Update Puerto Viejo & Loma Vista

PUERTO VIEJO; To start, Puerto Viejo was written up in the travel section of the New York Times!!!! This is great for our investment. Read about it at; http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/travel/04next.html?ref=travel?8dpc

A new law has changed in Costa Rica. Now, every property needs a “visado” stamp, which means “visited”. Every property needs to be inspected and approved by the municipality before anyone can sell or build on their land.

This was a new law that passed 2 years after we purchased this land. However, I took it upon myself to get the visado stamps for everybody!!! It was not easy, there were some extra administration fee’s that I had to pay to get the approval in a timely manner, but we all have the stamps. It was $50 per lot for “administration fee”, plus an additional $50 management fee I am charging to help pay for my travel expenses down there, $100 total.

I still have to pay our taxes. The reason I have not done it yet is because only one person sent in their money so far. This is very important, so I will lower my management fee to $75 and that is only to help pay for travel expenses back there. The taxes itself will be around $25 a lot. I will be going back in July to take care of the taxes. So,

PUERTO VIEJO LOT OWNERS, PLEASE MAIL ME $200 AT;
Daniel Berkley
2854 Ridge Road
Steamboat Springs, CO 80487

That will pay for the visado stamps and taxes.

Our fence was in need of help due to the wet ground and 2000 plus lbs animals brushing up against them. The owner of the cows that grazes our land (keeping it nice and clean) repaired our fence for free, saving us thousands of dollars!!!

It was in his best interest and in my opinion, partly his responsibility to repair and maintain the fence and that is exactly what he is doing, saving us a few thousand dollars in repairs.

The posts he used are not the greatest, but he is maintaining the boundaries for us, which is what is important. To give you an idea on how valuable it is to have his cows there, the house I have in Puerto Viejo is on a similar size lot about 1200 square meters and it is costing me $50 a month to have someone cut the grass!!

LOMA VISTA DE MATAPALO DE SANTA CRUZ, GUANACASTE, COSTA RICA; The project is going well. I had completed the environmental study the municipality required in order to get my visado stamps. The visados should be ready on Wednesday and than the planos will be sent to the National Registry for Catastro. At that point, I can officially sell lots, but I am going to wait until the house and pool is finished.

Now that it has rained it really firmed up the road base I put down and the road to the top of the property looks great.

We have great water pressure all the way to the top of the property, which was a big mystery. We thought the altitude would be too high and we would need a water pump for good pressure, but it is not necessary.

I should have photos to share with you by next month of the v-house/cone home, which I am calling Casa Macolla, because the home is like a Macolla tree. The main structure of the house is 16 beams of bamboo, each beam over 5 inches thick. Very strong and flexible in case of earthquake, which has not been uncommon in the world today and needs to be planned for, especially here where they get big earthquakes at times. Don’t worry, the last huge one was 50 years ago, however, we are do another one soon in Guanacaste.

What I am most excited about is the POOL! I am doing an all natural pool. No chemicals, no expensive electric bills from constantly running water pumps. It is flexible material that is earthquake resistant. A big portion of the pool has gorgeous plants growing actually inside selected areas of the pool that acts as a natural filter.

The plants are green all year round and never needs to be watered. Check out the type of pool I will be building at Loma Vista at www.NaturalSwimmingPools.com.

For questions and comments, email me at CostaRica.Daniel@yahoo.com