How many parking spaces you must provide: the table by use

It is Chapter 8.5 of Joint Regulation No. 9473. It is not a procedure: it is the yardstick used when you apply for a construction permit or a use permit. It says where the spaces may be provided, how big each one is and how many are needed according to what you will operate. It is the chapter that decides whether your project fits on your lot.

It applies to every use requiring a permit: shops, offices, restaurants, hotels, warehouses, industry, schools, churches, hospitals, dwellings and apartment houses. If your use does not appear on the regulation’s list, OGPe or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III determines the number of spaces based on the parameters set for other similar uses.

• Providing the parking areas within the property: the main building, an accessory building or the lot’s remaining area.Verified against the official source
• Spaces of two and a half (2.5) metres by five and a half (5.5) metres, excluding the space needed for access or turning areas.Verified against the official source
• Bicycle parking equal to at least ten per cent (10%) of the spaces required for cars.Verified against the official source
• Four (4) spaces for persons with disabilities for the first hundred (100) regular spaces and one (1) per additional hundred (100).Verified against the official source
• Paved and marked areas, with safe accesses and wheel stops of at least six (6) inches high at the edges.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: First: within your own lot

   The required parking areas are provided within the property, whether in the main building, an accessory building or the lot’s remaining area. Unless otherwise established for the district, a required yard may be used for that, so long as traffic or vehicle movement in the accesses or turning areas is not obstructed. If, using the lot in accordance with the district’s occupancy provisions, the parking cannot be provided and it is demonstrated to OGPe or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III that it is not feasible, it may be authorised on another parcel within an easy two-hundred-metre walk, provided that whole parcel is dedicated to parking by the corresponding legal instrument.

2. 2

   Step 2: The total is not waived (except in the urban centre)

   This sentence of the regulation settles many conversations: OGPe or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III shall not waive compliance with the total number of required parking spaces, except within the municipalities’ traditional urban centres as delimited on the zoning maps. Outside that perimeter there is no waiver of the total. In commercial districts in town urban centres, where providing the area on another lot is not feasible, a common parking area serving more than one project or use may be authorised — even charging for the service — provided it has enough capacity for all.

3. 3

   Step 3: How big a space is

   A vehicle parking space is an area of two and a half metres by five and a half metres, excluding the space needed for accesses or turning areas. However, one third of the required spaces may occupy a smaller area, of two metres twenty centimetres by four metres sixty centimetres. For apartment houses requiring two spaces per dwelling unit, double spaces may be allowed, one behind the other, of two metres fifty by eleven metres; the number of spaces of that size shall equal the number of apartments requiring two. The maximum grade of access ramps shall not exceed fifteen per cent, and where it exceeds twelve per cent it shall be softened with a transition no less than two metres long.

4. 4

   Step 4: The count by use: shop, restaurant, office

   Retail shops or service premises: one space per fifteen square metres or part thereof of net floor area devoted to those purposes, plus one space per seventy square metres of storage area — and if no storage area is stated, it is estimated at one third of the total area — plus one additional space per three employees or part thereof. Restaurants, cafeterias and bars: one space per five square metres or part thereof of net floor area devoted to public service, plus one per three employees; where there is drive-through service combined with table service, the area serving the vehicles is separate and additional. Offices: one space per twenty-five square metres of gross floor area. High-client-volume offices — doctors, water, electricity, telephone or internal-revenue customer service and the like: one space per fifteen square metres plus one per three employees. Warehouses and industrial uses: one space per seventy square metres; in industry, or one per two employees on the largest shift, whichever is higher.

5. 5

   Step 5: The count by use: lodging, care, schools, churches

   Hotels and tourist hotels: one space per three rooms or suites or part thereof; the hotel’s restaurants, shops and convention halls require additional parking. Guest houses: one space for the owner’s or manager’s dwelling, plus one additional per three rooms. Specialised lodgings: one space per three beds or rooms, whichever is greater, plus one per three employees. Child or elder day-care centre: one space per twenty-five people. Church and elementary or intermediate school: one space per twenty-five seats or part thereof. High schools: one space per ten seats. Educational and public-assembly institutions — commercial or vocational schools, colleges or universities, auditoriums, convention halls, theatres, cinemas, stadiums, funeral homes and similar places: one space per five seats. Hospitals, sanatoria or public-welfare institutions: one space per bed in private or semi-private rooms and one per three beds in wards of more than two beds. Marinas: one space per boat or slip. Beaches: one space per hundred and fifty square metres of beach area.

6. 6

   Step 6: Housing: the table by bedrooms

   One- or two-family dwellings: one space per unit. For apartment houses the regulation’s table goes by number of bedrooms per unit: zero bedrooms, 1.00 space; one bedroom, 1.25; two bedrooms, 1.50; three bedrooms, 2.00; more than three, 1.00 per additional bedroom. On top of that, ten per cent additional spaces are provided for visitors, which must be signed and dedicated to that purpose. The regulation repeats that compliance with the required spaces shall not be waived. In apartment houses for the elderly, fifty per cent of the table’s total is provided. In tourist districts R-T and C-T, visitor parking for residential uses is one per five dwelling units, parking is not allowed in the front yard, and its visibility is limited.

7. 7

   Step 7: Disabled spaces: four for the first hundred

   At least four parking spaces for vehicles of persons with disabilities shall be provided for the first hundred regular spaces and one per additional hundred. Public lots with fewer than a hundred available spaces must provide at least two. These spaces shall be the same as regular ones — two and a half by five and a half metres — with an access aisle of two and a half metres per two spaces. They shall be duly signed as the ADA provides, and must be the spaces nearest the entrances.

8. 8

   Step 8: Bicycles: ten per cent, and no variance

   The number of bicycle parking spaces must be at least ten per cent of the number of spaces required for cars. The regulation is blunt on one point: obtaining a variance from the number of bicycle parking spaces is prohibited. Converting car spaces into bicycle spaces is allowed — six to eight bicycles fit in one car space — and bicycle spaces must be separate from motorcycle spaces. The rack must allow securing the bicycle at two points of contact, not require lifting it, be securely installed to the ground and be located in visible areas in front of the entrance, without obstructing pedestrian movement and preferably covered. Clearances: a minimum of three feet from a wall when the rack is placed parallel to it, two feet when perpendicular, and at least seven feet of vertical clearance between floor and ceiling or any elevated obstruction.

9. 9

   Step 9: Loading and unloading, and parking buildings

   Every building or part of a building used for commercial or industrial purposes, article display, hotel or hospital shall be provided with loading and unloading spaces with the dimensions of the building code in force. For apartment houses, one space per eighty dwelling units or fraction is provided. The loading space shall be located at the side or rear of the building and its visibility from the pavement limited. Parking buildings shall provide exterior walls at least four feet six inches high preventing vehicles from being seen; parking buildings without such walls are not allowed, and each floor shall have at least a railing of that height. If the required parking is provided in a basement or on floors of the building, that space does not count towards the gross floor area permitted or the height permitted in the district.

10. 10

    Step 10: The CRIM tax exemption

    The chapter closes with a door few people know about. Under Ley 83-1991 (the 1991 Municipal Property Tax Act), Ley 170-1997 and Resolución JP-98-261 of 13 October 1999, owners who wish may apply to CRIM for a tax exemption for parking buildings meeting four criteria: that the building be newly built, that it be multi-storey, that it be directly for the parking business, and that it was built from 19 December 1997 onwards. The regulation lists the criteria; it publishes neither an amount nor the procedure before CRIM, and so we do not give them here.

Chapter 8.5 fixes numbers, not counters. The spaces are assessed within the permit you are applying for — construction, use or the Single Permit — before OGPe, an Authorised Professional or the autonomous municipality with hierarchy I to III, as applicable. The tax exemption for parking buildings is applied for at CRIM.

• Counting access and turning areas inside the two-and-a-half by five-and-a-half metres.
• Making every space 2.20 by 4.60: only one third is allowed.
• Using eleven-metre double spaces in a project that does not require two spaces per unit.
• Forgetting the ten per cent visitor spaces in apartment houses, which must also be signed.
• Leaving disabled spaces far from the entrance, when the regulation asks for the nearest ones.
• Assuming a variance can be sought on bicycle parking.
• Counting on a waiver of the total spaces outside a traditional urban centre.
• Putting the loading and unloading area at the front of the building.

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