Mora

About Mora:

Mora covers about 162 km² on the western rim of the Central Valley and counts as part of the Greater Metropolitan Area, even though most of its land is farmland, forest and steep hills. Santa Ana lies to the east, Alajuela and Atenas to the north, Puriscal and Turrubares to the west and Acosta to the south. Ruta 27, the toll motorway between San José and the port of Caldera, crosses the north of the canton through Brasil de Mora. From Ciudad Colón, Ruta 239 climbs south toward Puriscal and Ruta 209 heads through Guayabo and Tabarcia toward Acosta, while Ruta 136 crosses the low west of the canton through Piedras Negras. Buses link Ciudad Colón with San José throughout the day, but Piedras Negras has no regular service, and out there a car is not optional.

The canton was created in 1883 under the name Pacaca, after the Huetar settlement the Spanish found here, and took the name Mora in 1896 in honour of two presidents, Juan Mora Fernández and Juan Rafael Mora Porras. A little over 30,000 people live in its seven districts, more than half of them in Colón, the district around Ciudad Colón. That is where the shops, banks, the clinic, the municipal offices, the factories and most of the housing are; the other six districts live from farming, small-scale tourism and jobs elsewhere in the Valley. The University for Peace, set up by the United Nations General Assembly in 1980, has its campus in the forest above town and brings students and staff from all over the world. In 2011, about one resident in fourteen had been born abroad.

Most of Mora is steep. The hills of Colón, Tabarcia, Piedras Negras and Picagres are hard slopes on volcanic and sedimentary rock that slide when cut and soaked, while flatter, rolling ground is limited to the banks of the Virilla in the north and a small, very flat plateau in Picagres. More than a quarter of the canton is protected land, much of it in the Zona Protectora El Rodeo, created in 1976 and holding one of the last large stands of original forest in the Central Valley. Coffee and sugar cane still grow on the farms, and in Picagres the Chucás hydroelectric plant runs on the water of the Grande de Tárcoles. The Virilla and the Chucás mark part of the canton’s edge, and the deep Virilla canyon is what the view homes of Brasil de Mora look out over.

Each district is a market of its own. Ciudad Colón is a small town with a walkable centre, the 1946 Teatro La Palestra and the old wooden market, both protected heritage. Guayabo packs the canton’s second-largest population into nine square kilometres of hamlets, Jaris still grinds cane in its trapiche, and Tabarcia, in the south, is family land and village life along Ruta 209. Piedras Negras and Picagres sit low, around 500 metres, with wooden Victorian churches, rivers and quintas, and Quitirrisí, in the middle of the canton, is the Huetar indigenous territory of the same name. Buyers range from Costa Rican families who want more space than Santa Ana or Escazú gives them for the money, to foreign residents and university staff, to city people looking for a weekend finca.

Houses in Mora:

Colón district holds most of the houses that come up for sale. Around the park in Ciudad Colón they are one- and two-storey family homes in older barrios, joined by small gated condominiums and a few compact new projects close to the centre and the motorway. Brasil de Mora, beside Ruta 27, carries the top of the market, with large single-level homes and residences on close to a hectare facing the Virilla canyon. In Guayabo and Tabarcia a family house usually sits on its own plot, and in Piedras Negras even a modern four-bedroom home tends to come with more than a thousand square metres of garden. Among houses for sale in Mora, distance from Ciudad Colón buys land and quiet, and costs you time on the road.

Land and Lots in Mora:

Building land comes up in every district, and its shape changes with the altitude. Along the motorway in Brasil de Mora there are flat, regular plots of a few hundred square metres; on the hills above, view lots of 1,400 to 2,000 m² are sized for one custom home. In Picagres, lots of 1,200 to 1,500 m² are sold with land use for both farming and housing, and Tabarcia has village lots of 400 to 500 m² facing a public street. Almost everywhere outside the town the ground slopes, so measure lots for sale in Mora by the part you can actually build on, not the figure on the plan.

Fincas and Quintas in Mora:

West of Ciudad Colón, where the land drops toward the Virilla and the Chucás, the canton turns into quinta country. Piedras Negras sells parcels of around three hectares as weekend quintas, some with frontage on the Río Jaris, and holdings of twenty hectares and more are sometimes offered whole or already split into segregated lots. In Jaris, fincas of three to seven hectares can come with a spring and trails cut through the woods, and toward El Rodeo there are quintas of a hectare and a half and much bigger haciendas. Many of these fincas in Mora carry forest that the law does not let you clear, so the house and any farming have to go on ground that is already open.

Rentals in Mora:

Rental demand centres on Ciudad Colón and comes mostly from the University for Peace. Students and visiting faculty look for furnished studios and lofts in El Rodeo, close to campus, or rooms and apartments in town, within walking distance of shops and buses. Family houses are also let on long leases. In Guayabo, apartments tend to change hands a whole building at a time, such as a block of five small units bought by an investor for the rent.

FAQ:

• Is Brasil de Mora part of Mora or of Santa Ana?

  It depends which side of the line you are on. Brasil de Mora, the stretch of Colón district along Ruta 27, belongs to Mora, while the Brasil next door is a district of Santa Ana with its own municipality, property tax and building rules. Sellers often blur the two, so read the canton and district on the cadastral plan before you compare prices or ask about permits.

• Can I buy land in Quitirrisí?

  Not if you are not indigenous. The district was drawn in 2014 around the Huetar territory of Quitirrisí, and under Indigenous Law 6172 of 1977, article 3, land there cannot be sold, rented or leased to non-indigenous people; any such deal is void. The rest of Mora is an ordinary market, but if a parcel in Colón, Guayabo, Tabarcia, Jaris or Piedras Negras lies near the edge of the territory, have the cadastral plan checked against the boundary before you sign.

• How do I get from Mora to San José or the airport?

  Ruta 27 runs east from Ciudad Colón past Santa Ana and Escazú into San José and connects with the roads to Juan Santamaría airport in Alajuela; westbound, it goes to Caldera on the Pacific. From Guayabo, Tabarcia or Jaris you first come down to Ciudad Colón, and from Piedras Negras you can also cross the Virilla north toward Turrúcares. Add that first stretch, often on narrow roads, to whatever the motorway costs you that day.

• What should I check before buying a hillside lot or finca in Mora?

  Start with the ground. Much of the canton is steep slope on rock that gives way once it is cut and saturated, so walk the land after a wet afternoon in the rainy season and have an engineer price the retaining walls and drainage before you agree a figure. Forest cannot be cleared, the banks of rivers and springs carry no-build strips, and much of the land around the University for Peace falls in the El Rodeo protected zone. Mora is preparing a new plan regulador, so ask the Municipalidad de Mora for a current land-use certificate on the exact parcel. Older plans and deeds may still say Colón for land that now lies in Jaris or Quitirrisí, and a cesión de derechos is not a registered title, so confirm at the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) that plan, deed and fences describe the same piece of land.

• Which part of Mora suits which buyer?

  Ciudad Colón and Brasil de Mora suit people who want services, Ruta 27 close by and a choice between town houses, condominiums and view homes. Guayabo is for a family house a few minutes from town. Tabarcia and Jaris offer village life and family land, and Piedras Negras and Picagres are for buyers who want a quinta, a river and distance, and accept that every errand means the car.