Commercial districts C-L, C-I and C-C: which business fits in each

They are Rules 6.1.6, 6.1.7 and 6.1.8 of Chapter 6.1 of Joint Regulation No. 9473, the Qualified Areas chapter. Each defines a commercial district — C-L light, C-I intermediate and C-C central — with its purpose, its table of permitted uses, its list of prohibited uses, its uses by exception and its design parameters; C-I and C-C add sections of their own on occupation area and gross floor area, and C-C also carries a whole section devoted to large shopping centres. The three are read together because the regulation expressly chains them.

The parameters apply to every new construction on a lot qualified C-L, C-I or C-C. The chaining is express: in C-I the uses of the C-L district will be allowed, and in C-C the uses of the C-L and C-I districts will be allowed. In the opposite direction, each district’s prohibited-use list opens by reserving the next one’s uses to it: C-L prohibits the uses reserved for the C-I district, and C-I prohibits the uses reserved for the C-C district. And commercial projects exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand square feet of gross floor area go through a consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality with Hierarchy I to III.

• In C-L: a lot of no less than 300 square metres and 12 metres wide, maximum occupation 70%, gross floor area 300%, and one basic dwelling unit per 100 square metres of lot.Verified against the official source
• In C-I: a lot of no less than 450 square metres and 15 metres wide, one basic dwelling unit per 70 square metres, occupation of 75% interior, 85% corner, 95% two or three corners and 100% whole block, and gross floor area of 375%, 425%, 475% and 500% respectively.Verified against the official source
• In C-C: a lot of no less than 500 square metres and 15 metres wide, one basic dwelling unit per 60 square metres, occupation of 75%, 85%, 95% and 100%, and gross floor area of 450%, 510%, 570% and 600% by lot type.Verified against the official source
• For live music, karaoke, jukeboxes or DJs in C-I and C-C: that the activity be inside the closed establishment, that the premises not abut a residential district, and that it have cameras and guards to look after the safety of users and neighbours.Verified against the official source
• For those activities outdoors: that it be an occasional or particular event, with security guards and at hours duly regulated by the state’s authorities, applying for the Permiso Único for Temporary Activities under Section 3.7.1.7 of the regulation.Verified against the official source
• For a commercial project exceeding 250,000 square feet of gross floor area: a consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board presented at a public hearing, a lot of no less than 8,000 square metres, and yards no less than 15 metres deep or wide.Verified against the official source
• For a teaching institution or commercial or vocational school in C-L: that the holding keep a separation of no less than fifty metres from any existing or previously authorised petrol station, measured between the nearest points of the two lots.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: The ladder: each district inherits from the previous

   Before looking at any table it helps to understand how the three districts chain. Rule 6.1.7 says that in C-I the uses of the C-L district will be allowed, and Rule 6.1.8 says that in C-C the uses of the C-L and C-I districts will be allowed. And in the opposite direction, each prohibited-use list starts with the same thing: C-L prohibits the uses reserved for the C-I district, and C-I prohibits the uses reserved for the C-C district. That is why the practical question is almost never "is my business in the table?" but "is my business prohibited on this rung and allowed on the next?".

2. 2

   Step 2: C-L: the neighbourhood’s commerce

   The low-intensity commercial district is established to classify commercial areas that can supply the daily needs of residents of one or more communities, without affecting quality of life, and stimulating small and medium businesses is promoted. Its table allows retail, florist, art gallery and pawn shop; in services, low-density professional offices, pharmacies, restaurants, guest houses, specialised lodging, care centres, financial institutions, cafeteria, laboratories, shoe, jewellery or watch repair, tailoring, coin-operated automatic laundry, lottery, racing or travel agency, barbershop or beauty salon, general medical dispensary, photography studio, gym and soundproofed animal hospital. In the industrial column it allows mini-warehouses, an ironmonger without storage that does not sell timber, sand, stone, cement, lime or steel bars, and a station for collecting and distributing clothes and other materials to be taken to cleaning and dry-cleaning establishments. And in others: teaching institutions and commercial or vocational schools — with the fifty-metre separation from any petrol station — light-vehicle parking on lots or in structures of up to two storeys, institutional, civic and cultural uses, religious institution, startups, medicinal cannabis dispensary with cultivation as an accessory use, housing, and short-term supplementary lodging.

3. 3

   Step 3: What C-L prohibits, and what it lets in with fifteen employees

   C-L prohibits the uses reserved for the C-I district; tyre and vehicle-parts fitting shops; ironmongers selling timber, sand, stone, cement, lime, steel bar or other heavy materials; mechanics’ workshops; panel-beating and paint shops; repair workshops open to the exterior; screen, door and window workshops; bakery and patisserie with electric or gas ovens whose products are sold wholesale; the cafetín, the bar, the sport bar, live music, karaoke and DJs; and businesses mainly selling alcoholic drinks or devoted to entertainment. Four activities do come in by exception, limited to no more than fifteen employees and to the industrial process producing no smoke, dust, gases, noise or other conditions harmful to adjacent areas: commercial laundry; bakery and patisserie whose products are sold retail; craft production and sale; and a closed workshop repairing bicycles and ordinary household appliances.

4. 4

   Step 4: C-L’s parameters and the dwelling above

   Minimum lot three hundred square metres, minimum width twelve metres, maximum occupation seventy per cent and maximum gross floor area three hundred per cent. Density allows one basic dwelling unit per one hundred square metres of lot area, convertible into a greater or smaller number of units by the number of bedrooms, never exceeding the units permitted on the lot. And two conditions are worth reading slowly if the building will mix commerce and housing: any residential use must be provided with street access and its parking independent of the access to the commercial uses and their parking; and the residential units may not be used for commercial purposes unless it is shown that all the residential units sharing an access are vacant, that their owners agree with the proposed change of use, and that the necessary additional parking has been provided. On yards, no front yard is required for the first two storeys, with three exceptions: a pavement under two metres, a block facing the same side of the road as residential lots, and storeys above the second. The rear yard is three metres or one fifth of the height, and the side ones two metres, which may be omitted for the first two storeys except on the side abutting a residential or public-use district.

5. 5

   Step 5: C-I: commerce for several neighbourhoods

   C-I is established to classify existing commercial areas or create new ones supplying the needs of several neighbourhoods or residential communities, as well as intermediate-intensity commerce in the municipalities’ foundational centres. Besides all of C-L’s uses, it allows retail and wholesale alone or combined, car hire and car display and sale; in services, the sale of prepared food including the sale of alcoholic drinks, pharmacy, petrol stations, funeral home and animal hospital; in industrial, light industries such as commercial laundry, bakeries, sewing and embroidery workshop, craft production and closed workshop repairing bicycles and ordinary household appliances, provided the process produces no smoke, dust, gases, noise or other harmful conditions; and in others, museums, theatres, housing and institutional, civic and cultural uses on lots big enough to meet the parking requirements. It prohibits the uses reserved for C-C, tyre and parts shops, heavy-material ironmongers, mechanics’ workshops, panel-beating and paint shops, and repair workshops open to the exterior.

6. 6

   Step 6: The bar, the live music and the cameras

   In C-I, businesses mainly selling alcoholic drinks or devoted to entertainment come in by exception. And there is a rule of its own for accessory activities — artistic shows, live music, karaoke, jukeboxes or DJs — applying equally in C-I and C-C: they must be inside the closed establishment and the premises must not abut a residential district. To qualify, the premises must have cameras and guards to look after properly the safety of the business’s users and of the neighbours. They will be allowed outdoors only for an occasional or particular event, for which the place will have security guards and hours duly regulated by the state’s authorities, and the corresponding Permiso Único for Temporary Activities under Section 3.7.1.7 of the regulation must be applied for, which this site covers in another guide.

7. 7

   Step 7: The parameters of C-I and C-C

   C-I requires a minimum lot of four hundred and fifty square metres and a minimum width of fifteen metres, with one basic dwelling unit per seventy square metres. C-C requires five hundred square metres and fifteen of width, with one unit per sixty square metres. The yards are the same in both: no front yard is required for the first three storeys, except for a pavement under two metres or a block facing the same side of the road as residential lots, and buildings in contexts where the neighbours have no front yard are exempt; the rear yard is three metres or one fifth of the height, and on two- or three-corner lots it is required only where the lot abuts a residential or public-use district; the side yards are two of two metres, omissible for the first three storeys except for residential or public abutment, and fully waived when the parcel abuts another of the same district, allowing party-wall development. On occupation, C-I runs from seventy-five per cent on an interior lot to one hundred per cent on a whole-block lot, and C-C uses the same percentages. On gross floor area C-I gives three hundred and seventy-five, four hundred and twenty-five, four hundred and seventy-five and five hundred per cent by lot type, and C-C gives four hundred and fifty, five hundred and ten, five hundred and seventy and six hundred. In both districts, each of those percentages may be raised by a further ten per cent where the gross floor area of every storey above the second is no more than fifty per cent of the lot area.

8. 8

   Step 8: C-C: what comes in only here

   C-C is established to classify existing commercial areas or create new ones supplying the needs of several neighbourhoods, as well as existing central commercial areas, high-density urban centres and marketing centres developed by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality. Besides everything in C-L and C-I, it allows the retail and wholesale club; the dance or music salon, studio or academy; cinemas; the armoury, provided the lot it sits on does not abut a residential district; motor-vehicle repair workshops including tyre changing, panel-beating and paint — exactly what the other two districts prohibit; light industries such as printing, clothing manufacture workshop, awning workshop and sign and advertisement workshop; the siting of cultivation, manufacture, fabrication, product distribution and dispensary centres for medicinal cannabis; the radio and television studio; the radiological centre; simple commercial recreation; and housing. By exception come hospitals, nursing homes and sanatoriums — with the fifty-metre separation from every property line for contagious-disease or mental-illness ones — the uses for docks or ramps, and renewable energy projects.

9. 9

   Step 9: Shopping centres over 250,000 square feet

   Section 6.1.8.3 governs large shopping centres. OGPe’s Adjudicative Board will evaluate and adjudicate by consulta de ubicación every commercial project exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand square feet of gross floor area, on these conditions: every application must be presented at a public hearing; the lot area will be no less than eight thousand square metres; the gross floor area will not exceed what the consulta authorises or one hundred per cent of the lot area; yards no less than fifteen metres deep or wide will be required; motors, electrical substations and compressors or refrigeration units must be located as part of the main building without protruding from its general lines; and the occupation area will not exceed what the consulta authorises or fifty per cent of the lot if none was set. There are two more practical rules: where the project does not state in its application the area to be used for storage, a third of the gross floor area will be deemed devoted to it for computing parking; and if other principal or complementary uses are included, the shared-parking formulas of the Land Use Institute and the Institute of Transportation Engineers or another recognised body may be requested. Above the second storey, offices and housing may be permitted, and the housing will have access and parking independent of the shopping centre’s. And free-standing structures will be allowed, which must observe the district’s yards.

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. Commercial projects over two hundred and fifty thousand square feet of gross floor area go by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board, with a public hearing. And outdoor live music, karaoke or DJ activities require the Permiso Único for Temporary Activities.

• Opening a mechanics’ or panel-beating and paint shop in C-L or C-I: they come in only in C-C.
• Putting a tyre-changing or vehicle-parts business outside the C-C district.
• Setting up a bar, a sport bar or a cafetín in C-L, where they are expressly prohibited.
• Putting live music, karaoke or a DJ in premises abutting a residential district.
• Offering those activities without the cameras and guards the regulation requires.
• Taking the music outdoors without it being an occasional event and without the Permiso Único for Temporary Activities.
• Installing an ironmonger selling timber, sand, stone, cement, lime or steel bar in C-L or C-I.
• Running in C-L a commercial laundry, bakery, craft or repair workshop with more than fifteen employees.
• Opening a bakery in C-L selling wholesale instead of retail.
• Siting a teaching institution or vocational school in C-L within fifty metres of an existing or authorised petrol station.
• Building light-vehicle parking of more than two storeys in C-L.
• Putting an armoury in C-C on a lot abutting a residential district.
• Designing a shopping centre over 250,000 square feet without a consulta de ubicación, without a public hearing, with less than 8,000 square metres of lot or with yards under fifteen metres.
• Leaving the shopping centre’s motors, substations or refrigeration units protruding from the main building’s lines.
• Mixing housing and commerce in C-L without street access and parking independent for the housing.

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