San José

About San José:

San José covers 13.4 square kilometres on the north-western side of Atenas canton. It borders El Rosario, in Naranjo, to the north, Candelaria, in Palmares, to the west, Mercedes to the south, San Isidro to the south-west and Santa Eulalia to the east. Ruta 135 runs straight through it, carrying traffic between Atenas, Palmares and on to San Ramón, and it is the road that holds the district together. The northern villages are around fifteen minutes by car from downtown Atenas, where Ruta 27 takes you east to the capital or west to the port at Caldera, and the free zone at Grecia is about twenty minutes away.

The head village is San José Sur, whose school has been open since 1927 and whose community celebrates its patron saint every 19 March. San José Norte has its own school, a basketball court and a police post, and the rest of the district is spread across smaller settlements: Alto Cima, Alto López, Legua, Torunes and Vainilla. Supermarkets, banks and most errands mean a trip into Atenas, though households in the north often use Palmares instead, the town that fills up every January for its fiestas. Just under 2,000 people lived here in 2011, most of them in the built-up stretches along the main road, and the district has kept growing since.

The ground rises steadily as you move away from Atenas. Around San José Sur the slopes are gentle enough to build on without much earthmoving. Higher up, toward Legua and San José Norte, the land breaks into ridges planted with coffee, and the view opens across the Central Valley to the mountains on the far side. That height changes how people build: the upper villages run cooler than the lower neighbourhoods of Atenas, so houses there are designed around the breeze and the view rather than air conditioning. Much of the high ground is still worked as coffee farms rather than divided into lots.

Outside the gated projects, San José is a village and farming district. Over the past fifteen years a few small developments have brought a different kind of neighbour: Las Palmas, near the Palmares line, was laid out in 2012 as thirteen estate lots, and Cerro Luna is a compact project with an electric gate, paved internal streets and fibre-optic internet. Foreign retirees buy here, and so do Costa Ricans from elsewhere in the Central Valley who want a quieter base without losing Atenas town. Plots tend to be larger, and cheaper for their size, than those near the centre of Atenas, and that is the trade for the extra minutes on the road.

Houses in San José:

Three kinds of house come up here. In the villages along Ruta 135 there are family homes on their own lots, such as a modern three-bedroom house with a garden and mountain views. Inside the gated projects you find newer builds: at Cerro Luna, two-bedroom houses of 125 square metres with a terrace, on lots of around 1,750 square metres, some sold as pre-sales or fully furnished and none carrying a condominium fee. At the top of the market sit custom homes with pools, one of them with 440 square metres of construction on a 903-square-metre lot, and the estate homes of Las Palmas, set along the ridges for the view. When you compare houses for sale in Barrio San José de Atenas, drive in from both ends, from Atenas and from Palmares, because the upper villages and the stretch near town feel like different places.

Rentals in San José:

Renting here is a small, local affair. What turns up is usually a whole family house let by the month: two bedrooms and a bathroom with a balcony facing the mountains in San José Sur, or a larger four-bedroom house on the main road through San José Norte. Rents are quoted in colones. A few owners in the gated projects furnish their houses with rental income in mind, but long-term tenants will mostly be looking at village homes.

Land and Lots in San José:

Land is what San José sells most of, and parcels are generous. Near San José Sur there are building sites of around 3,000 square metres on gentle slopes, with a paved road in front and water and power available. Further up, in Residencial Cerro Luna and around Vainilla, quintas of 5,000 square metres and more look straight out over the Central Valley, while the Las Palmas lots sit among working coffee farms near Palmares. Most are priced in dollars and aimed at people who want to build their own house with a view. Before you settle on one of the lots in San José de Atenas, ask whether it was carved out of a coffee farm recently, find out who supplies the water, and plan for a septic system that the soil and the slope can actually take.

FAQ:

• Is Barrio San José in Atenas the same place as San José, the capital?

  No. This San José is a rural district of the canton of Atenas, in Alajuela province, on the far side of the Central Valley from the capital. To reach the city you drive through Atenas and take Ruta 27 east. When you search for an address or ask for directions, add Atenas to the name, or say Barrio San José, which is how people here know it.

• How far is it from the centre of Atenas?

  The northern villages and the gated projects are around fifteen minutes by car from downtown Atenas, and San José Sur is closer still. Ruta 135 connects the district with both Atenas and Palmares, so you can shop and run errands in either town. If you plan to live without a car, check the bus timetable from your exact street before you commit.

• Is it cooler than Atenas town?

  The upper part is. Around Legua and San José Norte the land sits well above the district average of 738 metres, and the breeze across the ridges lets many houses do without air conditioning. Lower down, near San José Sur, the climate is much like that of Atenas itself. If cool nights matter to you, look at the higher ground and orient the house to catch the wind.

• What should I check before buying a homesite that used to be coffee land?

  Coffee land comes with its own questions. Confirm at the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) that the lot has its own cadastral plan and is registered as a property in its own right, separate from the farm it came from. Ask whether water comes from the municipal system or a community ASADA, and get the availability letter for that exact lot. On a ridge site, have the slope and soil checked for drainage and a septic tank before you design anything, and make sure access is by public road or a registered easement.

• What does a gated community with no condominium fee mean in practice?

  Some small projects here, Cerro Luna among them, have a controlled gate and paved internal streets but charge no monthly fee. That keeps running costs down, but ask who pays to maintain the gate, the street and the water lines, and whether there are written rules on what each owner may build. A short agreement signed among owners before you buy heads off most disputes later.