The Housing Promotion Foundation (Fuprovi) presented this July 3 the report “Situation of housing sector and urban development in Costa Rica in 2017”, which offers information regarding housing projects, construction, the conditions of the houses in the country, housing opportunities, quality of life in different neighborhoods and communities, etc.

This report also brought to light the limited investment made by Municipalities in the Great Metropolitan Area; according to this document Municipalities destine only 3.3% of their total budget in the creation and maintenance of sports and recreation spaces, and many of them don’t even execute the totality of that budget.

The investigation by Fuprovi was carried out in a 5 year period from 2013 to 2017 and only included Municipalities in the Great Metropolitan Area.

The differences from one Municipality to the other are also evident, with municipalities in Curridabat, San Jose, Heredia and Belen for example allocating in average between $8.80 and $15.8 per inhabitant, while others such as Alajuelita, Alvarado and Asseri allocate under $0.26 per inhabitant.

This data generates concern, “public areas are key to having ‘healthy cities’ and ‘healthy citizens’, specially if we consider the characteristics of urban development and the type of homes that are now being developed”, states the report.

“What we must understand is that Costa Rica is changing, 70% of the population is urban and houses now have less spaces and when there’s less private space there should be more public space, public spaces are necessary to have healthy cities”, explained Franklin Solano, investigator for Fuprovi.

Neighbors in different communities also complain about the poor maintenance of the existing spaces, lack of proper lighting, poor security, etc.