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Status on:
1) Master plan, topographical
study, permits, environmental and other studies
2) Legal work and
incorporation of lots
3) On-site storage
4) On-site adobe block making
5) Renewable energy and waste
management system planning
6) Well and flow
7) Living fence and planting
8) Westside caretaker's house
9) Road construction and
improvement
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In
March of 2007 we met on-site with Deppat (http://www.deppat.com)
a consulting firm in the fields of
environmental and physical planning owned by
Alfredo Bermundez and Eugenio Bermudez
(left). We signed a contract with them to
perform
several projects for us including the master
plan for the entire project. We are very excited to be working with
this firm. They are already ahead of
schedule on the topographical map, vetting the property survey
and plotting all lots, roads, and community areas
within the finca.
At first glance that might seem like an
easy activity, but after a few days hiking the
hills, valleys, rivers, falls, and dry forests, one soon
realizes it isn't.
Deppat's project plan is listed
below:
In addition we hired real estate attorney
Vanessa Calvo to transfer our lots into
individual corporations, write our
agreements, help us with closing lots
with clients and to manage the legal work
involved when we finance a lot.
One of the more serious problems
associated with property for sale in
Costa Rica and almost all real estate Costa
Rica, is knowing for sure that all
title and property rights have been securely
addressed, and that all local, national and
environmental laws have been followed. In
Costa Rica, it is easy to rush ahead without
taking the necessary legal and development
steps, operating under the assumption that
no one is watching, that it is the "wild
west" and that there are no rules. We do not
have that perspective of Costa Rica. For
example, just down the road in Samara, there
is a huge development near the beach that
has been shut down because they proceeded
without official approval.
 Steve
Gallant – Steve hails from British Columbia and
has now resided in CR for five years, having married
a Costa Rican girl from San Jose. He has a young
son close to a year old he refers to as his
“rooster”, as he wakes him up most mornings by 5
a.m. Steve has proven to be very helpful when it
comes to locating construction materials and
supplies at favorable pricing within CR. He also
built our block press that is currently being tested
for the purposes of constructing compressed earthen
building blocks from on site clay and sand mixed
with a small amount of cement.
Steve
is also in the process of turning a moth-balled 20’
ocean container into a temporary work and storage
building for the FLB site. This structure will also
be fitted out with solar panels on top to power the
pump for the new well. Steve’s background is in
heavy construction, welding, and project management,
he has also demonstrated a keen ability to think
critically and in detail when it comes to analyzing
a construction project. He also knows his way
around a cad-cam program. Steve may play many roles
as the development process unfolds.
As
mentioned, one
of Steve's recent projects was to take some plans
for an adobe block making machine and build one of
the machines for us to use on site in March. Al,
Mark, Christoph
and Steve parked Christoph's truck under a mango
tree and began testing approaches and materials for
making adobe blocks. In general, the idea is to make
the bricks for construction projects using materials
like the volcanic red clay on the property.
Al
got a little carried away and started experimenting
with mixing in some spoiled mangos off the ground.
Andrew Zwick - Andrew is just getting his feet
wet with the project, having recently moved back to
CR following his engagement to his lovely bi-lingual
Costa Rican bride to be, Andrea. Currently residing
in Monteverde, CR, the couple may move closer to the
Samara area as it continues to take shape. Andrew’s
degrees are in the environmental sciences, but he
also has considerable experience around the world
and in CR designing and implementing renewable
energy and waste management systems. He is
currently supporting the FLB team in this capacity,
helping us specify, source and design the various
systems that will be critical elements of the
sustainable development. He and Andrea may become
more intimately involved with the project moving
forward as the level of activity and construction
shifts gears beginning in 2008.
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On the far west corner of the finca is the
unfinished home that the son of the former owner of
the finca was building before we purchased the
property. It is on a beautiful lot, but access is
limited right now during the rainy season.
We have had a lot of ideas about what to do with
this structure; art center, residence for student
interns, sustainable learning center, etc.
Current thinking is to use it temporarily as a
west side caretaker's house. The reality of owning
property in Costa Rica is you must have a full time
caretaker onsite. We certainly will have a caretaker
on the east side that we are developing, but we also
have valuable old forest trees and other reasons to
have a caretaker on that west side. In the picture,
Mark is taking some measurements as we decide what
we are going to with the structure.
The house in the photo above doesn't look like
much. But, with the concrete walls, the lot it is
on, and the size, just putting on a roof, doors
and windows will make it one of the nicer tico
homes in the area. |
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In addition, our idea of
self
sustainable communities and sustainable resort development
is to
take every project we work on and figure out
what the upside is for the locals, how we
can make each effort contribute to local
quality of life and economics. So thinking
about the locals, we figured that since we
already had the bulldozer onsite, we wanted
to contribute to the commerce and travel
needs for our neighbors. This was the
primary reason we improved the mountain road
over to Nosara.
 Coto
is the local young man (left) who has served
as our property guide, and continues to keep
horses and cattle on the finca to keep the
brush down on the building areas. He also
provides the horses and other services when
we travel to the west side of the property
He lives up in the mountains and one day he
brought up the idea of the road and said it
would be a great help to the locals.
Technically, the road is public but little
more than a rough trail.
 We
then talked to Alberto and his wife (he is
the school teacher) and they said the road
would be very much appreciated by everyone
around because they have family up in the
mountain communities, they travel that way
frequently for household needs, and the
current trail is very difficult by foot. For
example, the best place to get coffee is to
hike up the mountain and get it from local
farmers. In the picture to the left, farmers
are drying red beans (frijoles rojo) in the road (click
to enlarge).
 This
photo shows the local coffee bean depot in
nearby Zaragosa, where local coffee growers drop off
their dried beans for pick-up at a later date.
(Zaragosa is a small town up the mountain directly
above us.)
We traveled this new road several times
over to Nosara on our last trip and although
it was a bit of an adventure for gringos in the
middle of the night, it is certainly doable
and a road we will improve over time.
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We picked this area, this finca, for
our sustainable adventure because of the
extremely private location,
the waterfalls, pools, watershed, ocean
views, and proximity to the airport and
some of the best beaches along the Pacific
coast. But realistically, we knew we had a
lot of work to do in order to improve the
pubic road in key spots over 4 kilometers,
and to put in an additional 1.5 kilometer
private road. This new access road was
completed in January of 2007.
We
also improved the public road and will continue to
improve it over time and soon hope to work with a few
of our neighbors on improvement and erosion projects.
The locals have been joking that we put
in the only stretch of highway in Costa
Rica. And honestly, the 40 minute hike in
will be missed. However, our goal has been
to have year-around access, and we want to
minimize damage to the area during
construction so the best road that we could
secure seemed the way to proceed.
About half of the private road runs
through existing pasture. For the section
running through the woods we curved it
around larger trees and were very happy
about having to remove only three small
trees during
construction which were saved for future
building projects (see photo to left). The road passes over two
year-round streams and we put in over-sized
culverts to accommodate serious flow during
the rainy season.
The fence posts for the road
were cut
from trees already down from last year's
rainy season. |
