San Antonio

About San Antonio:

San Antonio is district number three of Alajuelita and the southern end of the canton. It borders San Felipe to the north, Concepción and San Josecito to the northeast, Escazú to the west, Aserrí to the east and Acosta to the south, which makes it the only district of Alajuelita that touches three other cantons. Two national roads cross it: Route 105, the road that ties Escazú, Alajuelita and Desamparados together, and Route 217, a short link of seven and a half kilometres through San Josecito and Concepción towards Aserrí and Desamparados. Away from those two, the streets up to the higher barrios are narrow and steep, and some around Lámparas are still unpaved.

The district was created together with the canton by Law 58 of 4 June 1909, and for most of the century it stayed small. It had fewer than 500 residents in 1927 and only 1,336 in 1984, and it has grown slowly since to around 5,000. Its barrios are strung along the hillside: San Antonio centre, El Llano, San Miguel, Arcángeles, Piedra de Fuego, Cuesta de los Calderón, Pozo Azul, Lámparas and 12 de Julio. It is the least built-up corner of Alajuelita, and the canton’s ox-cart tradition still runs strong up here; the January fiestas for the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas end with a parade of boyeros.

The cross is 26 metres tall and 11 wide, made of heavy iron beams set on a concrete base at the top of Cerro San Miguel, 2,035 metres up. Men from Alajuelita, San Rafael de Desamparados and Escazú raised it between 1932 and 1934, hauling the iron up on their backs, on horseback and by ox-cart; part of it was steel left over from building the Puntarenas pier. It has been lit at night since 1984 and was relit in 2015. The plot beneath it, just under 7,000 square metres in El Llano, has belonged to the Catholic Church since 2016, and the walk up from the Arcángeles side is 3.7 kilometres with close to 400 metres of climb.

The upper slopes fall inside the Zona Protectora Cerros de Escazú, a protected forest zone of 7,175 hectares shared by six cantons, and that shapes what can be built on the hill. People come up here for room and the view. Lots run to hundreds or thousands of square metres, not the hundred-odd of the urbanizaciones below in San Felipe. Higher up, houses are built on terraces cut into the slope, often behind high walls, with their own water tank and pump. The bigger view properties tend to be priced in dollars, while the rest of the market works in colones.

Houses in San Antonio:

The house you will meet most often is a three-bedroom family home on a lot of a few hundred square metres, built on one or two levels to follow the ground. Around El Llano the properties get larger: a main house of 150 to 200 square metres on a lot of several hundred, terraced gardens, and sometimes a second, smaller house on the same land for relatives or a tenant. Many have a storage tank and pump to keep water pressure up the hill, and the best of them look straight across the valley to San José and back up to the cross. These view homes sit well above the price of the colones-priced houses further down the canton. When you compare houses for sale in San Antonio de Alajuelita, ask whether every level and the second house were built with a permit.

Land and Lots in San Antonio:

Land is what this district really has to offer. Residential lots near El Llano and the centre start at a few hundred square metres, while higher up you will find parcels of 2,000 square metres and more, and agricultural land of over half a hectare. Some sellers of the upper lots finance the sale themselves instead of going through a bank. A good view is easy to find here; a flat building pad, a road you can drive all year and a water connection are the things to confirm. Before you plan a house on any of the lots for sale in San Antonio, find out which zone the land falls in under Alajuelita’s plan regulador, which sets out agricultural, agroforestry and agrotourism zones, a buffer zone around the protected hills and the protected zone itself.

FAQ:

• Can I build a house on land in the hills above San Antonio?

  Only once you know the zone. Private land inside the Zona Protectora Cerros de Escazú is placed under the forestry regime by decree, and the plan regulador wraps it in a buffer zone where uses are limited. Ask the Municipalidad de Alajuelita for a land-use certificate before you sign anything. If the site is marked as a risk area, the national emergency commission has to approve the project before the municipality will process a permit.

• Is Barrio Lámparas in Alajuelita or in Aserrí?

  Lámparas sits right on the boundary with Aserrí, and neighbours do not all agree which side it falls on. For a buyer that matters, because it decides which municipality issues your permits and collects property tax. The cadastral plan and the property record at the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) show the canton and district a parcel is registered in. Check both, and make sure they match, before you pay a deposit.

• Do the upper lots have water and a proper road?

  Not always, so ask before you fall for the view. Find out whether the supply comes from AyA or a local community water system, and whether the provider will issue an availability letter for a new connection. Check whether the access is a public road or a private easement, and drive it after heavy rain. Some streets around Lámparas and the higher barrios still have no paving or drainage.

• What is there to do in San Antonio?

  Most visitors come for the walk to the cross on Cerro San Miguel, which looks out over the whole of the Gran Área Metropolitana. A gentler trail leads to the Piedra de Pozo Azul. In January the canton’s fiestas close with the boyero parade, and the hill fills up with ox-carts.