How high a fence may be in Puerto Rico

It is Chapter 8.3 of Joint Regulation No. 9473, which groups four things built at a lot’s edges: towers and rooftop structures, fences, portals, and interior and semi-interior yards. The chapter opens by saying who considers these projects: OGPe, the Authorised Professional, the Adjudicative Board or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III.

It applies to anyone building a fence, a portal or a rooftop structure. The heights change with two things: the district the lot is in — residential, commercial, industrial or other — and the yard the fence goes in — required front, side or rear. And there is a third factor people forget: whether or not the required front yard abuts a public vehicular access, because that doubles the height allowed at the front under a design condition.

• In residential districts, that the fence in the required front yard not exceed one (1) metre in height.Verified against the official source
• That, where the required front yard abuts a public vehicular access and two (2) metres are wanted, the part above one metre be a grille whose solid part does not exceed twenty-five per cent (25%) of its area.Verified against the official source
• That fences in required side or rear yards not exceed two (2) metres in height.Verified against the official source
• For a higher noise-control fence, a noise study for the lot where it will be built, on the basis of which OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III will determine the required height.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: One metre at the front

   In residential districts, fences built in required front yards may be no more than one metre high. That is the starting point and the most surprising one, because in practice much taller front fences are common. The reason is usually the exception in the next paragraph, not that the rule does not exist.

2. 2

   Step 2: Two metres with a public vehicular access and a grille

   This is the exception that settles most cases. Where the required front yard abuts a public vehicular access, the fence may be two metres high, provided the part above one metre is a grille whose solid part does not exceed twenty-five per cent of its area. That is: the bottom metre may be solid; the top metre must be mostly open, with no more than a quarter of its surface in solid material.

3. 3

   Step 3: Two metres at the sides and rear

   Fences in required side or rear yards may be no more than two metres high. There is no grille condition here: the two metres are simply allowed. That difference explains why the rear fence may be solid and the front one may not.

4. 4

   Step 4: Businesses and industry: only where they face residential

   In commercial, industrial and other districts, the one-metre front limit is not general. It applies to fences built in required front yards where lots abut lots in a residential district, or sit on the same block fronting the same side of a road as lots in a residential district, and only in the stretches corresponding to the front-yard depth required in that residential district. In those same cases, where the required yard abuts a public vehicular access, those stretches may reach two metres under the same under-25%-solid grille condition. And fences in required side or rear yards may reach two metres where the lot’s side or rear line is common with a lot in a residential district.

5. 5

   Step 5: The noise fence

   Fences required for noise control may be higher than those the chapter sets. But it is not an open licence: in those cases the required height will be determined by OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III, as applicable, on the basis of the results of a noise study for the lot where the fence will be built. The regulation adds two often-forgotten precisions: the height of these fences is measured from the lot’s original grade, and may exceed two metres provided view and ventilation are not obstructed.

6. 6

   Step 6: The highway wall is not a fence

   The chapter clarifies it expressly so nobody confuses them: noise-attenuation walls on DTOP and ACT highway projects are not considered fences. Those projects are governed by a noise policy set by FHWA regulations, parameters and guidelines. If the wall beside you belongs to a state highway, do not apply this table to it.

7. 7

   Step 7: The ornamental portal

   In residential districts one ornamental or architectural-detail portal is permitted in each yard between the building and the lot’s side line, or the rear line on corner lots. One per yard. Its height, measured from ground level, shall be no more than three metres, and it must have an entrance or opening no less than one metre wide and two metres high. A grille gate or metal grille may be fitted in that entrance whose solid part does not exceed twenty-five per cent of it. And no such entrance or opening is needed where the portal’s height above ground is one metre or less.

8. 8

   Step 8: What does not count towards building height

   The chapter’s first rule is useful to anyone installing something on the roof. Church spires, belfries, television aerials, short-wave radio transmission towers and aerials for domestic use, purely ornamental towers, chimneys, elevated tanks, solar heaters, stair enclosures and lift structures shall not be counted when applying the regulation’s height provisions, provided the sum of their areas, taken in horizontal section at mid-height, is no more than twenty per cent of the total roof area. With one absolute limit: in no case, where permitted, may these structures exceed the height limits set in relation to Airport Zones.

9. 9

   Step 9: Interior and semi-interior yards

   The chapter closes with the two definitions governing light wells. Any open, unoccupied space onto which windows or doors face, surrounded on all sides by a building, or by a building and a lot side line, is considered an interior yard. Its minimum dimension shall be three metres, or one fifth of the vertical distance between the yard’s lowest level and the highest level of any wall, balcony or terrace surrounding it, whichever is greater; and its area shall be no less, at any level, than ten square metres per storey the building has above that yard. A semi-interior yard is the same, except one of its sides fronts and opens onto a road or another open space within the same lot, and it shares the same minimum of three metres or one fifth of the height, whichever is greater.

The chapter names who considers these projects: OGPe, the Authorised Professional, the Adjudicative Board or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III. For the noise-control fence, the height is determined by OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III, on the basis of the noise study. The permit procedure itself lives in other volumes of the Joint Regulation we did not read for this guide.

• Building two metres of solid fence at the front: above one metre it must be a grille under 25% solid.
• Believing the two-metre exception always applies: only where the required front yard abuts a public vehicular access.
• Applying the one-metre limit to a whole commercial lot: it applies only in the stretches facing a residential district.
• Raising a high noise fence without the noise study the Adjudicative Board uses to set the height.
• Measuring the noise fence from fill rather than from the lot’s original grade.
• Putting more than one ornamental portal per yard, or one without the one-by-two-metre opening when it exceeds one metre high.
• Forgetting that solar heaters, tanks and stair enclosures are excluded from height only if they total up to 20% of the roof area.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (OGPe)

  OGPe

  docs.pr.gov

• Permit Management Office

  ogpe

  ogpe.pr.gov