Coto Brus reforms the charging of property owners for works executed on roads and land

The Municipal Council of Coto Brus reformed articles 13, the title of 14, and 23 of the Municipal Regulation for the Collection of Fees for Services Provided or Works Executed due to the Omission of Real Estate Owners on their Lands or in Public Roads. The decision is recorded in agreement MCBCM-679-2026, taken during Ordinary Session 125 on September 21, 2026, and was published in La Gaceta No. 203 on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, under official reference IN202601134911.

The agreement invokes numerals 11, 169, and 170 of the Political Constitution, numeral 11 of the General Law of Public Administration, and numerals 2, 3, 4 subsection a), 13 subsection c), and 43 of the Municipal Code. The regulation governs the charges made by the Municipality of Coto Brus when it independently executes maintenance work that was the responsibility of the property owners, whether within their lands or on the public roads of the canton.

Technical costs set every three years

The new article 13, titled “Setting of Costs,” establishes that prices will be reviewed every three years through specialized technical criteria. This task is assigned to three municipal officials:

• the Director of Technical Management of Municipal Road Infrastructure, heading the Department of Technical Management of Municipal Road Infrastructure;
• the Administrative-Financial Manager;
• the Environmental Services Coordinator.

This team will set the costs for each manual maintenance activity based on articles 83 and 83 bis of the Municipal Code and the General Law of Public Roads No. 5060. The technical report must be submitted to the Council no later than the first fortnight of January, following a public consultation to be conducted through District Councils, Development Associations, Road Committees, and other organizations deemed relevant.

The Council will review these costs and may approve or reject them. Once approved, they will come into effect 30 days after their publication in the official gazette La Gaceta, and the charge will be applied according to the unit corresponding to each activity: linear meter, square meter, cubic meter, or hours.

Destination of collected funds

Article 23, “Municipal Income,” provides that the money collected for the execution of works due to the non-compliance of residents will be used to finance:

• the technical management crews of municipal road infrastructure for the fulfillment of this function;
• the purchase of equipment;
• training;
• community education strategies regarding road maintenance programs;
• the application of the regulation itself and any other use that the administration deems pertinent.

Regarding article 14, the reform only affects its title, which shall henceforth read “Notification of Costs.”

Ten-business-day public consultation

Pursuant to Article 43 of the Municipal Code, the draft regulatory reform is published in La Gaceta to be submitted to a non-binding public consultation for a period of ten business days; after this period, the Council will issue a final ruling on the merits. The text was sent from San Vito de Coto Brus on October 6, 2026, and signed by the municipal provider Iris Vindas Chaves.

In the same session 125, the Council approved, through Agreement No. 25, the rates corresponding to this regulation and ordered its publication in La Gaceta, based on a motion signed by council member José Joaquín Jiménez Madrigal dated November 12, 2025, as stated in the publication with reference IN202601134988.

Impact on the taxpayer

The reform directly affects the pockets of the residents of Coto Brus: it dictates how and how often the amounts that the Municipality may charge them are calculated when they do not carry out maintenance works on their own, and ties those prices to a technical report approved by the Council and published in the official gazette. With the rates already approved in Agreement No. 25, the canton now has the complete framework to bill for those works and reinvest the proceeds into the crews and road maintenance equipment.

Source: La Gaceta, No. 203, Tuesday, October 27, 2026, p. 82 (official reference: IN202601134911).