Quepos definitively approves the public hearing regulations for the Regulatory Plan

The Quepos Municipal Council definitively approved the Regulations for In-Person and Virtual Public Hearings for the Urban Center Regulatory Plan of the canton, the instrument that establishes how residents may object to the urban land management project. The decision is recorded in Agreement No. 35, adopted in ordinary session 200-2026 on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, and is published this Thursday, November 5, in La Gaceta No. 210, pages 64 to 66.

Two regulations support the bylaws: paragraph one of article 17 of the Urban Planning Law, which obligates the municipality to call a public hearing before implementing a regulatory plan or any of its parts, and paragraph d) of article 29 of the Organic Environmental Law, which orders the promotion of active participation of inhabitants in the elaboration and application of territorial management plans.

The text reaches this publication after a process of nearly three months. The Municipal Council initially approved it through agreement 32, article six, of ordinary session 186-2026 on August 18, 2026, ratified in ordinary session 187-2026 on August 25, and submitted it for consultation with its first publication in La Gaceta 182 on September 28, 2026. Now, the publication of the complete definitive text is ordered for a second time “for legal compliance.”

Unanimous vote and waived procedure

Agreement No. 35 arranged to acknowledge receipt of official letter MQ-SCM-226-2026 from the Secretariat of the Municipal Council and to definitively approve the regulations according to the text submitted for consultation. The approval was unanimous, with five votes, and a point of order from the municipal president to waive the commission procedure was also endorsed with five votes.

Council members Hugo Arias Azofeifa, Martha Bosque Marchena, Éricka Castillo Porras, José Manuel Jara Mora, and Gilbert Cruz Jiménez voted. The document bears the signature of Alma López Ojeda, Esq., secretary of the Municipal Council, and takes effect upon its publication.

In-person as the primary route, virtual as reinforcement

The regulations develop eleven operational articles prior to the hearing and four following it. Among the central rules are:

• The hearing will be held in an extraordinary session of the Council, following the formalities of Article 47 of the Municipal Code, and no other topic may be addressed.
• The in-person modality will be the primary means of presenting the proposal; the virtual modality will be used “solely as an additional tool,” via a live event on the Zoom platform, with a parallel broadcast on Facebook Live for spectators only, without official participation.
• The call for the hearing must be published in the Official Gazette and other media at least fifteen business days in advance, indicating the location, date, and time.
• Project documents will be available for download at https://muniquepos.go.cr/ until five business days after the call agreement becomes final.
• To participate in person, one must write to the address enabled by the municipality or send a letter to the Constructive Control and Urban Planning Unit; entry is permitted one hour prior and is subject to the maximum capacity of the venue.

Deadlines for objection and official response

Article 18 enables a prior period for written participation of up to ten business days before the hearing, which must close at least five business days before the session; the Council Secretariat will tabulate all inquiries in a synoptic table to be read at the end of the project presentation.

During the hearing, oral questions will be ordered according to the seat number assigned to each person, and Council members may intervene only once, for a maximum of five minutes per person. Observations may be expanded up to eight business days after the session via the enabled email, and any person may submit them as long as the file remains in the official consultation period.

Article 25 obligates the municipality to issue an official opinion on each observation in a final report, which must indicate which are incorporated into the project and which are dismissed, with technical and legal support. Every dismissal must be duly motivated, technically grounded, incorporated into the administrative file, and signed by the competent official; the report will be reviewed by the Council and published on the municipal website as notification to the interested parties.

With this regulation, the Municipality of Quepos closes the procedure required by the Urban Planning Law before modifying the regulatory plan of the urban center: the public hearing ceases to be an informal procedure and now has written rules regarding the call, registration, use of the floor, and response to neighborhood objections. The impact is direct for those living in the canton, because the observations submitted within those deadlines condition the text that will ultimately regulate land use, densities, and urban development in the center of Quepos.

Source: La Gaceta, No. 210, Thursday, November 5, 2026, Regulations section (Municipalities), pages 64-66 (official reference: IN202601137513).