On Monday, with 31 votes in favor, the Legislative Assembly approved in second reading a bill that will allow the Municipality of San José to build a technological park and a university study center for technological training next to Calvo cemetery.
The initiative was not supported by nine legislators, including Ligia Fallas, from Frente Amplio, who has strongly questioned the proposal.
The project aims at a portion of that cemetery, where very poor or homeless people are buried. The idea is that said land becomes patrimonial property (not owned by the State). This will allow the Municipality of San José to change the use of the land and build the technological center.
The work would be part of a high-tech corridor in the area between La Sabana and Plaza Víquez parallel to the train line, as explained on February 24th by the Mayor of San José, Johnny Araya, to the Government Commission.
More than 16 thousand square meters of Calvo cemetery that for more than 100 years have been used to bury all those people who are forsaken. Nobody cares about that human dignity and that is painful,”
said Fallas.
According to Johnny Araya, mayor of San José, the Technological Park will be built in a lot that has not being used for over 15 years.
It is a 17-thousand-square-meter lot, located in the south side of the building of the Municipality of San José. It is contiguous to the Calvo cemetery and this Technological Park does not take away this land. The pantheon will continue to exist and it still has land to grow.”