El Tejar

About El Tejar:

El Tejar covers 35 square kilometres in the north of the Alanje district, and the village that gives it its name sits about four and a half kilometres north of Alanje’s bus station. The main road into Alanje runs through it, and you can come in either from the Interamericana or along the Querévalo road. Both are paved and run straight across the plain, which is exactly what the cane trucks need. Beyond El Tejar village, people live in Loma de San Pedro, Veladero, La Pita and La Lora, and David is the city they head to for a hospital, a bank or a large supermarket.

The sugar mill is the reason El Tejar is known outside Chiriquí. It opened on 21 April 1977 as the Ingenio Chiriquí, a state plant belonging to the Corporación Azucarera La Victoria, and passed to private owners at the end of 1998 as the Central Azucarero de Alanje. Today it employs more than 2,000 people, draws on more than 5,000 hectares of cane and sells its sugar as La Doradita. Carta Vieja, which calls itself Panama’s first rum, has had its hacienda in El Tejar since 1919. Between them they make this the most industrial corner of a district that otherwise lives on rice and cattle.

Water is the other thing El Tejar supplies. The Remigio Rojas irrigation and post-harvest system takes its water from the río Chico inside the corregimiento, and after more than twenty years of waiting it is running again. The works repaired the dam and intake, dredged 145,000 cubic metres of silt from the reservoir and cleaned 59 kilometres of canals. The system now waters more than 3,500 hectares for some 450 producers, with canals reaching south toward Guácimo, La Martina and Guarumal. That is what lets rice be grown in the dry season, alongside maize, chili, watermelon and pasture for cattle and pigs.

Daily life is that of a working village. The IMA’s farm fairs set up on the courts at Loma de San Pedro and La Pita. The land is flat almost everywhere, and quebradas mark many of the property lines. Buyers are mostly local families, people who work at the mill or in Alanje, and households from elsewhere in Chiriquí who want a house lot within reach of David. Businesses look at the road frontage, because a flat parcel on a straight asphalt road, with water and power already at the verge, suits a warehouse or a workshop as well as a house.

Land and Lots in El Tejar:

Village lots come up in El Tejar itself, in Loma de San Pedro and in the Veladero sector, and plots of around half a hectare appear on the roads between them. The larger blocks sit along the main road near Carta Vieja: flat, partly under improved pasture, with a quebrada at the back and water and electricity at the roadside. Those are the parcels sold as commercial land in El Tejar, for a warehouse, a workshop or a small plant that needs easy truck access. Smaller residential lots are what local families buy to build on.

Fincas in El Tejar:

Fincas here are flat pasture, often with a stream along one boundary, and some come with a house already built on a hectare or so. The question that matters most is irrigation. A finca inside the Remigio Rojas service area can bring in a second crop in the dry season, while one outside it relies on the rains or its own well. When you compare fincas for sale in El Tejar, ask where the water comes from first and look at the pasture second.

Houses in El Tejar:

Existing homes are village houses on their own lots in El Tejar, Loma de San Pedro and the smaller settlements, plus the odd farmhouse out on a finca. Most change hands between local families. Before you buy a house in El Tejar, check whether its lot has been surveyed and registered on its own or is still part of a larger family parcel. A house close to the main road is also close to the cane traffic at harvest time.

New Developments in El Tejar:

Las Loras de Alanje Residencial is the new-build option, on the Alanje road almost opposite Hacienda Carta Vieja. Its second phase offers two-bedroom, one-bathroom and three-bedroom, two-bathroom houses on lots of 450 to 670 square metres. The streets are concrete and asphalt, and the development has its own well and a 20,000-gallon reserve tank, so the houses do not depend on the public network alone. Prices sit at the entry level for new houses in Chiriquí.

FAQ:

• Can I open a business on a lot by the main road?

  Some parcels along the road near the mill are offered for commercial or industrial use, but the land-use designation decides what you can do, not the listing. Confirm it with the municipality of Alanje and the housing and land-use ministry, and get any change approved before you pay commercial money for a pasture parcel.

• Does a finca here come with irrigation water?

  Not on its own. The Remigio Rojas system serves its own list of users, so ask whether the parcel lies inside the system’s area, whether the seller is a registered user and how that registration passes to a new owner. Get the answer in writing from the system’s administration before you sign.

• What should I check on a farm plot that borders a quebrada?

  Streams form many boundaries here, and a stream that has shifted its bed can leave the fence well away from the line on the survey plan. Get the registry certificate, confirm the registered owner is the person selling, then walk the boundary with the plan in your hand. If any part is still held as derechos posesorios, price it separately until the title is through.

• What is it like to live near the sugar mill?

  The mill and the distillery bring jobs and straight paved roads, and they also bring trucks. See any lot near the main road during the dry-season harvest, when the mill is grinding, as well as in the quiet months, so you know the road at its busiest.

• Can a foreigner buy property in El Tejar?

  Yes. A foreign buyer can take title in their own name or through a Panamanian company and holds the same rights as a local owner. The constitutional limit on foreign ownership near the borders does not reach this far from Costa Rica.