Institutional districts D-G and D-A: the land of institutions and of open spaces

They are Rules 6.1.20 and 6.1.21 of Chapter 6.1 of Joint Regulation No. 9473, defining the D-G, General Institutional, and D-A, Open-Area Institutional qualification districts. D-G brings its purpose, a table of uses to consider in four columns and a parameters section that is in fact a routing table to other districts, plus two separate provisions on reclassification to public use and on hospitals’ separation. D-A brings its purpose, its uses, its design parameters and a section of its own on permitted constructions.

D-G classifies public or private land. Its rule adds that the Planning Board will consider applications for reclassification as a property’s public use where the petition is filed by a government or municipal body with power to do so and it shows by reliable evidence that it owns the property. D-A covers the large spaces meant to stay open for public recreation and, expressly, land qualified D-A sitting in areas prone or subject to flooding or where there are engineering control works; its design requires the active use of those areas to be compatible with adjacent residential developments.

• In D-G: observing the design parameters corresponding to the nature of the use, the activity and the area’s characteristics, determined in a consulta de construcción, applying the rule of the district the table refers each kind of use to.Verified against the official source
• In D-G: siting hospitals or sanatoriums for contagious diseases or treating the mentally ill no less than fifty metres from every property line of the lot.Verified against the official source
• For a reclassification to public use in D-G: the petition being filed by a government or municipal body with power to do so and showing by reliable evidence that it owns the property.Verified against the official source
• In D-A: that a park’s or open-air recreational installation’s parking be sited at least fifteen metres from any lot line.Verified against the official source
• In D-A: that the total occupation area to be allowed not exceed two per cent of the lot’s total area.Verified against the official source
• In D-A: not segregating or subdividing land, except to devote the district’s portion to public use in favour of a competent body by public deed.Verified against the official source
• In D-A: that the design and construction affect the area minimally, protect the land and avoid its waterproofing, protect, maintain and restore the vegetation and topographic features, avoid deforesting soils in ways that increase run-off and erosion, and seek a positive balance where the natural environment prevails over the development.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Why D-G exists

   The General Institutional district is established to classify public or private land occupied or to be occupied with institutional, tourist, commercial, recreational, civic, teaching, philanthropic, cultural, scientific, educational, religious or similar uses, as a means of ensuring they are developed in harmony with Puerto Rico’s current Land Use Plan. It is, in practice, the qualification of land with a service vocation: the land occupied by schools, churches, hospitals, museums, airports, cemeteries and government buildings, whether the State’s or a private party’s.

2. 2

   Step 2: The uses D-G’s table considers

   D-G’s table has four columns. In services: municipal enterprises, churches and temples, cemetery, offices, tourist uses, parking, and a soundproofed animal hospital keeping no animals outside the building. In lodging and residential: hotel, lodging, guest houses, specialised lodging, single-family and multifamily housing, and bed and breakfast. In commercial: micro-enterprises, restaurants, businesses, commercial installations and pharmacy. And in others: airport, craft, civic, cultural, infrastructure services, institutional, museum, recreational, a cluster of emerging companies — startups or incubator companies — renewable energy projects, and hospital, general medical hospital, nursing home, sanatorium and institution for treating the mentally ill.

3. 3

   Step 3: D-G has no parameters of its own: it borrows them

   This is the district’s peculiarity. Every new construction must observe the design parameters set by the nature of the use, the activity and the characteristics of the area where they sit, determined in a consulta de construcción. And its parameter table carries not one figure: it is a routing table. Residential use goes to the R-B, R-I, R-U and R-C rules. Commercial use goes to C-L, C-I, C-C and RC-E. Tourist use goes to RT-I, RT-A and C-T. And industrial use goes to I-E and to Rule 6.1.15, which is I-L, though the table prints it only as "I". That is: to know how much may be built on a D-G lot, you start by deciding what kind of use it is and then go to the corresponding district’s rule.

4. 4

   Step 4: The reclassification to public use

   Rule 6.1.20 closes with two provisions not in the table. The first: the Planning Board will consider applications for reclassification as a property’s public use where the petition is filed by a government or municipal body with power to do so and it shows by reliable evidence that it owns the property. They are two cumulative conditions — the power and proven ownership — and without them the application does not qualify. The second: hospitals or sanatoriums for contagious diseases or treating the mentally ill will be sited no less than fifty metres from every property line of the lot, the same separation the regulation repeats in several districts.

5. 5

   Step 5: D-A: preserving the open character

   The Open-Area Institutional district promotes preserving the open character of large spaces and devoting them to public recreation, as places or spaces of passive and active recreation. It is designed to make active use of such areas, provided they are compatible with adjacent residential developments. And its purpose expressly names a third case: land qualified D-A sitting in areas prone or subject to flooding or where there are engineering control works. That explains why much land beside canals or channels appears qualified this way.

6. 6

   Step 6: What is allowed in D-A, and at what distance

   The permitted uses are parks and open-air recreational installations, with two express provisions, and the accessory uses related to them. The first provision: the parking must be sited at least fifteen metres from any lot line. The second is printed thus: any administration or maintenance building be sited less than ten metres from the lot line. We publish both as they appear and report the inconsistency: a setback rule requiring a building to be closer than ten metres to the boundary says the opposite of what the parking rule beside it does, and we do not reconstruct what was meant.

7. 7

   Step 7: The two per cent, and the ban on segregating

   The figure governing D-A is a single one: the total occupation area to be allowed must not exceed two per cent of the lot’s total area. Beside it go two prohibitions. In the areas whose open character is preserved, land segregation is not allowed, except to devote the portion to public use in favour of a competent body by public deed. And in this district land subdivision is not allowed, with the same exception. The permitted constructions are the buildings or structures determined by the nature of the activity, the infrastructure service installations necessary for the permitted uses, and the accessory structures to those uses.

8. 8

   Step 8: The environmental standard D-A states twice

   The regulation sets D-A a design standard that goes beyond the numbers: the design and construction must affect the area minimally, protect the land and avoid its waterproofing, protect, maintain and restore the vegetation and the place’s topographic features, avoid deforesting soils in ways that increase run-off and erosion, and in general seek a positive balance where the natural environment prevails over the development. That paragraph appears twice almost word for word inside the same rule, once referring to parks and open-air recreational installations and again to installations in general; we report it because the repetition is the source’s, not the text we publish.

A property’s qualification is read on the Planning Board’s qualification maps. In D-G, the concrete parameters are determined in a consulta de construcción and taken from the rule of the district the table refers the kind of use to, so the process starts by identifying that rule. Reclassifications to public use are considered by the Planning Board, on the petition of a government or municipal body with power to do so proving it owns the property. And construction permits are processed before OGPe, the Autonomous Municipalities with Hierarchy I to III or an Authorised Professional.

• Looking in Rule 6.1.20 for lot, occupation or gross-floor-area figures the D-G district does not publish.
• Applying in D-G the parameters of a district that does not correspond to the kind of use the table refers.
• Forgetting that in D-G the final parameters are determined in a consulta de construcción.
• Siting in D-G a hospital or sanatorium for contagious diseases or treating the mentally ill within fifty metres of a property line.
• Asking for a reclassification to public use without being a government or municipal body with power to do so.
• Asking for it without reliable evidence of owning the property.
• Planning in D-A an occupation greater than two per cent of the lot’s total area.
• Segregating or subdividing land in D-A for something other than devoting the portion to public use by public deed.
• Siting a park’s parking within fifteen metres of a lot line.
• Waterproofing the land or deforesting in a D-A district.
• Assuming D-A land beside a canal is a mapping error: the district’s purpose expressly includes flood-prone areas and those with engineering control works.

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