(These definitions complement those given in Law No. 4240 in its article 1, those given in the Regulations for the National Control of Subdivisions and Residential Developments (Reglamento para el Control Nacional de Fraccionamientos y Urbanizaciones) Chapter 1, the Construction Law, Decree-Law No. 833 and its amendments, and the Construction Regulations) 1- Zones: They are territorial circumscriptions defined in the Zoning Map of the Master Plan (Plan Regulador), which are subject to specific regulation regarding the use that may occur in them, and regarding the urban planning and construction requirements imposed on the buildings to be constructed therein. The regulation of a zone must be homogeneous within it.
2- Zone Boundary: Line defining a zone, surrounding it. It is demarcated on the Zoning Map and may vary up to 100 meters in one direction or the other, according to Article 6 of these Regulations.
3- Permitted Uses (Usos permitidos): It is the purpose or use that a piece of land or building may have. The list of them is established for each zone.
4- Conditional Uses (Usos condicionales): It is the purpose or use that a specific lot or building may have, conditional upon express authorization from the Municipality and the Urban Planning Directorate (Dirección de Urbanismo). This authorization must record the particular use and use intensity restrictions deemed appropriate, as well as the urban planning and construction requirements that must be met, which may not be less demanding than the requirements for permitted uses.
5- Prohibited Uses (Usos prohibidos): These are those which, not existing prior to the effective date of these Regulations, are not accepted for establishment in a specific zone, whether as a new construction (for which a construction permit is not granted), as a use on a vacant lot, or as a use in an existing building.
6- Non-conforming Uses (Usos no conformes): A non-conforming use is one that does not conform to the indicated zoning (that is not on the list of permitted or conditional uses) but which existed in fact on the effective date of these regulations and, therefore, may continue under the concept of non-retroactivity of the law, but with limitations.
These limitations are:
6.1 It may not be expanded.
6.2 A building may not be rebuilt if for any reason it was destroyed by more than 40% of the total constructed area.
6.3 It may not be partially or totally remodeled without prior special authorization from the Municipality and the Urban Planning Directorate (Dirección de Urbanismo), and in no case if this implies an expansion of the use or the use intensity of such "non-conforming" use.
6.4 It may not be changed to another non-conforming use.
7- Subdivision (Fraccionamiento): A subdivision is the division of any property with the purpose of selling, transferring, negotiating, distributing, exploiting, or using separately, the resulting parcels; it includes both partitions by judicial or extrajudicial adjudication, allocations of undivided rights, and mere segregations under the name of the same owner, as well as those situated in residential developments or new constructions that concern the control of the formation of urban use of real estate. (Urban Code).
8- Residential Developments (Urbanizaciones): A residential development is the subdivision and development of land for urban purposes, by means of opening streets and providing services. (Urban Code).
9- Condominiums (Condominios): They are a property that has several owners, and each one of them possesses rights analogous to property over portions of the same, well defined, upon which buildings (for any permitted use) are constructed simultaneously with their constitution, a regime of obligations and rights over the services and common portions is established, and a system for administering the complex. According to Law No. 5317 of July 30, 1973, and according to Law No. 3670 of March 22, 1966, amended by Law No. 6890 of September 17, 1983, and according to the current law.
10- Urban Planning Requirements (Requisitos urbanísticos): These are the conditions set for a lot so that it may be subdivided (fraccionar), such as size, minimum surface area or capacity, and minimum dimension or width facing the street. They are indicated in the Master Plan by zones, or in its absence, in the Regulation for the National Control of Subdivisions and Residential Developments, Session No. 5391 of December 13, 1982. They are integrated with the construction requirements.
11- Construction Requirements (Requisitos de construcción): These are the conditions set for a designer prior to approving a construction project regarding front setbacks or alignments, side setbacks from side lot lines, rear setback from the rear lot line (assumes rectangular lots, and in the case of irregular lots, they are established by analogy), total area that may be built (floor area, which includes the total of the areas adding up those of all floors), coverage (cobertura) or the percentage of the land that may be roofed, paved surface area, maximum building heights, and levels for the foundation (desplante) of the finished first floor in relation to the street and any other requirement that the Regulations deem pertinent.
12- Practice Requirements (Requisitos de prácticas): These are conditions of practices or operations related to the uses or activities that may occur on a piece of land, which are already regulated by existing laws and regulations such as:
· Urban Planning Law · Environmental Law · Health Law · and others The Municipality, through the Engineering Directorate (Dirección de Ingeniería), will be vigilant of the good practice of said regulations conducive to the preservation of Nature.
13- Coverage (Cobertura): Coverage is the horizontal projection of a structure or the area of land covered by such structure (Urban Code). The maximum possible percentage to be achieved, or "maximum coverage (cobertura máxima)", is specified in the requirements for each zone, and the design of a project may achieve lower percentages.
14- Paved Surface Area (Superficie pavimentada):
These are the impermeable areas occupied by access roads, parking lots or transit areas for vehicles outdoors, swimming pools, tennis courts and other sports courts, and, in general, surfaces that are paved with concrete or another material impermeable to the infiltration or percolation of rainwater (within which ballast is included). The "paved surface area" is indicated in the requirements by zones, it being understood that it is a maximum permitted percentage of the lot, and may be less. A surface that is both paved and roofed is counted as coverage and not as paved surface area. Grass-block is counted as paved surface area, except for slopes not used for transit. (La Gaceta No. 193 of October 8, 1997).
15- GAM: Greater Metropolitan Area (Gran Área Metropolitana): Executive Decree No. 12590-9 of May 11, 1981, published in "La Gaceta" No. 119 of June 22, 1982, which regulates uses generally in the cantons that make up the main urban area of the country from Cartago to Alajuela. It establishes an Urban Development Containment Belt or Ring, beyond which new residential developments are not permitted and subdivisions, condominiums, and impact projects are restricted. The aim is to densify urban use inside the ring and prevent premature development outside of it, in order to save efforts in providing urban services and focus efforts on improving infrastructure. It establishes industrial zoning (with its regulations) inside the ring and some outside of it, and defines the possible expansion area for pre-existing urban centers located outside the containment ring but within the control area. (They can be conceptualized as "urban islands" in the rural area subject to urban planning control) 16- Urban Renewal (Renovación urbana): It is the improvement process aimed at eradicating slum areas and rehabilitating urban areas in decay or in a defective state; at the conservation of urban areas and the prevention of their deterioration.
17- Urban Remodeling (Remodelación urbana): It is a particular case of urban renewal, which involves completely destroying an area, leaving it in conditions of cleared or vacant land, and establishing upon it a building or a group of buildings, new roads and basic services, and facilities related to the proposed use.
18- Basic Services (Servicios básicos): These are the networks for potable water, electricity, telephone, stormwater and sanitary sewer systems, etc., that is to say, the basic infrastructure necessary and fixed to the land, which allows its use for urban purposes.
19- Community Facilities (Facilidades comunales): These are the communal services that a community provides (and that are provided to a community) to maintain a quality of life and social interaction characteristic of their culture at that moment. They are offered by the State (schools, Rural Guard, health, daycare centers, banking services, recreation areas, green and rest areas, etc.) and by private parties (kindergartens, private schools, recreation centers rented or open to the public, cinemas, community halls, etc.).
They are activities that may occur on communal or private areas, indistinctly.
20- Community Equipment (Equipamiento comunitario): This is the community equipment that the State is responsible for providing, at all its levels and branches, or para-state institutions such as the Associations for Community Development.
21- Innocuous Industry (Industria inocua): These types of industries are those that can be located in any zone except residential ones, unless they are small, of the artisanal type. They are characterized by not having conditions that would be detrimental to the environment, for which reason they can be located within populated sites (Regulation for Industrial Zones of the GAM).
Note: Small equals no more than five permanent workers.
22- Secondary Use (Uso secundario): A secondary use is one that is subordinate to the other uses indicated as permitted, in the sense that the owner or user of that use accepts that they will not be able to claim nuisances or inconveniences caused by the other use. The user of the principal uses, on the other hand, will be able to claim nuisances from the secondary use, should there be any.
23- Lines:
23.1 Building line is the line that demarcates the limit of permitted construction within the property.
23.2 Property line is the line that demarcates the limit of the property with the public road or the public roads it faces.
23.3 Front setback is the distance between the property line and the building line, and is a requirement established by the Zoning Regulations of the Master Plan. Before these are in effect, or in their absence, article V1.3.8 of the Construction Regulations applies, based on article 22 of the Construction Law.
23.4 Front yard (Antejardín) is the land area between the building line and the property line, across the entire width of a lot.
23.5 Alignment: Defined in article 1.3 of the Construction Regulations. Giving alignment is the act of setting the building line. This may be parallel to the property line or not, parallel to the street centerline, or not. It may have any shape. The alignments of national highways are given by the MOPT, and those of urban streets and local roads are established by the Municipality.
23.6 The alignment given in these Regulations is described in the Roadway Regulations (Reglamento de Vialidad), in the article on Alignment in the Central sector (table PT), and in the indication of Front Setback by use zones. The alignment of the MOPT prevails over the Municipal one, in Roadway matters, these prevail over those of table PT, and those of table PT prevail over the front setbacks.
23.7 Front setbacks are always parallel to the property line. Alignments are generally not parallel to the property line; the intention is to correct or straighten the building lines of consecutive lots that do not follow an alignment. Alignments do not imply the purchase or expropriation of the front yard, and the owner maintains their ownership over these strips for all purposes except for building on it.
23.8 Adjacent lot lines or boundary lines are the rest of the limit lines of a property, until they close a polygon.
23.9 Side setback is the equivalent of the front setback measured from the side boundary line, and is indicated "on one side only" or "on both sides." 23.10 Right-of-way (Derecho de vía) is the distance between the property lines of the lots that face the same section of a road. A distinction is made between an existing right-of-way and a proposed right-of-way. The latter implies the need for purchase or land that are cut off from a property when they become effective.
23.11 "Street center" line is the axis of the street. It is distinguished between existing axis and proposed (or planned) axis. The existing axis is the line running along the average center of a street in a block (maximum of 200m). The planned axis is a line fixed by the MOPT or the Municipality, as appropriate.
24- Levels:
24.1 Reference level is the level of the point located at the intersection of the street axis with its perpendicular that passes through the center of the front of the lot. The reference level is level 0 for the purposes of setting building heights or basement depths.
24.2 Foundation level (Nivel de desplante) is the level of the bottom of the lowest or deepest floor slab of a construction.
25- Non-conforming Lot (Lote no conforme): It is an existing and registered (cadastral) lot that does not conform to the requirements regulated in the zone.