History & Formation of the APC Costambar

In 1972 the President of the DR, in an effort to increase tourism revenues, declared two tracts of land to be “planned tourist communities”, one was Casa de Campo and the other Costambar. Both tracts were located in Tourist Zones as described by law 256. The description of our community was the 250 acres covered by parcel 215 that belonged to the Coco/Camps families. A consortium called the Adela Corporation was charged with management, but went bankrupt in 1986. A Panamanian company represented by Eng Eddy Vallarino, Costa de Ambar SRL, bought the bankrupt estate in 1993. He abandoned his role as maintenance provider in 1998 so APC stepped in to fill the breach. Eng Vallarino continues to represent the Golf course and a number of lots, about 10% of the total.

APC was formed in 1986 as a social organization for homeowners, but the nature of its activities changed radically after 1998. It is now a full fledged maintenance company, with a working Board elected every two years. The nature of our community has changed as well, so now we have a large number of renters and residents who represent many different countries, languages, and cultures. The present Board can provide services in Spanish, English, French, Italian and German. The old concept of a few winter resident home owners has changed and now we must accommodate people who live and work here all year round.

A new set of Estatutos was drawn up in 2011 pursuant to Law 122-2005 to deal with the change in activities. Law 256 (2)(L) states that an “owner” is any one who has legal possession of a property such as a renter or leaser. We want to enlarge our membership to reflect this fact.