Industrial districts I-E, I-L and I-P: the quarry, light industry and heavy industry

They are Rules 6.1.14, 6.1.15 and 6.1.16 of Chapter 6.1 of Joint Regulation No. 9473, the Qualified Areas chapter. Each defines an industrial district — I-E specialised industry, I-L light industrial and I-P heavy industrial — with its purpose, its use table and its design parameters; I-P also adds a section of uses by exception. I-E is the only one whose design parameters, beyond the lot’s minimum size and width, are determined case by case in the consulta de ubicación.

I-E is a rural district, consonant with land classified suelo rústico común, and in earth-material extraction projects the district extends as far as the reserve analysis determines the presence of the material proposed to be extracted. Every development proposed in I-E is presented and evaluated by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality with Hierarchy I to III. I-L and I-P expressly exclude residential use from their land; in I-P commercial uses are allowed where they support the heavy industrial operation, while light industries are permitted ministerially. And the design parameters for I-L’s commercial uses are the C-I district’s.

• In I-E: presenting every proposed development by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality with Hierarchy I to III, where each activity’s design parameters will be settled.Verified against the official source
• In I-E: that every lot formed after the regulation took effect have an area of no less than eight thousand square metres and a width of no less than forty metres; the remaining parameters are determined by the consulta de ubicación.Verified against the official source
• In I-E: that the proposal take into account noise, vibrations, the use of explosives, the impact on roads from machinery, equipment and lorries, the deterioration of transit roads, adequate signage and safety.Verified against the official source
• In I-L: a lot of no less than 800 square metres and 20 metres wide, maximum occupation 75% and maximum gross floor area 450%, with mezzanines not counted as a storey where their floor area is under 33% of the total floor area beneath them and they are devoted to uses related to the main activity.Verified against the official source
• In I-P: a lot of no less than 4,000 square metres and 40 metres wide, maximum occupation 50%, maximum gross floor area 300%, a front yard of no less than 3 metres and a rear yard of no less than 5 metres.Verified against the official source
• For a teaching institution by exception in I-P: eight square metres of land per student, twenty square feet of classroom per student, a minimum separation of one thousand feet (305 metres) from any lot with an existing or authorised petrol station, yards twice the district’s and a public hearing before authorisation.Verified against the official source
• For a light industrial project by exception in I-P: not exceeding fifteen thousand square feet of gross floor area, or thirty thousand for poultry houses, and that the activity not significantly produce smoke, dust, gases, noise, vibrations or fire or explosion risk.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: I-E: the extraction district

   The specialised industry district is established to classify tracts of land where specific industrial projects are promoted that by their nature and intensity require a special location, and to identify land devoted or to be devoted to the extraction, excavation or removal of earth’s crust material, where materials may also be made, manufactured, treated, processed or refined. It has two features setting it apart from the other two. The first: in extraction projects the district extends as far as the reserve analysis determines the presence of the material proposed to be extracted, so the deposit itself marks the district’s boundary. The second: it is a rural district, consonant with land classified suelo rústico común. The determination of the extent of land is based on the area’s potential for the development proposed in the consulta de ubicación, and the proposal must take into account noise, vibrations, the use of explosives, the impact on roads from machinery, equipment and lorries, the deterioration of transit roads, adequate signage and safety.

2. 2

   Step 2: What is allowed in I-E, and how it is approved

   Any development proposed in this district will be presented and evaluated by OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality with Hierarchy I to III through the consulta de ubicación mechanism, where each activity’s design parameters will be settled by the particulars of the industry proposed. The use table lists the extraction of earth’s crust material including its processing, gravel pits, the concrete or asphalt batching plant, refuse or waste disposal, sand processing, concrete or block products, terracotta and its derivatives, the central mixer of concrete, gypsum or paving materials and mortars, the phosphate-rock processing plant, concrete mixers, the scrapyard for commercial purposes or junker, the calcium carbonate plant, bulk storage of sand, stone, tosca, dust, cement and other materials for ready-mixed concrete, establishments transforming raw material, and the composting plant. In the "others" column appear warehouses, sanitary landfill deposits or vertederos, pharmaceutical plants, the collection and processing centre for recycled concrete and renewable energy projects.

3. 3

   Step 3: I-E’s parameters: only two numbers

   I-E’s parameter table is the chapter’s shortest and says three things. Every lot formed after this regulation took effect will have an area of no less than eight thousand square metres. It will have a width of no less than forty metres. And the project’s remaining design parameters will be determined in the consulta de ubicación. That means in I-E there is no occupation percentage, no gross floor area and no yards set in advance: they are settled case by case in the consulta’s record.

4. 4

   Step 4: I-L: light industry, no housing

   The light industrial district is established to identify light industries or industrial areas, developed or developable, and its objective is for the land to be devoted to those ends excluding residential use, though it allows certain commercial uses to meet the area’s needs. The regulation also sets an operating standard: light industry uses will be designed, built and operated so as to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of the property’s occupants and of neighbouring properties, so the supply of light and air to the building or to neighbouring properties is not impaired, so fire risk is not increased, and so no reduction or harm is caused to the values of properties established in neighbouring areas. One figure worth keeping: the design parameters for I-L’s commercial uses will be those of the C-I district.

5. 5

   Step 5: I-L’s list

   In light industry: sawmills; cremation by a thermal method; cabinetmaking; parking including heavy vehicles; petrol or other fuel stations; transfer stations; pharmaceutical plants without synthesis processes; light industries such as commercial laundry, bakeries, sewing workshop, craft production and closed workshop repairing bicycles and ordinary household appliances; biomedical waste processing; renewable energy projects; and motor-vehicle repair workshops including panel-beating, paint and upholstery. In commercial and services: warehouse, cafeterias, care centres, wholesale trade and storage of finished products, motor-vehicle dealers, vocational schools, pharmacies, ironmonger, gym, banking and financial institutions, mini-warehouses, offices, restaurants, retail and wholesale, and heavy-equipment sales. And in others: armoury and indoor shooting range, provided the lot it sits on does not abut a residential district; centre for processing recyclable materials; startups; soundproofed animal hospital keeping no animals outside the building; and the siting of cultivation, manufacture, fabrication, product distribution, laboratory and dispensary centres for medicinal cannabis.

6. 6

   Step 6: I-L’s parameters and the mezzanine rule

   Minimum lot eight hundred square metres, minimum width twenty metres, maximum occupation seventy-five per cent and maximum gross floor area four hundred and fifty per cent. And a rule worth money in an industrial unit: mezzanines will not count as a storey where their floor area is under thirty-three per cent of the total floor area of the storey beneath them, provided they are devoted to uses related to the main activity permitted on that storey. On yards, no front yard is required for the first three storeys, unless the lot faces a pavement under two metres — in which case a yard equal to the difference between two metres and the pavement’s width is required — or it is on the same block facing the same side of the road as lots in a residential district. Above the third storey a front yard of no less than two metres and never less than one fifth of the height is required. The rear yard is three metres or one fifth of the height, and the side ones are two of two metres, omissible for the first three storeys except on the side abutting a residential or public-use district. Any rear or side yard abutting a road will be treated as a front yard.

7. 7

   Step 7: I-P: heavy industry, and the direction of the winds

   The heavy industrial district is established to classify areas for siting heavy industries, excluding residential uses. Commercial uses will be allowed where they support the heavy industrial operation, while light industries will be permitted ministerially in this district. The determination of the extent of land is based on the area’s potential, the direction of the winds, the detrimental effects of heavy industries on air, water or others such as odours, noise, vibrations and light reflections, the traffic implications of these industries for the transport system, and the best organisation of land use.

8. 8

   Step 8: What is allowed only in I-P

   I-P’s table has a single column and gathers the regulation’s most intense uses: bulk storage of chemical substances, explosives and explosive materials complying with Chapter 9.2; storage and distribution of fireworks; gas distribution centres; chlorine and derivatives; meat cutting and packing; vehicle destruction; making, manufacturing, treating, processing and refining chemical substances; parking of vehicles including articulated, cargo and tanker lorries of more than one and a half tonnes; factories for producing and distributing products; metal casting and forging; pharmaceutical industries involving synthesis processes; metal recovery installations; slaughterhouses; flour and grain mills; petroleum and its derivatives; retreading plant; energy recovery plant and thermoelectric stations; milk and dairy pasteurising plant; animal-feed processing; biomedical waste processing; paint production and distribution processes; pesticide production and distribution processes; renewable energy generation; metal products and their processing; and textile products.

9. 9

   Step 9: I-P’s parameters, and a defect worth knowing

   The section the regulation heads "Parámetros en Distritos I-P" sets a minimum lot of four thousand square metres, a minimum width of forty metres, maximum occupation of fifty per cent and maximum gross floor area of three hundred per cent, with the rule that the gross floor area of any storey above the first will not exceed the maximum occupation percentage permitted. A front yard of no less than three metres deep will be required, and on lots on the same block facing the same side of a road as lots in a residential district, the depth will be no less than three metres or less than the size required for the residential district. The rear yard will be no less than five metres. Now the note on the source, because it matters: Rule 6.1.16 prints two sections numbered 6.1.16.3 — one headed "Parámetros en Distritos I-P" and another, pages later, "Usos vía Excepción" — and its Section 6.1.16.4, headed "Parámetros de Diseño", carries "Tabla 6.68 - Parámetros de Diseño Distrito ARD", a table for a district named ARD whose content is plainly residential: a density of housing for one or two families, thirty-five per cent occupation, seventy-five per cent gross floor area, a three-metre front yard with half its area planted and a tree of at least three and a half metres per dwelling unit. That table cannot be the heavy industrial district’s parameters, and we do not publish it as such: we publish the figures from the section the regulation itself heads "Parámetros en Distritos I-P" and report the ARD table as printed.

10. 10

    Step 10: I-P’s uses by exception

    I-P admits four things by exception. Teaching institutions of pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher level: other related buildings may be built on the same site by presenting a development concept; the minimum land area will be computed at eight square metres per student and classroom size at twenty square feet per student; the lots must keep a minimum separation of one thousand feet — three hundred and five metres — from any other lot where a petrol station sits or has been authorised; the buildings will keep yards twice those required in the district; and a public hearing will be held before authorisation. Religious institutions on lots of up to two cuerdas, with the fifty-metre separation from a petrol station, yards twice as large, possible sound insulation where the yards cannot be met, and no exterior loudspeakers or horns. Light industrial projects not exceeding fifteen thousand square feet of gross floor area, with poultry houses up to thirty thousand square feet, considering that the activity not significantly produce smoke, dust, gases, noise, vibrations or fire or explosion risk. And hospitals, nursing homes and sanatoriums, those for contagious diseases or treating the mentally ill sited no less than fifty metres from every property line of the lot. The exceptions granted remain subject to compliance with the conditions set.

A property’s qualification is read on the Planning Board’s qualification maps. In I-E, every development is presented and evaluated by consulta de ubicación before OGPe’s Adjudicative Board or the Autonomous Municipality with Hierarchy I to III, and there the design parameters the rule does not publish are set. In I-L and I-P, construction permits and the Permiso Único are processed before OGPe, the municipalities with hierarchy or an Authorised Professional, and I-L’s commercial uses are measured by the C-I district’s parameters. I-P’s uses by exception involving teaching institutions carry a public hearing before authorisation.

• Expecting a parameter table for I-E: there is only the minimum lot and minimum width, and the rest is set by the consulta de ubicación.
• Forming a lot in I-E of less than eight thousand square metres or less than forty metres wide after the regulation took effect.
• Presenting an extraction project in I-E without addressing noise, vibrations, the use of explosives, lorries’ impact on the roads and signage.
• Proposing housing in an I-L or I-P district: both expressly exclude residential use.
• Measuring an I-L lot’s commercial uses by I-L’s parameters instead of the C-I district’s.
• Counting an I-L unit’s mezzanine as a storey when its area is under thirty-three per cent of the storey beneath it and it serves the main activity, or the other way round.
• Putting an armoury or indoor shooting range in I-L on a lot abutting a residential district.
• Installing a pharmaceutical plant with synthesis processes in I-L: that belongs in I-P.
• Assuming a light industry use needs an exception in I-P: there they are permitted ministerially.
• Exceeding fifteen thousand square feet in a light industrial project by exception in I-P, or thirty thousand for poultry houses.
• Siting a teaching institution in I-P within one thousand feet — three hundred and five metres — of a lot with an existing or authorised petrol station.
• Computing a teaching institution’s land in I-P without the eight square metres per student and twenty square feet of classroom per student.
• Installing exterior loudspeakers or horns at a religious institution in I-P.
• Using the ARD district’s Table 6.68 as if it were the heavy industrial district’s design parameters.

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