Inter Institutional Commission of Tourist Marinas and Wharves

What is the CIMAT?

Along with the laws for Marinas the Inter Institutional Commission of Marinas and Wharves (CIMAT) was created, only authorized entity to supervise the development of tourist marinas and wharves in the country and which is conformed by the:

Costa Rican Tourist Board.
National Housing and Urbanism Institute.
Ministry of Public Works and Transportation.
Ministry of the Environment and Energy.
Ministry of Public Health.

The commission, as dictated by the regulation, will have its headquarters at the Costa Rican Tourist Board and for compliance with its functions will count with all the technical support that it may require from all its integrating entities, which are authorized to assign the technical staff to help the Commission.

Attributions of CIMAT

Promote and incentive the realization of Marinas and Tourist Wharves’ projects in the coastal areas of the Costa Rica.
Issue the technical resolution that approves or rejects the preliminary project of the marina or tourist landing place proposed.
Establish in conformity with what is specified by article 7, clause b) of the Law, the technical terms of reference through a Manual of Construction of Marinas, which will be of mandatory character.
The vigilance, control and investigation of the activities related with the construction, functioning and operation of tourist marinas and wharves.
Determine the areas to be ceded by each port zone to the State as areas for public uses.
Establish its own internal norms of functioning within the valid legal framework.
Survey the maps for each project in conformity with this regulation.
The others assigned by the Law and this regulation.

Proceedings before the CIMAT

Prior consultation (optional).
Technical revision of the preliminary project. (concession).
Surveiller’s maps of the construction.

The requirements for each stage are established in the manual of marinas which may be requested from the CIMAT.

Definition of Marinas

What is a marina?

It will be understood as a tourist marina the group of facilities, maritime or terrestrial, destined to the protection, shelter, and lending of all kinds of services, to recreation, tourist, and sport vessels, no matter their flag and independently of their size, as well as to their visitors and users, national or foreign.

What is a marina made of?

The real estate, the facilities, access roads to the different areas and other goods in private property, destined by their owners to lend services to the tourist marina.

How is the concession of a marina regulated?

By the Law Nº 7744 “Marinas Concession and Operation,” approved by the Legislative Assembly, on December 19th of 1997.

Who determines the cession of a marina?

The Inter Institutional Commission of Tourist Marinas and Wharves (CIMAT). It has to consider what is disposed in the Coast Regulatory Plan of the area where the marina is to be installed.

What institution exercises the legal control of a marina?

The Attorney General of the Republic, by itself or by petition of any state entity or institution. The Attorney General will conduct the pertinent negotiations as to actions violating or infringing the Law Nº 7744 or of related laws dealing with the annulment of concessions, general dispositions, permits, contracts, acts, or agreements obtained by contravening such norms.

What are wharves?

Tourist wharves are the docks, fixed or floating piers, the ramps, and other necessary works that allow the enjoyment and safety of tourists and the arrival of recreation vessels and minor sport vessels.

They are divided into two classifications:

Minor: Port facility of a single landing place, such as docks, fixed or floating piers, ramps, and other necessary works that offer safety to tourists and docking of the vessels of up to 40 meters of length, of design and operation.
Major: Port facility of a single landing place that offers safety to tourists and docking of the vessels of over 40 meters of length, of design and operation.

The sun in Costa Rica is called Papagayo

Located in an area of great natural beauty, the Papagayo project offers tourists, in a space of 2 thousand hectares, 17 diverse beaches with a quiet sea, ideal to enjoy in the company of family; to practice diving and aquatic sports, because the clear water lets you observe the marine beauty hidden in Culebra Bay; or simply rest under the shade of trees of the area and take a walk in a primary forest, with its fauna and endemic species.

A boat trip by its irregular littoral permits visitors to enjoy the beautiful view with different shades given by a series of surprises such as caverns, islands, or the unexpected sighting of dolphins or other marine species such as cat sharks, fish of many colors. and giant turtles. This bay is rich in marine species of high scientific and economic value due to the plankton rich waters, their main source of nourishment, which reproduces in the area's mangroves.

For all this impressive diversity of resources and its beautiful geographic landscape is that this project has been planned to be a model of tourist sustainable development to the world.

Cronogram of the Project

1965 - Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) publishes a study for a tourism plan in Central America
1970 IV The process to identify areas with the greatest tourist potential of the Isthmus begins. The Gulf of Papagayo is mentioned as a zone of scenic and cultural richness.
1979 (September) ¡V Tourist Pole Gulf of Papagayo (PTGP) declared of public interest by the Law 6370.
1982 IV Issuance of the Law of Development for the PTGP, which establishes: 1. - That the State shall create a project of this nature by means of concessions and giving the infrastructure. 2.- The ICT is given the authority to create a decentralized executive office with the maximum administrative independence.

Data of Interest

PTGP's boundaries are established in the Maritime Terrestrial Law from Playa Cabuyal to Playa Hermosa.
Between 1991 and 1999, 23 concessions have been granted. 2.000 hectares form the PTGP, a property of the State of Costa Rica, of which 840 belong to the Papagayo Peninsula development (Ecodevelopment Papagayo S.A.).
42.8% of the investment is totally national, 33.3% corresponds to mixed capital of Costa Ricans and foreigners, and only 23.8% is foreign.

Central America’s largest tourist project came about as a dream, which implied several struggles, but is finally come true, and to it, many hopes are attached for a better future for Guanacaste and Costa Rica in general.

Background

In 1974 the firm Tecniberia, hired by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) makes a study to analyze Central America's tourist potential and determines what came to be the Promotional and Financial Program for Tourism in Central America, whose objective was to adopt a Regional Development Program for the attraction of international tourism of the mass and vacation kind.

Infrastructure and services

After the reconditioning made to the former Tomas Guardia airport, where some concession grantees collaborated as well as ICT, Liberia counts with a modern airport, the Daniel Oduber Quirós which for over a year is operating with international tourists. The access by sea has been facilitated by the new law of marinas, recently approved, that puts at the investors' disposal the possibility of acquiring concessions for the establishment of marinas, with the Inter Institutional Commission of Tourist Marinas and Wharves, CIMAT, with weekly meetings.

Daniel Oduber International Airport

And by land it counts with the Inter American Highway, passing through Liberia, and then taking a detour by a paved road until reaching the project's area, where there is also a good daily bus service leaving from the capital. The State is committed to give the infrastructure so that the concession grantee builds his hotel facilities. It could be said that currently this labor is well adjusted to constructions.

Since 1988 and to this date, the ICT has invested in paving jobs, the illumination, electrification, and drilling of wells, the sum of 547 million colones. These infrastructure works are considered a great priority by the Government and in this sense even the President of the Republic has given instructions to the Minister of Transportation and executive presidents of autonomous institutions to give them priority.

The perspectives

Those dreams of the seventies were perhaps too pretentious for that time and maybe that is why it turned out to be so difficult to achieve the consensus of all of the forces that could contribute to face the challenge. However, the circumstances are now different and very favorable, in virtue of:

There is the will of the Government and institutions involved to carry out the project. The Costa Rica's tourist development situation is successful, up to the point of becoming the first source of revenue, reason for which investors are showing interest in the project again.
Doubts have disappeared, permitting it to go ahead without the worry implied by interruptions and incertitude.

We can only hope that the 20 years delay experienced by the project could be worth waiting. Papagayo is expected to consolidate in an age when it will count with all the favorable factors that finally will allow it to become the project which will place Costa Rica in a privileged position which corresponds to that level for its attractions in the tourist world circuit.