a. Alameda (pedestrian way): exclusively pedestrian traffic way.
b. Road alignment (alineamiento vial): Line fixed by the Municipality or by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, as the limit or maximum proximity for the siting of the construction, with respect to the public road.
c. Building height (altura de edificación): vertical distance on the building line between the official floor level and the average level of the roof of the top floor.
d. Front yard (antejardín): Distance between the property line (of cadastral origin) and the building line (of official origin according to alignment). It implies an easement (servidumbre) or restriction for building without the portion of land losing its condition of private property.
e. Communal area (área comunal): that destined for public use, apart from streets and roads, for educational, health, worship, recreation, and similar purposes.
f. Floor area (área de piso): the total surface area of the floors of a structure.
g. Urban area (área urbana): the territorial scope of development of a population center.
h. Roadway (calzada): the strip between curbs, ditches, or drainage channels, destined for vehicle traffic.
i. Land use certificate (certificado de uso del suelo): Official document issued by the Urban Development Directorate and endorsed by the Municipality of Flores, in which it is established whether the existing, requested, or proposed use of a property conforms or not to the zoning established in the Regulatory Plan, for which purposes the indispensable instruments used are the Land Use Map of the canton of Flores, the Cadastral Plan of the property in question, and the road alignments (alineamientos) established by the competent institutions, the latter only if necessary as determined by the DDU.
j. Coverage (cobertura): The horizontal projection of a structure or the area of land covered by such structure.
k. Condominium (condominio): Property built in a horizontal, vertical, or mixed form, susceptible to independent use by different owners, with common elements of an indivisible nature.
l. Construction (construcción): any structure that is fixed or incorporated into land; includes any building, reconstruction, alteration, or expansion work that implies permanence.
m. Gross residential density (densidad residencial bruta): relationship between the number of families or people of a residential unit and its surface area in hectares.
n. Right of way (derecho de vía): The total width of the highway, street, path, easement (servidumbre), that is, the distance between the property lines, including, as applicable, the roadway, green strips, and sidewalks.
o. Urban district (distrito urbano): the administrative territorial circumscription whose delimitation corresponds to the application radius of the respective Regulatory Plan.
p. Industrial establishment (establecimiento industrial): For all purposes of this regulation, an industrial establishment shall be understood as any place, uncovered or covered, destined for the elaboration, manipulation, repair, transformation, or utilization of natural or artificial products, through physical, chemical, or biological treatment, manually or by means of machines used in the tasks or labors, and all annexes and dependencies of the factory.
q. Community facilities (facilidades comunales): Or community equipment, are the communal services that are offered in a community to maintain a quality of life and social interaction proper to its culture. Some are offered by the State or the Municipality, such as schools, security services, health services, daycare centers, recreation areas, and cemeteries; others are provided by private agents such as preschool education, private schools, rented recreation centers.
r. Subdivision (fraccionamiento): The division of any lot with the aim of selling, transferring, negotiating, distributing, exploiting, or using the resulting parcels in a separate form; includes both partitions by judicial or extrajudicial adjudication, locations of undivided rights, and mere segregations in the name of the same owner, as well as those located in urbanizations or new constructions that are of interest for the control of the formation and urban use of real property.
s. Greater Metropolitan Area (Gran Área Metropolitana, GAM): Urbanistic control area established in the Regional Urban Development Plan, published in La Gaceta No. 119 of June 22, 1982 and modified by Executive Decree No. 25902-MIVAH-MP-MINAE, published in Supplement No. 15 to La Gaceta No. 66, of April 7, 1997.
t. Habitat (hábitat): The organization of space for human activities.
u. Group A Industry (industria Grupo A): industry whose activities are high risk. Includes all activities thus defined by the Ministry of Health in Decree No. 30465-S.
v. Type B Industry (industria tipo B): industry whose activities are moderate risk. Includes all activities thus defined by the Ministry of Health in Decree No. 30465-S.
w. Type C Industry (industria tipo C): industry whose activities are low risk. Includes all activities thus defined by the Ministry of Health in Decree No. 30465-S.
x. Nuisance industry and/or establishment (industria y/o establecimiento incómodo): Those that cause slight but manifestly annoying negative effects to the neighborhood, such as notices, vibrations, trepidations, smoke, bad odors, excessive traffic, and other similar effects.
y. Inoffensive industry (industria inocua): Also called harmless, those that do not present conditions detrimental to the environment, for which reason they can be located within populated sites.
z. Insalubrious industry (industria insalubre): Those that produce gases, odors, wastewater, and other types of contamination that may harm or threaten the health of workers and/or the neighborhood.
aa. Dangerous industry (industria peligrosa): Establishments that damage or may damage in an immediate and serious manner the lives of workers, presenting negative conditions to a high degree.
bb. Use intensity (intensidad de uso): the degree of utilization of land or structures, taking into account: a) type of activity carried out, b) Coverage percentage and floor area (área de piso), c) Population density, d) Resulting traffic.
cc. Zone boundary (límite de zona): The line that frames and defines a zone, which shall be demarcated on the zoning plan and may vary in one direction or another until its adjustment, according to the prescriptions established in these Regulations.
dd. Street centerline (línea de centro de calle): The axis of the street. A distinction is made between the existing axis and the proposed projected axis. The existing axis is the line along the average center of a street in a block (maximum 200m). The projected axis is a line fixed by the MOPT or the Municipality, as applicable.
ee. Building line (línea de construcción): The line that demarcates the permitted building limit within the property.
ff. Property line (línea de propiedad): That which demarcates the limits of a particular property.
gg. Official land use map (mapa oficial de usos del suelo): the plan or set of plans in which the exact position of the layouts of public roads and areas to be reserved for community uses and services is indicated.
hh. Reference level (nivel de referencia): The level of the point located at the intersection of the street axis with its perpendicular passing through the center of the lot frontage. Reference level is the zero level for the purposes of setting building heights or basement depth.
ii. Base level (nivel de desplante): The level of the bottom of the lowest or deepest slab of a construction.
jj. Infrastructure works (obras de infraestructura): set of installations that allow the operation of public services such as water supply, sewerage, drainage, and electricity, in addition to public roads.
kk. Regulatory plan (plan regulador): the local planning instrument that defines, in a set of plans, maps, regulations, and any other document, graphic, or supplement, the development policy and the plans for population distribution, land uses, circulation routes, public services, community facilities (facilidades comunales), and construction, conservation, and rehabilitation of urban areas.
ll. Horizontal property (propiedad horizontal): That type of building where a person is the exclusive owner of a floor, apartment, dwelling, or premises (private area) and co-owner of the assets assigned to common use.
mm. Urban development regulations (reglamento de desarrollo urbano): bodies of norms that municipalities adopt with the objective of making the Regulatory Plan effective.
nn. Urban renewal (renovación urbana): The improvement process aimed at eradicating slum areas and rehabilitating urban areas in decay or in a defective state, the conservation of urban areas, and the prevention of their deterioration.
oo. Urbanistic requirements (requisitos urbanísticos): The conditions set for a lot so that it can be subdivided, such as minimum size, surface area, or capacity and minimum dimension or width fronting the street. They are indicated in the Regulatory Plan by zones and in the absence thereof, what is established in the Regulations for the National Control of Subdivisions and Urbanizations applies.
pp. Best practice requirements (requisitos de práctica): These are conditions of practices or management related to the uses or activities that may take place on a piece of land, which are already regulated by existing laws and regulations such as the Urban Planning Law, the Environmental Organic Law, the Health Law, and others. The Municipality, through the Engineering Department, shall be vigilant of the good practice of said regulations conducive to the preservation of Nature.
qq. Setback (retiro): the unbuilt open spaces between a structure and the boundaries of the respective lot.
rr. Front setback (retiro frontal): The distance between the property line (línea de propiedad) and the building line (línea de construcción), and is a requirement established by the Constructions Regulations, based on article 22 of the Constructions Law.
ss. Side setback (retiro lateral): The equivalent of the front setback measured from the side boundary, and must be understood to be on the sides of the lot that are not the front and the rear.
tt. Rear setback (retiro posterior): The equivalent of the front setback measured from the boundary opposite the street frontage.
uu. Paved surface (superficie pavimentada): Impermeable areas occupied by access roads, parking lots, or outdoor vehicle traffic areas, swimming pools, tennis courts and courts for other sports, and, in general, surfaces that are paved with concrete or other material impermeable to the effects of rainwater infiltration or percolation (within which ballast is included). A surface that is paved and simultaneously roofed is counted as coverage (cobertura) and not as paved surface. Grass-block is counted as paved surface, except for slopes not used for traffic. (La Gaceta No. 193 of October of 1997).
vv. Basic services (servicios básicos): The networks of potable water, electricity, telephony, stormwater and sanitary sewerage, that is, the basic infrastructure necessary and fixed to the land, which allows its use for urban purposes.
ww. Urbanization (urbanización): Subdivision (fraccionamiento) and development of land for urban purposes, through the construction of streets and provision of services.
xx. Land use (uso de la tierra): The utilization of land, of the physical structure settled on or incorporated into it, or of both, in terms of class, form, or intensity of its use.
yy. Permitted use (uso permitido): The destiny or utilization that a piece of land or a building is authorized for, according to the norms of the Regulatory Plan.
zz. Non-Conforming Use (uso no conforme): A non-conforming use is one that does not conform to the indicated zoning but that existed de facto on the date a Regulatory Plan came into effect and, therefore, may continue under the principle of non-retroactivity of the law, but with limitations.
aaa. Prohibited uses (usos prohibidos): Those that, not existing prior to the date this regulation comes into effect, are not accepted to be established in a determined zone, whether as a new construction (for which a building permit is not granted), or as a use on a vacant lot, or as a use in an existing building.
bbb. Public roads (vías públicas): those whose current or future traffic is of importance. They channel secondary roads and serve to connect with other sectors of the city or highways.
ccc. Dwelling (vivienda): Any premises or enclosure, fixed or mobile, built, converted, or arranged, that is used for the purposes of housing people, in a permanent or temporary form.
ddd. Multifamily dwelling (vivienda multifamiliar): The building conceived as an architectural unit with independent habitable areas, suitable for sheltering two or more families.
eee. Single-family dwelling (vivienda unifamiliar): The building provided with habitable areas destined to shelter a single family.
fff. Zones (zonas): Territorial circumscriptions defined in the Regulatory Plan, which are subject to specific regulation regarding the use that can be given in them and regarding the urbanistic and construction requirements imposed on the buildings that exist in them or that are proposed to be built.
ggg. Zoning (Zonificación): The division of a territorial circumscription into use zones, for the purposes of its rational development.
Dissemination and Application of the Plan