real estate

Amador developer says concession not violated

cARLOS LEMOS/LA PRENSA

different view: The government and a developer are not seeing eye-to-eye about a concession in Amador.1072720

The developers of Las Brisas de Amador defended the sale of apartments in their project, saying that such sales are allowed under a concession it received from the government.

The building, which is on Isla Perico on the Amador Causeway, is being constructed on a parcel that was part of a government concession granted by the now-defunct Autoridad de la Región Interocéanica (ARI) in 2002. The developer said the terms of the agreement were confirmed by the comptroller's office in 2004.

The project's developer has placed advertisements in several publications stating that it is operating legally.

That opinion, however, is contrary to what the former director of the ARI recalls as having been agreed to when the concession was signed.

Yesterday, former ARI President Gustavo García de Paredes reiterated what he told La Prensa last week, that the concession does not authorize the development of residential housing.“The most you can do, in terms of apartments, is time-shares, which is a form of tourism,” he said. “But the sale of apartments to families who will live there full time is not allowed.”

The government has cited two projects, Las Brisas de Amador and Naos Harbour Island, as potentially violating their concessions by marketing residential projects. In both cases, the developers were granted concessions for projects related to tourism.

Apartments in the Naos project are being sold for a starting price of about $300,000. In the case of Las Brisas, in which some of the units are already occupied, prices start at more than $400,000.

The sale of residential units on these concessions is being investigated by the Unidad de Bienes Revertidos of the Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas.

Las Brisas also denied violating height restrictions in the area, as it stated its building is five stories above street level. The maximum height of buildings in that area is supposed to be six stories. It’s unclear if the building is measured by the actual number of stories it has, or if the developer is correct in its determination that stories below street level do not count when calculating the height of the structure.