27030-TUR-MINAE-S-MOPT, of May 1998, published in La Gaceta No. 96 on May 20, 1998 "Reglamento a la Ley de Concesión de Marinas y Atracaderos Turísticos", so that henceforth they read as follows:
"Article 3—For the zone where a Tourist Marina or Dock is intended to be developed to be considered for use by said vessels, it must meet at least the following characteristics:
- a)Have a duly approved Regulatory Plan for the sectors of the maritime-terrestrial zone or a Master Plan for the case of private properties and the Polo Turístico Golfo de Papagayo. The Master Plan must be approved by the Urban Planning Directorate of the INVU in accordance with the rules of said Directorate, with the exception of the Polo Turístico Golfo de Papagayo, which will be approved by the Board of Directors of the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo.
- b)The berthing and maneuvering basins of the marinas and docks must be easy to navigate, including for sailing vessels, and practicable at all times of the year.
- c)Have adequate access by public land route, if it is not an island.
- d)Concessions may be granted in the areas of the maritime-terrestrial zone and the adjacent area permanently covered by the sea, with the exception of mangrove areas, national parks, and biological reserves, in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 7744.
- e)Regarding the facilities to be developed as part of the Tourist Marina or tourist dock, the vessels must be provided with comfortable and safe berthing, with hoisting, haul-out, launching, and towing means, drinking water and electrical power outlets, repair workshops, supply stores, fuel, lubricant and accessory supplies, sanitary and hygienic facilities, waste storage facilities, and waste collection service; in addition, it must have appropriate offices for the public institutions assigned the control and surveillance of the correct functioning and operation of the Marinas.
In the case of minor or major docks, vessels must be provided with comfortable and safe arrival, having at least drinking water and electrical power outlets, sanitary and hygienic facilities, and facilities for waste storage and its collection.
- f)Every marina and major dock must have mail, telephone, and radiocommunication services. In the case of fire-fighting service, every Marina or Dock must have it within a radius of no more than fifteen kilometers (15 km) away." (…)
"Article 6—For the purposes of this Regulation, except where otherwise indicated, the following shall be understood:
- a)Tourist Marina: A set of maritime and/or land facilities intended for the protection, shelter, and provision of all kinds of services to recreational, tourist, and sport vessels of any flag and regardless of their size, as well as to the visitors and users thereof, national or foreign; likewise, it includes the facilities that are under the operation, administration, and management of a tourist company. Also considered part of a marina are the real estate, the access roads to the different areas, and other privately owned assets, intended by their owners to provide services to the Tourist Marina, and that were considered in the concession. For the purposes of subsection B of Article 3 of the Law, those port facilities composed of one or more major docks together with three or more minor docks, or that port facility containing more than five minor docks together, will also be considered a Marina.
- b)Dock: Minor: Port facility with a single berth, to provide safety in the arrival of vessels up to 40 meters in maximum design and operation length overall, for the boarding and disembarkation of tourists, such as landing stages, fixed or floating piers, ramps, and other necessary works.
- c)Dock: Major: Port facility with a single berth that provides safety to tourists and berthing for vessels over 40 meters in design and operation length overall.
- d)Berth: Mooring space occupied by the vessel, intended for the boarding and disembarkation of passengers, with a maximum capacity of five vessels. In those cases where the characteristics and needs of both the zone and the project require a greater capacity, always intending to maintain the status of a tourist dock, it shall be the responsibility of the interested party to request and demonstrate to the CIMAT the justification for said increase.
- e)Mooring Site: Place where the vessel is moored in a fixed, permanent, or temporary manner.
- f)Anchorage Site: Place where the vessel remains, for a period of no more than forty-eight hours, under conditions of depth, calm, and safety during the wait to dock." (…)
"Article 10.—The functions of the CIMAT are:
- a)To promote that the execution of Tourist Marina and Dock projects in the coastal zones of the country conform to the corresponding regulations.
- b)To issue the technical resolution approving or rejecting the preliminary project for a tourist marina or dock proposed and submitted in accordance with the Law and this Regulation.
- c)To establish, as ordered by Article 7, subsection b) of the Law, the technical terms of reference through a Manual of Tourist Marinas and Docks, which must be included in the planning and execution of the works and in the operation of the tourist marinas or tourist docks, which shall be mandatory, and which must be prepared within sixty calendar days counted from the publication of this Regulation.
- d)The surveillance, control, and oversight of activities related to the construction, operation, and functioning of the tourist marinas and docks.
- e)To determine the areas that each port zone must cede to the State as public, in accordance with the provisions of the Coastal Regulatory Plan for the zone in question.
- f)To establish its own internal operating rules within the current legal framework.
- g)Any others assigned to it by the Law and this Regulation." (…)
"Article 13.—The functions of the President of the CIMAT are:
- a)To preside over debates, decide when the topics under discussion have been sufficiently debated, and submit them to a vote.
- b)To officially represent the Commission.
- c)To request the Secretariat to convene extraordinary sessions.
- d)To set technical guidelines and issue instructions related to formal aspects of the tasks of the Commission.
- e)The other functions and attributions inherent to their position, in accordance with Article 49 of the Ley General de la Administración Pública.
- f)Others established in the Regulation." (…)
"Article 16.—The Commission shall have a Technical Unit made up of the personnel that each of the institutions that make up the Commission deems necessary, as indicated in Article 8 of this regulation, who shall be responsible for issuing the technical criteria and recommending to the Commission the approval or not of the preliminary project and approval of plans for each project in accordance with this Regulation. In the same way, the Commission shall have a Legal Support Unit and the Administrative Unit, which shall be made up of a Secretariat of the Commission and other necessary administrative personnel, whose functions shall be coordinated by the ICT." "Article 17.—The functions and duties of the Secretariat are. (…) Subsection 8) To maintain an updated information system on the approved preliminary projects and the project plans approved by the Technical Unit and other documents processed before the Commission".
(…)
"Article 20.—The party interested in building a tourist marina or dock, prior to requesting the concession before the respective Municipality, or before the ICT in the case of the Proyecto Golfo de Papagayo and prior to the start of any construction that constitutes part of the project development, may submit a preliminary written consultation to the CIMAT, in which they will provide a general description of the project and its purpose, its location on the corresponding sheet of the Instituto Geográfico Nacional, scale 1:50,000, and a graphic sketch or general layout plan of the project, showing the layout of the project in broad strokes on a scale of no more than 1:2000. This procedure does not constitute the formal application referred to in Articles 9 and 10 of the Law, so the two-month period mentioned therein shall run from the formal application for approval of the preliminary project referred to in the following article. This preliminary consultation procedure shall be optional, and the CIMAT shall have a maximum period of fifteen business days counted from the receipt of all the requested documentation to resolve it." "Article 21.—In the event that the previous procedure was chosen, and the CIMAT has resolved said preliminary consultation, the applicant must submit to the CIMAT the formal application form for approval of the preliminary project with the corresponding studies for those parts listed in the Manual of Tourist Marinas and Docks, which the CIMAT indicated in the resolution of the preliminary consultation and which will depend on the particular conditions of each project. Said form and the respective studies must be accompanied by the preliminary project for the construction and operation of the marina or dock, a preliminary assessment of the technical- economic feasibility in the terms indicated in Article 8, subsection d) of the Ley de Marinas, documentation that convincingly demonstrates, in the CIMAT's judgment, the solvency, financial capacity, and experience of the future concessionaire for the development of the works proposed in the respective preliminary project, the obtaining of the environmental viability granted by SETENA, and a document verifying the viability for the execution of the marina at the proposed site in accordance with the respective Regulatory Plan or Master Plan. It is understood that this diligence does not create any right in favor of the applicant. In the event that the preliminary procedure of Article 20 was not chosen, all the requirements listed in the previous article and in this article shall be requested in the same way, and the applicant must submit them all at once.
In the case of the Proyecto Turístico Papagayo, the interested party must simultaneously submit to the Oficina Ejecutora del Proyecto a copy of the preliminary project to verify that it conforms to the technical provisions of the Master Plan; said office must forward its assessment to the CIMAT within the ten business days following its receipt." "Article 25.—The interested party shall submit to the Municipality or to the Oficina Ejecutora del Proyecto Papagayo, as appropriate, an application for final approval of the preliminary project and the granting of the concession, accompanied by the opinion of the CIMAT, and the resolution on the environmental viability of the Marina resolved by SETENA. If necessary, the Municipality or the Oficina Ejecutora del Proyecto Papagayo may request from the Commission any clarifications and additions it deems pertinent, following the procedure stipulated in Article 10 of the Law." "Article 26.—The Municipality or the ICT, in the case of the Proyecto Papagayo, shall have a period of three months, starting from the expiration of the period to hear oppositions referred to in Article 27 of this Regulation, to finally approve the project and grant or deny the requested concession. Every resolution must be reasoned and notified in writing to the interested party. Once the preliminary project is definitively approved and the concession is granted by the Municipality or the ICT, the interested party may begin the process of preparing final plans and other documents to process the construction permit and approval of the Project referred to in Section C of this chapter. If changes not approved in the preliminary project are introduced in this process, they must be submitted to the Oficina Ejecutora in the case of the Proyecto Papagayo and to the CIMAT for their approval or rejection, whose resolution shall be binding on the Municipality." "Article 27.—As part of the procedures that the Municipality or the Oficina Ejecutora, in the case of the Proyecto Papagayo, will internally carry out, within the first month from the submission of all the documents, a single publication of an edict shall be made in the Diario Oficial and in a newspaper of national circulation, indicating the general information of the applicant and the main characteristics of the project, so that interested parties may present oppositions, within the month following the publication of the edict.
The opposition to the granting of a concession for a Tourist Marina or Docks must be duly substantiated and accompanied by all the evidence together with the initial brief. Those oppositions that do not meet at least the indication of the legal basis and the evidence shall be rejected outright, without any further processing. In any case, the Municipality or the Consejo Director de Papagayo, as appropriate, may request from the opponent any evidence it deems necessary for the resolution of the opposition and shall have one month from its submission to resolve it, unless the opposition is based on technical aspects, in which case the Municipality must consult the CIMAT, and the latter shall have a period of one month from the receipt of all the documentation to issue its opinion.
The oppositions shall be heard by the Concejo Municipal or the Consejo Director de Papagayo in this case, which shall ultimately decide on the appropriateness or not thereof.
In the case of the municipality, its resolution may be appealed through a motion for reversal (recurso de revocatoria), and once this latter is resolved, the procedures stipulated in the Código Municipal shall be followed.
In the case of the Proyecto Turístico Papagayo, an appeal (recurso de apelación) may be filed before the Junta Directiva, which is ultimately responsible for the exhaustion of administrative remedies." "Article 28.—In the case of zones administered by the municipalities, the resolution that definitively rejects the preliminary project and the granting of the concession may be appealed through the remedies established in the Código Municipal.
In the case of the Proyecto Turístico Papagayo, the concession shall be definitively granted or rejected by the Junta Directiva of the ICT, upon prior recommendation of the Consejo Director de Papagayo. The resolution issued by the Junta Directiva of the ICT may be appealed through a motion for reconsideration (recurso de reposición)." "Article 29.—The Municipality or the ICT, as appropriate, shall prepare the concession contract in accordance with the provisions of the Manual of Tourist Marinas and Docks and based on the information obtained in this process, and shall notify the CIMAT of the start date of the works and the execution period for the purposes of exercising the oversight referred to in the Law." (…)
"Article 33.—Once the concession has been granted by the Municipality or the ICT, the interested party must submit to the CIMAT the following requirements in order to approve the project plans within a period of no more than two months counted from the receipt of all the documents required for the final obtaining of the respective construction permits:
- a)Final construction plans.
- b)Calculation Report.
- c)Technical specifications for materials, procedures, and construction methods, budget, and final work program for its verified definition.
- d)Detail design studies requested by the CIMAT as a complementary condition to the approval of the preliminary project.
- e)Internal Regulations of the Marina, which must be approved by the CIMAT.
The Technical Unit may request from the interested party any clarification for the final approval, within the period stipulated above; once the clarifications are submitted, the CIMAT shall have the remaining period to issue the corresponding resolution. In the case of the Proyecto Papagayo, a copy of the plans, the detailed architectural study, and the Internal Regulations of the Marina must be simultaneously submitted to the Oficina Ejecutora to verify that they conform to the technical provisions of the Master Plan, and other regulations of the Project, which must forward its approval to the CIMAT within the first month following its receipt." "Article 34.—Once the requirements for the construction plans are fulfilled and approved by the Technical Unit, the centralizing office for Construction Permits shall review them, and grant the respective permit within a maximum period of eight business days counted from the receipt of the plans." (…)
"Article 36.—The interested party must begin the works within the period indicated in the concession contract, and must notify the start date, with fifteen calendar days' notice, to the CIMAT and to the Municipality or the Oficina Ejecutora del Proyecto Papagayo, as appropriate, so that they may schedule the corresponding inspections, which shall be carried out in a coordinated manner, each within its field of competence." "Article 37.—To introduce substantial changes to the approved plans, the prior and written consent of the CIMAT and the Municipality or the Oficina Ejecutora, in the case of the Proyecto Papagayo, must be obtained. In the case of minor modifications to the project, at the CIMAT's discretion, they shall follow the normal process for construction permits. The CIMAT shall periodically send technical personnel to inspect the progress of the work and its effects on the ecosystem. For such purposes, the CIMAT shall formally notify the concessionaire, at least one calendar week in advance, of the date on which the inspection will be carried out and the number of people who will attend it." "Article 38.—It shall be mandatory to keep on site the work logbook of the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y Arquitectos, as well as the work schedule and the approved construction plans. The concessionaire must inform the Municipality or the Oficina Ejecutora de Papagayo, as appropriate, and the CIMAT, of the completion date of the works for their reception, formal approval, and granting of the sanitary operating permit to be issued by the Ministry of Health." (…)
"Transitory Provision III.—In accordance with the first transitory provision of the Ley de Marinas, in the area of the Proyecto Golfo de Papagayo, the granting of the concession shall be the responsibility of the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, it being understood that the same procedures shall be followed before the CIMAT, as stipulated in Law No. 7744 and this Regulation, and insofar as compatible, the Reglamento para el otorgamiento de concesiones of this Polo Turístico Papagayo, Executive Decree No. 25439-MPTUR of August 27, 1996 and its amendments, shall be applied supplementarily."