Pavones locals are furious with officials as parts of the sleepy little town are being demolished. Photo: Unsplash
Pavones is known in the surfing world for playing host to one of the best waves on Earth. The tiny community in southern Costa Rica is under threat, and already buildings are being razed.
Pavones is, of course, widely thought of as the second-longest wave in the world. It’s a fantastically good wave, too, and when it’s on, it’s tough to beat.
According to local reports, “recent evictions have stirred tension between residents and the local municipality.” Back in 1977, Costa Rica passed a law called the Maritime Zoning Law that regulates a coastal strip around 650 feet from the shoreline. That strip is broken up into two parts: the first is a 150-foot bit that is totally off-limits for private use. The rest can be leased with approval. It’s a bit of a tough one, because while the authorities claim that buildings on that strip are technically built on public land, the residents are arguing that the evictions are, according to The Tico Times, “unfair and legally shaky.”
In short, the municipality is arguing that the buildings are encroaching on public land, and they’re not wasting any time on getting rid of some of the buildings. The first removal was Los Delfines, a little supermarket about a block from the sand.
Walter Brenes, a lawyer hired by the Asociación de Desarrollo Integral (ADI), a local organization working to protect the community and its way of life from development pressures, told reporters that the municipality is using road plans that are two decades old and no longer represent what the streets have become now, as well as claiming that the surveys of the topography are wrong.
“Many of these families settled here 70 years ago,” said Brenes, “building homes and businesses that sustain the community.”
This has been an ongoing debacle, with the first attempted demolitions attempted back in March. Those were stopped by community protests, but more recent protests were halted by police brought in to protect demolition crews from the community.
“The Golfito Municipality demolished two supermarkets, one bakery, one restaurant, the residence of two households, two cabins, walls, and living fences,” the ADI wrote in a press release after filing a criminal lawsuit against the Golfito Municipality that alleges illegal actions to initiate demolitions in Pavones. “All of those affected were local people with 70 years of roots in Pavones. Several people were displaced from their homes and nearly 20 more were left jobless. They intend to continue with the demolitions affecting even more people, claiming that they do not have a concession and were built illegally, when the municipality itself has not processed their concession applications but has given them licenses and patents with which they have worked for years paying their municipal taxes, in addition to the fact that one of the demolished structures was one of the oldest structures in Pavones, it existed since before the regulatory plan was made and according to the law it had to be respected.”
While there are rumors that the area is being cleared for a proposed luxury resort, Freiner Lara Blanco, the Mayor of Golfito, denied that in a statement. “This isn’t about clearing out Pavones,” he said. “We’re ensuring public land stays public.”
It will likely be a long legal battle for the residents of Pavones, and a crowdfunding campaign has been set up to help.
“Developers and local authorities are pushing to transform this vibrant town into exclusive private resorts,” the campaign explains, “threatening to privatize the beach and control the world-class Pavones wave, demolish local homes and businesses, some standing for over 30 years, with demolition orders already issued, eliminate public beach access by removing beach roads, replacing them with a boulevard, and providing almost no parking. [It will] displace local fishermen, relocating them to an unsuitable area and jeopardizing their access to the fish Co-Op, threatening their livelihoods, and erase the community as we know it, leaving families homeless and jobless.”
