Establishing the ESM Village
Preface
Community member Claudia Peña has followed up her piece on bylaws and "invisible infrastructure" with a second discussion brief — this one focused squarely on growth. As ESM moves from a handful of full-time households toward a village that could eventually house 1,200+ residents, Peña lays out where expectations, sales representations, and registered bylaws have diverged, and offers a set of questions for owners to work through together. She's asked that it run in full, so here it is.
Establishing the ESM Village
Why Concerns Are Emerging and How We Can Prepare Responsibly for Growth
by Claudia Peña — Prepared August 18, 2026
Purpose: Support a transparent, constructive discussion among ESM owners. The central idea is that ESM is building the plane while already in flight. Governance, infrastructure, expectations, and village life are developing at the same time owners are investing, building, and beginning to arrive.
Executive Summary
ESM is transitioning from an early development with approximately six full-time households into a large, internationally diverse village. With more than 300 lots, and the possibility of multiple homes on some properties, the eventual population could reasonably exceed 1,200 people. Practices that may feel workable among a handful of households will not necessarily remain safe, fair, clear, or sustainable at that scale.
Many owners purchased before roads, utilities, gates, governance systems, and other essential infrastructure were complete. Buyers worked with different sales representatives and did not all receive the same information. Some reviewed the registered bylaws or sought legal advice, while many did not. As a result, owners arrived with different expectations about security, neighborhood access, common areas, amenities, dues, voting rights, and the future character of ESM.
The concern is not that plans can never change. A development of this scale must adapt. The concern is whether material changes are communicated transparently, evaluated fairly, adopted through the proper process, and reconciled with the representations (maps, renderings, vision, etc.), Zoom call presentations, and legal documents on which owners relied.
1. Growth Changes the Village
At present, fewer than ten families live at ESM full time, and around 25 families use the facilities daily. This small group understandably has developed relationships, customs, and informal ways of solving problems. However, it represents only a fraction of the owners and an even smaller fraction of ESM's future population.
The owners who will arrive come from many countries, cultures, legal traditions, family structures, economic circumstances, and life experiences. They will bring different assumptions about privacy, safety, property rights, shared facilities, governance, and neighborly life. The future ESM village will therefore be shaped by a much broader population than the people currently present.
2. Culture Cannot Simply Be Prescribed
A healthy village culture cannot be fully designed, announced, or imposed in advance. It develops through relationships, shared experiences, trust, conflict, compromise, and the everyday choices of the people who live there. Leadership can establish conditions that support a constructive culture, but it cannot dictate the final result.
People arriving at ESM are not merely newcomers entering someone else's finished culture. They are owners who have invested substantially, reorganized their lives, and in many cases moved countries based on legal documents, plans, representations, and expectations. They must have a meaningful role in shaping the village they are joining.
The word "community" can also create confusion because some people use it to include the broader network surrounding La Ecovilla, Alegría, Tacotal, and other nearby areas. This brief therefore uses "ESM village," "owners," "residents," and "the ESM population" when referring specifically to the condominium and its future inhabitants.
3. Different Buyers Received Different Expectations
Early owners purchased when little physical infrastructure existed. Different sales representatives described the future development in different ways. Whatever the reasons, the result is a fragmented set of expectations that now must be acknowledged and clarified.
ESM was explicitly presented to some purchasers as a gated development. The future front gate was a material factor in at least some purchasing decisions because it represented security, privacy, traffic management, and accountability. The alternative would be to live outside the gated community but with a gate and high wall around the house as we see throughout Costa Rica.
Some buyers were told that individual neighborhoods would have their own gates. Lot placement decisions were made in reliance on the anticipated location of those gates.
Proximity to neighborhood common areas affected lot selection. At the same time, the registered bylaws were understood to restrict access to another neighborhood's common area unless a person was invited as a guest. Common areas remain without sufficient parking and are not an easily accessible walk to many of the neighborhood's residents.
The school, art village, commercial area, and other planned amenities influenced where some owners chose to purchase because they valued walkability and proximity.
4. Changing Plans Require Updated Commitments
The fact that a plan changes is not inherently a problem. Locations, designs, financing, permits, and priorities may evolve. The problem arises when owners relied on particular timelines or representations and later receive no clear replacement plan, explanation, or completion schedule.
For example, purchasers in 2023 were reportedly told that a new school would be completed by 2025. The school has not moved, needed improvements to the current facility remain outstanding, and owners do not yet have a clear construction timeline. Changes to the art village and commercial area concept may also affect owners who selected lots based on access and walkability.
A responsible response is not to freeze the original concept permanently. It is to document what changed, explain why, identify the current plan, name the responsible parties, and provide realistic milestones. This must be provided not just via Zoom communications but in writing, and posted where owners can easily access these updates.
5. Financial Reliance and the Dues Structure
Financial disparities among owners make procedural clarity especially important. Some owners selected smaller lots because the registered proportional structure implied lower recurring dues. Others accepted greater obligations associated with larger properties and understood that voting influence was also tied to assigned percentage value.
For owners living on fixed incomes, these distinctions were not abstract — they were part of long-term affordability planning. A shift in practice to one equal monthly fee per lot and one vote per lot may or may not ultimately be preferred by the Assembly, but it materially changes the assumptions under which some owners purchased.
Before treating an equal-fee or equal-vote practice as settled, owners need clarity about what the registered bylaws state, what the Administration is doing in practice, what the Assembly formally approved, and whether any required legal documentation or registration occurred. The goal should be transparent decision-making, not advocacy for one formula without considering reliance and redistribution effects.
6. Infrastructure, Phase 1, and Accountability
Owners are already paying monthly HOA dues and assuming the responsibilities of ownership despite some expected or reportedly required facilities remaining incomplete. Concerns include gates, the guard and security booths (although it appears close to completion), and playgrounds. These issues should be separated into two categories:
Sales expectations and representations that materially influenced purchase decisions.
Contractual, permitted, master-plan, or Phase 1 obligations that the developer was legally required to deliver.
The second category requires document-based verification. Owners would benefit from a transparent infrastructure ledger identifying each Phase 1 item, its legal or contractual source, completion status, funding responsibility, dependencies, and expected delivery date. Seeing this in writing is helpful, not just video calls.
7. Principles for Moving Forward
Use the registered bylaws, guidelines, and legally approved documents as the common baseline while discrepancies are resolved.
Distinguish clearly among sales representations, current practices, aspirational plans, and binding obligations.
Document material changes and explain their effect on owners who relied on earlier plans.
Invite meaningful participation from owners who are not yet living at ESM, particularly before decisions that affect access, security, financial obligations, or property rights. Assembly vote may be required.
Confirm legal procedures before changing dues, voting rights, permitted uses, or registered restrictions.
Publish realistic timelines and accountability for incomplete infrastructure and amenities.
Create policies that can scale to a village of more than 1,200 international residents.
Approach disagreements as legitimate differences in information, reliance, and expectations, not as evidence that some owners do not value village life.
Conclusion
For many owners, expectations have not yet been delivered. At the same time, ESM remains an ambitious project in active development, and meaningful progress continues. These two truths can coexist. Acknowledging unmet expectations is not an attack on the vision — it is part of making that vision credible and sustainable.
The task is not to dictate ESM's future culture, but to create fair, transparent, and lawful conditions in which that culture can develop, while honoring the commitments and expectations that brought owners here.
Questions for Owner Discussion
Which expectations were documented, and which were communicated informally during sales?
What Phase 1 items were legally or contractually required, and what remains incomplete?
Which current practices differ from the registered bylaws or formally approved Assembly decisions?
How will owners who are not yet residents participate in decisions that shape the village they will eventually join?
What systems must be established now so that access, security, infrastructure, finances, and governance remain workable as ESM grows?