Agricultural districts A-G and A-P: what is allowed on a farm and in an agricultural reserve

They are Rules 6.1.18 and 6.1.19 of Chapter 6.1 of Joint Regulation No. 9473, defining the A-G, General Agricultural, and A-P, Productive Agricultural, qualification districts. Each brings its purpose, its use table, a section of special considerations for agricultural reserves and its design-parameter table in two columns, one for the ordinary district and one for the reserves. A-G also adds a section on accessory uses in reserves and another on parameters for fishing and mariculture uses.

A-G comprises non-urban, undeveloped, cultivable land with slopes over twelve per cent, generally of Productive Capacity Classes V, VI and VII. A-P comprises flat or semi-flat, mechanisable land with irrigation installations or availability, or that by its natural condition does not need it, of Classes I to IV, and may include agriculturally inactive land without that impairing its high agricultural potential. A-P’s provisions apply to land within the delimitation of any Agricultural Reserve or Corridor, whether at the Planning Board’s initiative under its Organic Act or by mandate of any special act. In agricultural reserves, A-G may not be amended except to enlarge it or convert it into A-P, and A-P may not be amended except to enlarge it.

• In A-G outside a reserve: a minimum lot of twenty-five cuerdas. In A-P outside a reserve: a minimum of fifty cuerdas.Verified against the official source
• In both districts’ agricultural reserves: every farm to be segregated having no less than fifty cuerdas and the remainder no less than fifty cuerdas either; in the Valle del Coloso Agricultural Reserve, the segregation will be no less than ten cuerdas.Verified against the official source
• Keeping a fifty-metre buffer zone from the district’s limit where A-G or A-P abuts conservation or preservation districts, urban-qualified areas or a designated natural reserve, with no structures or agricultural activities except compatible ones and with the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation.Verified against the official source
• That every building or structure keep a separation of no less than six metres from the right of way of every existing or proposed road; in A-G outside a reserve, the side and rear separations are three metres or one fifth of the height.Verified against the official source
• Siting accessory buildings and installations in high areas without irrigation installations or on low-productivity land within the farm, without interrupting the flow of irrigation or drainage canals or rendering cultivable land unusable.Verified against the official source
• If what is harvested is sold on the farm: limiting the space to a building whose area does not exceed seventy-five square metres; a larger space may only be authorised with the Department of Agriculture’s affirmative recommendation.Verified against the official source
• In agricultural reserves: installing no advertisements, and limiting signs to those identifying the area, reporting the sale of products harvested on the farm or neighbouring farms, or giving warnings, with no commercial advertising of any kind.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: The difference between A-G and A-P

   A-G is established to identify areas with recognised potential for agricultural, agroecological and livestock activities, on soils generally of Productive Capacity Classes V, VI and VII; it comprises non-urban, undeveloped, cultivable land with slopes over twelve per cent. A-P is made up of land whose continuity in agricultural use is declared important for the Island, and the regulation adds something worth knowing: it may be agriculturally inactive without that impairing its high agricultural potential. A-P includes flat or semi-flat, mechanisable land with irrigation installations or availability, or that by its natural condition needs no irrigation, and of Productive Capacity Classes I to IV. In short: A-G is the hillside farmland and A-P is the flat, higher-capacity land, the one the regulation protects most strongly.

2. 2

   Step 2: The coast, fishing and mariculture

   A-G has a function that surprises anyone thinking only of farms: it classifies those coastal sectors being used or usable for their great potential for developing the fishing industry, mariculture or the cultivation of marine species. Its fishing and mariculture uses are six: commercial fishing of fish and shellfish; rearing fish and other species; a processing and sales centre for fish and products; fishing centres and villages; fishermen’s cooperative organisations or other commercial groups; and aquaculture centres and enterprises and other uses. The rule gives them parameters of their own: land segregation will be allowed only to make those uses viable, each project is evaluated by consulta de ubicación, and for fishing centres, fishing villages or recognised commercial fishermen’s group projects the ARD District’s parameters apply. Accessibility will be controlled, and may be prohibited where boats, other motor vehicles, their oil waste, lights and people affect marine species’ natural development and turtles, hawksbill and lobster cannot nest.

3. 3

   Step 3: What is allowed in A-G

   In agro-industry: fishing and mariculture, sowing or cultivation, agricultural composting plant, animal rearing, agroecology, dairies and poultry houses, sowing agricultural products by traditional methods, and sowing by conventional or hydroponic methods with animal rearing and ponds for rearing fish and crustaceans. In residential: housing for one or two families, second storeys, micro casas, specialised lodging, short-term supplementary lodging, and bed and breakfast. In commercial: agroecology and businesses exceeding ten thousand square feet of gross floor area devoted to selling animals and agricultural products. And in others: warehouses, startups, renewable energy projects, the siting of medicinal cannabis cultivation, manufacture, fabrication, product distribution and laboratory centres keeping the agricultural use as the principal one, agricultural equipment repair workshop, agro-hospedería, eco-hospedería, veterinary hospital in soundproofed structures, ecotourism and agrotourism activities, and other uses by consulta de ubicación.

4. 4

   Step 4: What is allowed in A-P

   A-P’s table is more agricultural and shorter. In the agricultural column: agroecological sowing or crops; livestock activities, fishing, ornamental plants, animal rearing, agricultural estates, processing and manufacturing agricultural products, medicinal, aromatic and energy products or their derivatives, authorised by the Department of Agriculture; uses closely related to or complementing the farm’s principal crops or rearing, including packing, storage and sale of products harvested on the farm or neighbouring farms — with a clarification from the regulation itself: meat will not be considered a product harvested on the farm; rearing cattle, poultry, domestic and game animals; apiaries and aquaculture; production of crops, forage and forests for timber, vegetables and ornamental and medicinal plants; and processing and packing of livestock products produced on the farm or neighbouring farms. In residential: housing for one or two families, dwelling at second-storey level, agro-hospedería, short-term supplementary lodging, and bed and breakfast. And in others: the medicinal cannabis centres keeping the agricultural use as the principal one; the agro-tourist and eco-tourist eco-hospedería, which must follow the Tourism Company’s Design Guides for Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Facilities and the Green Design Guides to pre-qualify as a green-design project; and renewable energy projects.

5. 5

   Step 5: The reserve’s fifty cuerdas

   This is the figure that decides a segregation. Outside a reserve, the lot’s minimum area is twenty-five cuerdas in A-G and fifty cuerdas in A-P. Inside an agricultural reserve, the rule is the same for both districts: every farm to be segregated will have no less than fifty cuerdas, and the remainder must be no less than fifty cuerdas. The only exception the regulation names is the Valle del Coloso Agricultural Reserve, where the segregation will be no less than ten cuerdas. Added to that is the stability rule: in agricultural reserves the A-G district may not be amended or reclassified except to enlarge it or convert it into A-P; and in A-P reclassification in agricultural reserves is not allowed, and the district may not be amended except to enlarge it.

6. 6

   Step 6: The fifty-metre buffer zone

   Where an agricultural district abuts certain districts, urban-qualified areas or a duly designated natural reserve, a fifty-metre buffer zone is kept from the qualification district’s limit, in which neither structures nor agricultural activities are allowed, except activities not incompatible with the abutting districts or reserve; those activities must have the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation, and for natural reserves the DRNA’s too. A note on the source: Rule 6.1.18 states this zone twice with different lists of abutting districts — one names C-R, C-RH, P-R, ARD, R-TI or R-TA, and the parameter table’s names C-R, S-H, C-H, P-R, RT-I or RT-A — and only the first mentions the DRNA. We publish both lists where each is printed and reconcile neither. In A-P the zone is stated once, naming C-R, P-R, R-G and R-T, with the clarification that the zone will be established from the farm or site that does not hold agricultural qualification.

7. 7

   Step 7: Accessory uses and the seventy-five-metre building

   In agricultural reserves, works, installations, buildings and accessory uses closely related to or complementing the farm’s principal crops or rearing will be allowed. Those buildings will be sited in high areas without irrigation installations or on low-productivity land within the farm. The regulation lists eight: processing and packing agricultural or livestock products produced on or off the farm; selling products harvested on the same or another farm, limiting the space to a building whose area does not exceed seventy-five square metres, though a larger space may be authorised with the Department of Agriculture’s affirmative recommendation; mills for grain harvested on or off the farm; silos to store grain and to produce and store preserved feed such as hay, silage or haylage; building roads and horse stables; one- or two-family housing per farm; installations for composting products harvested on the same or neighbouring farms; and other uses under Section 6.1.1.7. The buildings must be sited where they do not interrupt the flow of irrigation or drainage canals, do not render cultivable land unusable, and where the farm’s use requires the least development.

8. 8

   Step 8: The occupation parameters and the separations

   In A-G outside a reserve, the maximum occupation area goes by bands: on lots over ten cuerdas it is determined by the specific activity’s nature; on lots over one to ten cuerdas it will not exceed twenty per cent; and on lots under one cuerda it will not exceed fifty per cent. The gross floor area follows the same scale: by the activity above ten cuerdas, forty per cent between one and ten, and one hundred per cent under one cuerda. Every building or structure will keep a separation of no less than six metres from the right of way of every existing or proposed road, and the side and rear separations will be three metres or one fifth of the building’s height. In reserves, those other separations will be determined by the construction code in force for the use and the construction-type classification. In A-P, the separation is six metres from the side, rear and front boundaries to a right of way of an existing or proposed road, and in reserves the six metres from the road apply plus what the Puerto Rico Construction Code adopted by OGPe sets. And A-P’s buildings, structures or works will be sited where they carry the least negative effect on the farm’s agricultural production potential.

9. 9

   Step 9: The signs: no commercial advertising

   In both districts’ agricultural reserves, installing advertisements is not allowed. Only signs identifying the area, reporting the sale of products harvested on the farm or neighbouring farms, or giving warnings will be allowed, provided they carry no commercial advertising of any kind. A-G refers compliance for those signs to Chapter 8.6 and A-P to Rule 8.6.8 of Volume VIII; the chapter this regulation devotes to signs and advertisements is 8.7, so we report both references as printed without correcting them.

10. 10

    Step 10: What comes in by exception in A-G

    A-G admits five uses by exception. Teaching institutions of pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher level, with eight square metres of land per student, twenty square feet of classroom per student, a minimum separation of one thousand feet — three hundred and five metres — from any lot with an existing or authorised petrol station, yards twice those required in the district, and a public hearing before authorisation. Religious institutions on lots of up to two cuerdas, with a minimum separation of fifty linear metres from a petrol station, double yards, possible sound insulation and no exterior loudspeakers or horns. Industrial projects for poultry houses, which may be up to thirty thousand square feet of gross floor area, considering that the activity not significantly produce smoke, dust, gases, noise, vibrations or fire or explosion risk. Hospitals, nursing homes and sanatoriums, those for contagious diseases or treating the mentally ill no less than fifty metres from every property line. And slaughterhouses. The exceptions granted will remain subject to compliance with the conditions set.

A property’s qualification is read on the Planning Board’s qualification maps, and the permits applying these parameters are processed before OGPe, the Autonomous Municipalities with Hierarchy I to III or an Authorised Professional. The affirmative recommendation to enlarge the harvest-sale building, and the recommendation for agricultural activities inside the buffer zone, come from the Department of Agriculture; where the abutment is a natural reserve, A-G adds the DRNA’s. Fishing and mariculture projects are evaluated by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality, as the agreement provides. And teaching institutions by exception carry a public hearing before authorisation.

• Segregating in an agricultural reserve leaving a farm or a remainder under fifty cuerdas.
• Applying the ten-cuerda segregation outside the Valle del Coloso Agricultural Reserve, the only one the regulation names.
• Counting on a reclassification inside an agricultural reserve.
• Building inside the fifty-metre buffer zone when the farm abuts a conservation district, urban land or a natural reserve.
• Carrying out agricultural activities in that zone without the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation.
• Putting up a harvest-sale stand over seventy-five square metres without the DA’s affirmative recommendation.
• Siting accessory buildings over irrigation installations, or where they interrupt irrigation or drainage canals.
• Installing commercial advertisements on a farm inside an agricultural reserve.
• Putting up signs with commercial advertising even if they report the sale of the farm’s products.
• Building within six metres of the right of way of an existing or proposed road.
• Assuming meat counts as a product harvested on the farm for A-P’s sale uses.
• Setting up a poultry house over thirty thousand square feet of gross floor area in A-G.
• Segregating coastal land in A-G for something other than making the fishing and mariculture uses viable.
• Opening public access to a fishing project where it affects the nesting of turtles, hawksbill and lobster.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Junta de Planificación de Puerto Rico (JP)

  Junta de Planificación

  docs.pr.gov

• Planning Board

  jp

  jp.pr.gov

• OGPe Single Business Portal

  ogpe

  www.permisos.pr.gov