For the purposes of this regulation, the following definitions are established:
Sidewalk (Acera): Part of the public road, normally located at its edges, that is reserved for pedestrian traffic.
Wastewater (Aguas residuales): May be gray water and/or black water.
Gray water (Aguas servidas): Those waste products from domestic processes.
Black Water (Aguas Negras): Those containing fecal matter and/or organic waste that require treatment to be returned to the natural cycle.
Pedestrian Malls (Alamedas): Roads for pedestrian traffic exclusively.
Alignment Line (Alineamiento): Line set by the Municipality, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, or any competent public entity, as the maximum proximity limit of the construction with respect to the public road, easements (servidumbres), or other analogous features.
Building Height (Altura de la edificación): Vertical distance above the building line, between the official floor level and the level of the ridge line.
Front Yard (Antejardín): Constitutes the space between the property line and the building line. It is conceptualized as an urban easement (servidumbre urbana). In exceptional cases, its occupation will be technically evaluated by virtue of the lot coverage area. In new subdivisions (fraccionamientos) or urbanization projects where solid walls are intended to be built on the property line, as security measures, the front yard areas on the sidewalk edge may be substituted with an additional strip respective to the road width. (See application in regulation) Storm Sewer System (Alcantarillado pluvial): set of installations arranged for the capture, conduction, and evacuation of rainwater.
Sanitary Sewer System (Alcantarillado sanitario): set of installations arranged for the capture, conduction, treatment, and evacuation of wastewater (aguas residuales).
existing building.
Hazard (Amenaza): Latent danger represented by the possible occurrence of a dangerous phenomenon, of natural or technological origin or provoked by man, capable of producing adverse effects on people, property, public services, and the environment.
Preliminary Project (Anteproyecto): Optional and preliminary consultation procedure in which the design proposal plan is evaluated, and which precedes the presentation of the construction plans for the project. The proposal plan could be subject to modifications or adjustments; it describes the general characteristics of the work to be carried out and its feasibility, therefore, it does not authorize the developer to execute works or proceed with the sale of lots.
Apartment (Apartamento): Set of several rooms that, for a specific purpose, occupy all or part of a floor or building, or part of several floors.
Approval (Aprobación): Any written and conforming resolution that the Municipality of Alvarado disposes to authorize the requests made by the owner of a property or authorized by them.
Communal Areas (Áreas Comunales): Those destined for public use, apart from streets and highways, for educational, health, worship, recreation, charitable, and similar purposes.
Reviewing Authority (Autoridad Revisora): Any governmental or municipal entity that intervenes in the review and approval of the design, or in the inspection during the construction of the works. That authority designated by the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y de Arquitectos de Costa Rica shall also be understood as a reviewing authority.
Notice (Aviso): any sign that does not have commercial advertising purposes.
Traffic Notice (Aviso de tránsito): any notice installed to direct traffic.
Institutional Notice (Aviso institucional): any sign whose purpose is to draw attention to government buildings, projects, or activities, or to activities of a civic, educational, cultural, religious, philanthropic, or charitable nature, or to indicate, for public knowledge, the hours or meeting sites of these entities.
Roadway (Calzada): It is the strip between curbstones, gutters, or drainage ditches, destined for vehicular traffic.
Public Street (Calle pública): a public domain and common use road, which by administrative provision shall be destined for free transit in accordance with the respective current laws and regulations.
Frontage Roads (Calles marginales): Roads parallel to national highways and within the pre-established right-of-way. At the discretion of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, any special, national, or regional highway may require frontage roads for access to the lots that face it. Likewise, the Municipality of Alvarado may require them as a condition in the segregation of properties.
Neighborhood Roads (Caminos vecinales): Those public roads not classified by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes as highways nor by the Municipality as urban streets. The norms for primary roads shall apply to them.
Water Channeling (Canalización de aguas): It is the set of infrastructure works, natural or of different materials (or a combination thereof), that are carried out in order to direct the flow of rainwater.
Special Restricted-Access Highways (Carreteras especiales de accesos restringidos): Those to which vehicle access or egress is only permitted at certain points. Of variable cross-section according to the needs and topographic characteristics.
Regional Highways (Carreteras regionales): All public roads included as part of the Highway Network established by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, for exclusively serving a region and meeting any of the following requirements: a) connecting two cities that, according to the latest census, have a minimum population of two thousand inhabitants; b) communicating a city of two thousand inhabitants or more with a national or regional highway, air or sea port, or with a railway; c) having an average daily traffic volume of not less than 200 vehicles.
National Highways (Carreteras Nacionales): All public roads included as part of the National Highway Network established by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes and the Cartago Road Plan, when they meet the following objectives: a) connecting Costa Rica with a neighboring country; b) connecting two provinces; c) communicating two cities that in the last census appear with a minimum population of five thousand inhabitants; or, d) connecting a city of five thousand inhabitants or more with another national highway, air and sea port, with a railway network, e) Interconnecting the existing national highways.
Bus Shelters or Rain Shelters (Casetas o escampaderos): structure of design authorized by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes or by the Municipality, located in the right-of-way of national highways or public streets and roads to be used by users of the public automotive transport service at stops authorized by the Dirección General de Transporte Público, and duly signposted by the Dirección de Ingeniería de Tránsito, capable of serving as a structure to display institutional and/or commercial information.
City (Ciudad): The city is the artificial scenario built by man to optimize their modes of production and coexistence in relation to their environment for a better quality of life. In this sense, the urban process and its systematic understanding are of interest to establish urban planning oriented to incorporating the social, economic, and environmental context.
CFIA: Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y de Arquitectos.
CICPC: Centro de Investigación y conservación del patrimonio cultural.
CNE: Comisión Nacional de Prevención del Riesgo y atención de emergencias.
CONAVI: Concejo Nacional de Vialidad.
Coverage (Cobertura): Horizontal projection of a structure or the area of land covered by a structure.
Condominium (Condominio): Property built in a horizontal, vertical, or mixed form, susceptible to independent use by different owners, with indivisible common elements.
Construction (Construcción): is any structure that is fixed or incorporated onto land permanently or temporarily; it includes any building, reconstruction, alteration, or expansion work.
Co-ownership (Copropiedad): Regime existing in those cases where 2 or more persons acquire ownership over the same thing, or a right over the entirety of a good and not over a part thereof.
Basin (Cuenca): sedimentary plain, depression, or concavity), geographic feature, surface surrounded by heights, or Watershed (Cuenca hidrográfica), territory drained by a natural drainage system.
Right-of-Way (Derecho de vía): is the total width of the highway, street, path, easement (servidumbre), its distance being measured between property lines, and which includes, as applicable, roadway, green strips, bike paths, and sidewalks (aceras).
Stormwater Discharge (Descarga de aguas pluviales): Approval (visado) request for the drainage of stormwater from any urbanization, condominium, industrial complexes into a river, stream, irrigation ditch, or existing urban sewer system.
Sustainable Development (Desarrollo sostenible): Implies satisfying the needs of present generations without compromising the possibilities of future generations to meet their own needs, restoring and returning to the environment its basic conditions of self- conservation.
Urban Development (Desarrollo Urbano): Evolution of urban processes in relation to geographic, economic, social, environmental, and transportation dynamics.
Urban Planning Department (Dirección de Urbanismo): Urban Planning Department of the Municipality of Alvarado.
Urban District (Distrito Urbano): The territorial administrative circumscription whose delimitation corresponds to the application radius of the respective Regulatory Plan.
Surface Runoff (Escorrentía superficial): Runoff is a geological term from hydrology, which refers to the sheet of water that circulates over the surface in a drainage basin, that is, the height in millimeters of the drained and spread rainwater.
Building (Edificación): Construction process destined to supply any activity, whether habitation, work, storage, or protection of belongings, among others.
Environmental Impact Study (Estudio de impacto ambiental): Graphic and written document technically prepared by responsible and competent professionals in which the diagnosis, prognosis, and proposed solutions to the causes and effects that any urban planning project, condominium, or building generates or would generate in its natural environment are recorded: ideography, topography, relief, geology, geomorphology, aquifers, environmental contamination, etc.
Erosion (Erosión): Erosion is the degradation and transport of soil or rock produced by different processes on the Earth's surface.
Subdivision (Fraccionamiento): The planned division of any property with the purpose of selling, transferring, negotiating, distributing, exploiting, or utilizing the resulting parcels separately; it includes both judicial or extrajudicial adjudication partitions, locations of undivided rights, and mere segregations under the same owner, as well as those located in urbanizations or new constructions that concern the control of the formation and urban use of real estate.
ICAA: Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados.
ICE: Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad.
Interested Party (Interesado): Natural or legal person responsible for the application or procedure before the administration.
Installation (Instalación): Networks or network systems installed inside a building, destined for services such as potable water, drains, electrical power, vertical transport, telephones, air conditioning, among others.
Electrical Installation (Instalación eléctrica): Set of electrical equipment, ducts, and materials used to produce, convert, transform, transmit, distribute, or utilize electrical energy.
Exterior Sanitary Installation (Instalación sanitaria exterior): The system of pipes and accessories, external to the buildings, that interconnect to a treatment system for black and gray water.
Interior Sanitary Installation (Instalación sanitaria interior): The system of pipes and accessories that comprise the internal and private supply networks for black and gray water of a building.
Potable Water Installation (Instalación de agua potable): It is the set of infrastructure elements for the distribution and supply of potable water.
INVU: Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo.
JASEC: Junta Administrativa Municipal del Servicio Eléctrico de Cartago.
Retention Ponds (Lagunas de retención): Infrastructure work that allows the risk-free evacuation of stormwater from an urbanization, lot division (lotificación), condominium, or subdivision (fraccionamiento), also applicable to neighborhoods or districts built facing a street.
Outdoor Advertising License (Licencia de Publicidad Exterior): Formal authorization granted by the municipality, through the Urban Planning Department (Departamento de Urbanismo), and that empowers a natural or legal person to exercise the commercial activity of placing any of the outdoor advertising media, and whose validity is subject to compliance with the provisions contained in this Regulation. Document issued by the municipality, through the Licensing Department (Departamento de Patentes), so that it may be displayed by the holder whenever required by municipal inspectors, and that must be recorded on each outdoor advertising medium installed in the canton, in accordance with this regulation.
Building Line (Línea de construcción): That which demarcates the building limit permitted within the property. In the case of national routes, it shall be the MOPT that establishes said line.
Property Line (Línea de propiedad): That which demarcates the boundaries of the specific property.
Lot (Lote): It is the land demarcated from neighboring properties with adequate access to a public road.
Official Map (Mapa Oficial): The plan or set of plans in which the exact position of the layouts of public roads and areas to reserve for community uses and services are indicated.
MCJ: Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud.
MINAET: Ministerio del Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones.
Urban Furniture (Mobiliario urbano): structures within the right-of-way of public roads, plazas, parks, etc., such as bus shelters, trash receptacles, railings, posts, benches, decorative planters, public lighting fixtures, and the like, whose primary purpose is the humanization of urban space.
MOPT: Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes.
Municipality: Municipality of the Canton of Alvarado.
Temporary Work (Obra provisional): Construction for temporary service and utility.
Infrastructure Works (Obras de infraestructura): Set of installations that allow the operation of public service networks and the habilitation of urban spaces.
Ornamentation (Ornato): placement and maintenance of living or inert elements to improve the appearance of constructed works and allow integration between urban space, the natural environment, and the human being.
Construction Permit (Permiso de construcción): Written approval granted by the Municipality of Alvarado, to any property owner for the execution of permanent or temporary works of building or urbanization, as long as they have complied with the requirements of the respective application and those established by this regulation.
Panoramic View (Perspectiva panorámica): wide view of a landscape that occurs to a lesser or greater degree in certain sectors of the canton, along public roads, in which the composition of the elements of the surrounding landscape provide a scenic beauty worthy of exaltation, maintenance, protection, and freedom from visual obstacles that limit, deform, or alter it to the detriment of the basic rights of man and of the internal and external tourism of the canton.
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 plans for distribution of the population, land uses, traffic routes, public services, community facilities, and construction, conservation, and rehabilitation of urban areas.
Cadastral Plan (Plano Catastrado): It is the Surveying Plan that has been registered in the National Cadastre.
Surveying Plan (Plano de Agrimensura): It is the document through which only one farm, parcel, or property is represented in graphic, mathematical, literal, and legal form, which complies with the norms established by the Cadastre Law (Ley de Catastro).
Construction Plan (Plano de construcción): Official document issued in the terms defined by the CFIA, which describes an architectural project through technical, graphic, and/or written means.
Plaza (Plaza): Space by nature into which streets and roads flow. A place of convergence that gives identity to urban centers, due to its condition of empty space.
Responsible Professional for the Work (Profesional responsable de obra): Active member of the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y de Arquitectos empowered to ensure the supervision and compliance with norms, regulations, and technical specifications.
Artisanal Property (Propiedad Artesanal): That property destined for artisanal production, understood as the latter being not only that industry destined for the elaboration of ecologically produced handicraft objects, but also those carried out by producers whose productive plans adhere to environmental sustainability rules.
Condominium Property (Propiedad en condominio): That type of building where the person is the exclusive owner of a floor, department, dwelling, or local (private area) and co-owner of the goods designated for common use.
Horizontal Property (Propiedad Horizontal): That type of building where the person is the exclusive owner of a floor, department, or building and co-owner of the goods designated for common use.
Vertical Property (Propiedad Vertical): That type of multi-level building permitted by the zoning regulations and in which subsidiaries of different sizes may coexist, in response to a high densification of dwellings.
Owner (Propietario): Natural or legal person who exercises dominion over real estate through a public deed duly registered in the Property Registry, which authorizes construction on their land.
Project (Proyecto): Definitive design of the construction plans of buildings, infrastructures, and urban works to be carried out or intervened on a specific terrain.
Outdoor Advertising (Publicidad exterior): all advertising by means of signs (rótulos), notices (avisos), advertisements (anuncios), signboards (letreros), billboards (vallas), projections, or the like whose purpose is to make commercial propaganda or draw attention to a product, article, or trademark, or to a commercial activity or business, service, recreation, profession, or home occupation that is offered, sold, or carried out within the Canton of Alvarado and that can be seen from the public road.
Urban Renewal (Renovación Urbana): The improvement process directed at eradicating slum zones and rehabilitating urban areas in decay or defective condition; it includes the conservation of urban areas and prevention of their deterioration.
Repair (Reparación): Renewal and/or reconstruction of any part of a work, to leave it in conditions equal to or better than the original ones.
Setback (Retiro): These are the open, unbuilt spaces between a building and the boundaries of the respective property.
Front Setback (Retiro frontal): Term equivalent to front yard (antejardín).
Side Setback (Retiro lateral): Open, non-buildable space, between the side boundary of the lot and the nearest part of the building.
Rear Setback (Retiro posterior): Open, non-buildable space between the rear boundary of the lot and the nearest part of the building.
Risk (Riesgo): Probability of losses, damages, or economic, social, or environmental consequences occurring in a particular site and during a defined period. It is obtained by relating the hazard (amenaza) to the vulnerability of the exposed elements.
Easement (Servidumbre): Restriction on the dominion of a property, which is established for public benefit or in favor of another farm. Common access way that allows restricted pedestrian and vehicular traffic, no more than 6.00 meters wide by 60.00 meters deep in urban areas, that serves no more than 6 (six) farms or lots, but is affected by a private property right whose responsibility remains with its maintenance.
Public Meeting Place (Sitio de reunión pública): Under this heading are included: Entertainment halls, Social centers, Sports buildings, Temples or places of worship, Plazas, and Parks.
Improved Wastewater Management System (Sistema mejorado de manejo de aguas residuales): Any technical system that allows the transformation of wastewater (aguas residuales) to parameters established as acceptable in the decree on discharge and reuse of wastewater (decreto de vertido y re-uso de aguas residuales), efficient management systems for septic tanks, residential and commercial. Efficient water treatment systems, urban, industrial, and agricultural, that comply with national regulations.
Application (Solicitud): Document submitted by the interested party (interesado) to carry out an urban planning or construction procedure, in which the necessary information about the owner and the property is recorded for its resolution, registration, and control.
Urbanization (Urbanización): Process of urbanizing and building the city.
Land Use (Uso de la tierra): The utilization of a terrain, of the physical structure settled or incorporated onto it, or both, regarding class, form, or intensity of its exploitation.
Municipal Segregation Approval (Visado Municipal de Segregación): act of individual approval for each resulting portion of a subdivision (fraccionamiento) process that guarantees the provision of services and the adequate utilization of the property for urban planning purposes.
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. Secondary Roads: those whose traffic is continuous and serves no more than 120 dwelling units.
Residential Use (Uso Vivienda): It is any construction subject to legal order, arranged and equipped, fixed or mobile, that is used for housing purposes for persons, permanently or temporarily.
Vulnerability (Vulnerabilidad): Intrinsic condition of being impacted by an event due to a set of physical, social, economic, and environmental conditions and processes. It is determined by the degree of exposure and fragility of the elements susceptible to being affected – the population, their assets, the activities of goods and services, the environment – and the limitation of their capacity to recover.
Special Control Zone (Zona de control especial): It is that zone where land use is restricted and can be modified, according to technical criteria under certain conditions defined by the administration.
Protection Zones (Zonas de protección): They are all those areas in which the provisions of environmental regulations govern, mainly applied in the Ley Forestal and in the Integrated Water Resource Law (ley integral del Recurso hídrico), and those that the administration defines as of environmental interest for the community.
Zoning (Zonificación): Distribution and assignment of land uses in the territory.