What Is The Risk?
A massive amount of earth was moved to create building sites in Phase 11, a housing development of approximately 100 acres (40 ha) in Ojochal.
A project of this magnitude requires layers of permits. Osa Vive believes that the first agency that should grant a permit in a development like this is SETENA. In this case, SETENA should have considered whether to grant the project an Environmental Permit to move forward. After SETENA had granted that permit, then it would be up to the Municipality of the Osa (“the Muni”) to decide which permits, if any, to grant the project (for road building, construction, etc.)
What Is Osa Vive Doing About It?
SETENA did not grant an Environmental Permit. Our legal team believes that in the absence of this permit, the Muni should not have granted any permits to the project. But they did—so we took the Muni to court.
The court ordered the Muni to perform an investigation:
English translation:
“…the local government (the Muni) is ordered to initiate an internal investigation to assess whether the environmental impact requirements of the original subdivision project were omitted, determine accordingly the responsible officials; determine the possible damages to the environment, collect through administrative channels any damage resulting from the possible omissions of environmental permits; and communicate, if necessary, the result of the investigation to the Public Ministry, so that it may investigate whether there are criminal offenses…”
Osa Vive’s legal team believes that the Muni has not fully complied with the court order. We therefore feel compelled to push this case upward through the court system until the Muni has fully complied with the original order.
This critically important case has wide-ranging implications. If the Muni granted permits when it should not have (without a required SETENA permit), one might wonder whether the Muni has done so in previous cases—or might do so in the future.
This case does something unusual and important: It holds the Muni legally accountable. We hope that it will encourage the Muni to grant permits with great care in the future, even as our case works its way through the court system.