en consecuencia -sostuvo- es prohibido desconocerlos aún para el mismo órgano que los creó. Al respecto indicó el Tribunal Constitucional:

"V.- LEY SOBRE DIVISION TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATIVA (No. 4366 de 19 de agosto de 1969).- Es esta ley, precisamente, la que ha emitido el Poder Legislativo para regular la creación de los nuevos cantones. Es necesario señalar que al fijar la Constitución Política en el párrafo final del artículo 168, que se requiere el voto afirmativo de por lo menos dos tercios de la totalidad de los miembros de la Asamblea Legislativa para la creación de un cantón, da una clara idea de la importancia que el constituyente originario le ha dado a la integridad territorial y a toda la materia relacionada con la subdivisión territorial de las Provincias. A juicio de la Sala, el principio general de Derecho que establece que las normas jurídicas obligan incluso a la autoridad que las ha dictado y, dentro de su competencia, a su superior, implica que la ley que disciplina el funcionamiento de la Asamblea Legislativa para el ejercicio de una competencia también constitucional, la vincula en los casos concretos en ó haya de ejercerla, lo cual no es más que aplicación del principio general de la inderogabilidad singular de la norma para el caso concreto; principio general de rango constitucional, como que es aplicable a la totalidad del ordenamiento jurídico, como derivación y a la vez condición del Estado de Derecho en su integridad. Todo lo cual significa, en relación con el presente asunto, que para la creación de un nuevo ente territorial municipal la Asamblea Legislativa debe observar la ley que ha dictado con tal propósito, desde luego, sin perjuicio de su potestad de derogarla o reformarla previamente a su ejercicio". (el destacado no es del original).

De acuerdo con el principio de obligatoriedad de las normas jurídicas, inclusive para la autoridad que las ha dictado, las normas sobre zonificación -y otras similares- no son disponibles, ni siquiera para el gobierno local que las ha adoptado, a las que está sometido en primer orden, debiendo en caso que desee modificarlas, someterse al procedimiento legalmente establecido por la Ley de Planificación Urbana. Por mayoría de razón, tampoco está excluido ningún ente público del control urbanístico que ejercen los gobiernos locales dentro de su territorio, el que está claramente previsto en la ley. En consecuencia, tal y como lo señala el numeral 58 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana:

"las municipalidades no permitirán obras de construcción: 1) cuando ellas no guarden conformidad por razones de uso, retiros, cobertura y demás condiciones de la zonificación (...)" .

XI).- SOBRE LA EXENCIÓN FISCAL: Lleva razón la Procuraduría General de la República al indicar que los entes públicos, están exentos del impuesto de construcciones establecido por el artículo 70 de la Ley de Planificación Urbana, en un porcentaje de hasta un 1% sobre el valor de las construcciones. De tal exención gozan el Gobierno local y las Instituciones Autónomas "siempre que se trate de obras de interés social" o de instituciones "de asistencia médico-social o educativas" como es el caso del IAFA que aquí se examina. Ahora bien, la exención tributaria no conlleva, tal y como ha quedado expuesto, la desaplicación de las normas urbanísticas por parte de los entes públicos exonerados.

XII).- SOBRE EL ALEGADO CUMPLIMIENTO DE UNA ORDEN DEL TRIBUNAL CONSTITUCIONAL:

Las autoridades del IAFA vienen señalando que la construcción del centro de desintoxicación para menores adictos a las drogas, se hizo en cumplimiento de una orden de la Sala Constitucional -Voto N° 05871-2005 -, sin embargo, el Tribunal debe indicar, luego de una minuciosa revisión de la sentencia citada, que lo dispuesto por la Sala Constitucional en cuanto a la necesidad de crear un centro de esta naturaleza, no conlleva -ni por asomo-, la afectación al derecho de propiedad de los vecinos por la desaplicación del ordenamiento urbanístico. En ningún momento el Tribunal Constitucional indicó el lugar en que tenía que construirse tal centro, lo que debió haberse hecho en un sitio compatible con la zonificación establecida por el gobierno local. No es posible concretar el proceso de planificación y ordenación urbana al que aspira la Ley de Planificación Urbana desde 1968, si se permite a los entes públicos desaplicar e irrespetar -en todo el territorio- normas de orden público.

XIII).- COROLARIO:

Como en este caso se levantó una obra en la jurisdicción de Montes de Oca, inobservando las reglas de zonificación local, este Tribunal en el ejercicio de la función constitucional de control de legalidad que le encomienda el numeral 173 párrafo segundo de la Carta Magna debe anular el acuerdo impugnado que se ha emitido con base en el dictamen N-341-2007 de la Procuraduría General de la República.

POR TANTO:

Se anula el acuerdo recurrido. Se da por agotada la vía administrativa.- Nombre625

I. Rocío Rojas Morales Grace Loaiza Sánchez

Asociación vecinos de Dirección1511 organizado c/ Municipalidad de Montes de Oca.

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