San Juan de Mata

About San Juan de Mata:

San Juan de Mata covers 86 square kilometres on the western side of Turrubares. The Tárcoles river marks its north-western edge with Orotina, Garabito lies to the west and Carara to the south, while San Luis, San Pedro and San Pablo close it off to the east and north-east. Ruta 137 crosses the river at Paso Agres and climbs through the district towards San Pedro and San Pablo, and Ruta 319 heads south to Las Delicias in Carara. The crossing has a history: the single-lane wooden hanging bridge built in the early 1920s gave way under a bus in October 2009, and the steel and concrete bridge that replaced it opened in August 2012. From the centre, Orotina is about ten minutes away, San José about an hour and Jacó a little under an hour.

This is farm country, and mango is the crop the district is known for, grown alongside cattle pasture and smaller fruit plots. The villages are spread along the roads and rivers: Paso Agres by the bridge, Lagunas and Bajo Laguna on the Río Turrubares, and El Barro, Llano Bonito, Molenillo, Tiquirres, Labrente and Tronco Negro among the rest. El Barro takes its name from the mud that people once waded through barefoot behind their oxcarts. El Llano has the church of San Juan de Mata, the Escuela Mauro Fernández Acuña and a telesecundaria, and El Barro, Lagunas and Paso Agres each run their own primary school. Bar-restaurants with pools line the Río Turrubares at Lagunas, and Turu Ba Ri, a 236-hectare nature park on the Tárcoles, began turning old farmland back into forest in 1996.

At an average of 120 metres, San Juan de Mata sits far below San Pablo and its tableland. The ground opens into the rolling terrace that carries on into Orotina, with transitional dry forest along the Tárcoles and Cerro Turrubares rising to the east. The heat shapes the houses: pools, open ranchos and big shade trees turn up again and again, and a lot without a reliable water connection is a hard place to live through the dry months. The rivers matter just as much. The Tárcoles carries crocodiles past Paso Agres, and in heavy rain the Río Turrubares has climbed its banks into the restaurants and tourist spots built beside it.

The 2011 census counted 1,182 people here, every one of them rural. A decade earlier the figure was more than twice that, before Carara and its villages were split off as a district of their own in 2003. Daily errands are covered by local abastecedores, and for banks and larger shops people head down to Orotina. What draws buyers is the position: ten minutes from Ruta 27, a country property here puts both the Central Valley and the Central Pacific beaches within an easy drive. Weekend-house buyers from the Central Valley, families from Orotina and the Central Pacific, and buyers from abroad who want Jacó and Carara National Park within reach are the usual buyers.

Houses in San Juan de Mata:

Houses here come in three sizes. In and around El Llano there are simple village homes, often two bedrooms and one bathroom on lots of 1,000 to 1,200 square metres, some with an electric gate and a storeroom. A step up are country houses on 7,000 to 8,000 square metres with three or four bedrooms, a pool and a terrace facing Cerro Turrubares. At the top sit small estates of about a hectare, such as a furnished three-bedroom house built in 2000 with a rancho and wood-fired oven, mango, avocado and citrus trees, and land-use approval for cabins or a small hotel. When you compare houses for sale in San Juan de Mata, ask whether the land is one finca or several: that particular hectare is registered as six separate plots, which helps if you plan to split it and complicates things if you do not.

Land and Lots in San Juan de Mata:

Near the centre you will find small plots of a few hundred square metres, enough for a single house. On the roads out of El Llano, lots of 1,500 to 2,500 square metres come with water and power at the boundary, among them parcels in El Barro on the road down to the Río Turrubares. Larger holdings appear as well, from mango and pasture fincas of a few hectares to a traditional hacienda of around eleven hectares. The rolling ground makes building simpler than on the steep slopes higher up the canton. Even so, paved frontage and a confirmed water connection decide most of what lots for sale in Turrubares are worth this close to Orotina.

Rentals in San Juan de Mata:

The rental market is small and built around long stays. A typical offer is a two-bedroom house, furnished or not, aimed at tenants who want quiet but need Orotina and Ruta 27 within ten minutes. Before you sign, ask the owner how the water supply holds up at the end of the dry season. Estates with land-use approval for cabins point to a second, holiday-rental use, but that market is still taking shape here.

FAQ:

• How long does it take to get from San Juan de Mata to Orotina and Ruta 27?

  About ten minutes. You cross the Tárcoles on the Paso Agres bridge, reach Orotina and join Ruta 27 for San José or Caldera. San José is about an hour away, Juan Santamaría airport a little over an hour, and Jacó around 50 minutes.

• Can I build close to the Río Turrubares or the Tárcoles?

  Only with care. The Río Turrubares has overflowed into the riverside businesses at Lagunas in heavy rain, and the Tárcoles is one of the largest rivers in the country. Costa Rica’s Forest Law protects a strip along each bank where you cannot build or clear, so ask for the river setback on the exact lot before you design anything, and look at where the water reached in the last big storm.

• How do I know a lot will get water?

  Drinking water here comes from community-run ASADAs, with boards at Paso Agres, Lagunas and El Barro. Ask the board that serves the lot for a letter confirming water availability, since you will need it for the building permit. A private well or spring is a separate matter and needs its own concession.

• The estate is made up of several catastros. What should I check?

  Every one of them. Look up each finca number at the Registro Nacional for mortgages, liens and annotations, and match each plano catastrado to the fences on the ground. Some land around here began as agrarian settlement parcels, and the El Barro water board still carries the old asentamiento name, so ask your notary to look for any limitation recorded in favour of INDER. Then get a land-use certificate from the Municipalidad de Turrubares for what you actually plan to build.

• Is San Juan de Mata a place to live full time?

  Yes, and nearly everyone who lives here does so year-round. There are primary schools in El Llano, El Barro, Lagunas and Paso Agres, a telesecundaria in El Llano, and small shops for everyday needs. Banks, supermarkets and most other services are in Orotina, ten minutes down the road, so the distance is rarely the problem. The heat and the summer water supply are what you should test before you commit.