Laurel

About Laurel:

Laurel covers 189 square kilometres in the south of Corredores, all of it low ground at around 20 metres above sea level. It borders Canoas, Corredor and La Cuesta in its own canton and Pavón in Golfito, and the frontier with Panama runs close by. Ruta 238 connects the town with Paso Canoas, the country’s main crossing into Panama, about 16 kilometres away, while Rutas 608 and 611 reach Naranjo, Bella Luz and the villages beyond. Buses run all the way to San José, and a small public airstrip sits among the palms on the south side of town.

Bananas came first. From the 1930s this land was part of the United Fruit enclave in the south, and on 10 September 1955 banana workers declared a legal strike at Puerto González Víquez and were called to Laurel at five the next morning to hear the labour minister. When the company abandoned the south in the 1980s it left unemployment and land invasions behind, and the state answered with peasant settlements run by the Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario. Those settlers turned to oil palm: their cooperative opened its extraction plant in 1993 and a refinery in 1997, so fruit grown in Laurel leaves the valley as cooking oil, shortening and margarine. A few houses the banana company built for its managers are still standing.

The land is flat, which is why palm took to it so well and why water decides more here than slope does. Rivers and streams such as the Río Incendio cross the district, and when the Incendio overflows the road through Laurel can be cut. Laurel became a district by law in 1995, and its services are spread between the town and the larger villages. The town has a Red Cross post and a public childcare centre, Naranjo has a technical high school about six kilometres from the centre, and Bella Luz has its own clinic on Ruta 611 and its own community water association.

The district had 9,148 people in 2011 and about 12,500 by 2022. Households live from palm, on their own parcels or on the plantations, and from small trade, mechanics and fishing, while Paso Canoas adds border commerce less than half an hour away. In 2017 the 150-house María Fernanda project opened in Naranjo for families from Santa Rosa de la Vaca, Bambito, Cariari, Caracol, Tamarindo, El Roble and other villages, and the same year 21 families bought homes at Las Jícaras in Bella Luz with the housing bond. This is a market of local buyers far more than second-home owners.

Houses in Laurel:

The newer houses are compact and built to a pattern. María Fernanda, beside the technical high school in Naranjo, has two-bedroom homes of 42.5 square metres and three-bedroom homes of 50, built from precast concrete columns and panels, while Las Jícaras in Bella Luz has two- and three-bedroom concrete-block houses with water from the local ASADA. Older family homes in the town and the villages sit on much bigger plots, some over 1,500 square metres, with room for fruit trees, a carport or a small business at the front. Now and then a housing foundation puts a repossessed property in the district up for sale below its original price. If you are looking at houses for sale in Laurel that were bought with the housing bond, ask when the bond was granted, because those homes cannot be sold freely for the first ten years.

Land and Lots in Laurel:

Most of what changes hands in Laurel is land. Serviced lots in the town, Naranjo and Bella Luz come with water, electricity and a public street; some are offered specifically to families applying for the housing bond, and a lot on the main road can take a shop as easily as a house. Outside the villages, parcels of a hectare or more are flat and simple to fence and build on. The price is rarely the hard part. For any land for sale in Laurel, find out how the parcel was first titled and how close it sits to a river, then walk it after a heavy rain.

Farms in Laurel:

A farm in Laurel is usually a palm farm. Smallholders deliver their fruit to the cooperative at El Roble, which works with close to a thousand member producers and around 500 independent growers, so a producing parcel has a buyer for its harvest a few kilometres away. A planted farm sells with its palms, and their age matters as much as the ground: ask when they went in and what the parcel has delivered over the last few seasons. Many of these farms began as settlement parcels, so confirm with INDER that no condition still applies before you agree a price.

FAQ:

• What should I check before buying a former settlement parcel in Laurel?

  Much of Laurel was divided into IDA settlement parcels in the 1980s, and some still carry conditions from INDER, the institute that took its place. Pull the folio real and the plano catastrado from the Registro Nacional, check that the person selling is the owner on the title, and ask INDER whether the parcel has any restriction pending. Then find out whether the ground floods when the Incendio or the nearby streams rise.

• Can I buy land right next to the Panama border?

  Costa Rican law keeps a two-kilometre strip along the border with Panama as state land, so a parcel inside it normally cannot be registered to a private owner unless it was titled before that rule. Several of Laurel’s villages lie close to the line. Measure on the cadastral plan how far the parcel sits from the border before you start negotiating.

• How do I get to Laurel?

  From Paso Canoas on the Interamericana, Ruta 238 takes you about 16 kilometres to the centre of Laurel. Ciudad Neily, the seat of Corredores canton, lies to the north. Direct buses also run between Laurel and San José.

• Can I use the housing bond to buy in Laurel?

  Yes. The bono familiar de vivienda paid for the district’s two most recent housing projects, and some lots are sold with bond applicants in mind. It is processed through an authorised lender and only for families that qualify. If you are buying a bond house second-hand, remember that for ten years it cannot be sold or mortgaged without approval from BANHVI.

• What do people in Laurel work at?

  Mostly oil palm: on their own parcels, on the plantations or at the cooperative’s mill and refinery in El Roble. Trade, mechanics and fishing add to that, and Paso Canoas brings border commerce within easy reach. For the bank, the hospital and most public offices, people head north to Ciudad Neily.