Registry of available public properties

It is a public catalogue, on a map, of the land and buildings belonging to four government entities: the Industrial Development Company, the Land Administration, the Land Authority and the Department of Housing. It serves the obvious purpose — seeing what is available near you, with a photo, zoning, size, last use and last appraisal — and something less obvious: the Act also requires publishing each property’s debt or liens, and the opportunities for investment, acquisition, lease, auction or request for proposals associated with it. Casual access by the general public must be free. What the Act does not carry, and it is worth knowing before getting excited, is the procedure for taking one: that runs through the owning entity.

To consult it there is no requirement: Article 4 requires the Planning Board to permit “casual, limited, periodic and free access to the general public,” and only authorises it to charge a fee to habitual users to defray the Registry’s cost. On the side of what appears: every structure or item of real property of the Industrial Development Company, the Land Administration, the Land Authority and the Department of Housing, on whom Article 5 imposes the duty to register them. Properties of other agencies, public corporations or municipalities are not covered by this Act.

Information pending verification.

Information pending verification.

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   Step 1: Whose properties appear

   Only four entities, and it is worth knowing so you do not search too widely. Article 4 creates the Registry of structures and real property belonging to the Industrial Development Company, the Land Administration, the Land Authority and the Department of Housing. Article 5 imposes on those four the duty to register every structure or item of real property. If the land that interests you belongs to a municipality, to the Energy Authority or to any other agency, this Act does not cover it.

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   Step 2: What information each property must carry

   Article 4 sets nine items as a minimum, and the list works as a checklist when you consult it: location; photo of the property; zoning; size; last use; last appraisal; debt or liens; information on the owning entity; and opportunities for investment, acquisition, lease or any other request for proposals or auctions relating to the property’s use. The two most surprising are the last appraisal and the debts or liens: rarely does a public government registry publish the financial weight of its own real estate.

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   Step 3: What it costs to consult it

   For the general public, nothing, and the Act conditions it. Article 4 says the Planning Board “may set an access fee for habitual users in order to defray the cost of creating, organising, implementing and operating the Registry established by this Act, provided it permits casual, limited, periodic and free access to the general public.” That is: the fee may fall only on the habitual user, and only if free public access is preserved. The Act does not set how much that fee may be or what makes someone a habitual user.

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   Step 4: Where the Registry lives

   Article 4 assigns it: it is designed by the Planning Board’s Geographic Information Systems Sub-Programme, in digital format, and developed on a geographic information system base — an interactive map, not a list — which shall be available to the public “as part of the ‘Puerto Rico Interactivo’ services.” The Act names that service but does not publish its internet address, and we do not guess government addresses.

5. 5

   Step 5: The seven frameworks, and why they matter to you

   Each property carries a Strategic Action Plan delimited to one of seven frameworks, and that framework tells you what it is intended for. Article 7 lists them: ecologically important zone, in close coordination with the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources; historic heritage rehabilitation, complying with the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture’s norms for historic zones and monuments; economic, industrial and commercial development; housing development, which the Act expressly limits to social-interest and middle-class housing; tourism development, drafted with the Tourism Company’s collaboration; urban centre rehabilitation, as defined by the municipality and the Board in the Urban Centre Area Plan; and agricultural land conservation, to make high agricultural value zones available to agricultural entrepreneurs. The Act adds that, as a rule, the Land Authority’s properties will fall under this last framework.

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   Step 6: What each property’s Plan contains

   Article 6 sets ten minimum elements, and the first is the most useful if you are evaluating: justification and/or legal impediments to developing. Then follow analysis of the current situation; general and specific objectives; short- and long-term goals; strategies; project, programme or activities; person responsible for the project, programme or activity; term; cost and financing; and results. Each Plan must be in harmony with the concerned agency’s HACES document — Sustainable Strategic Action and Coordination Tools. The Act gave them one hundred and eighty days from its approval, in 2011, to have them ready.

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   Step 7: How to know whether the Registry is kept current

   Article 8 imposes two reporting duties that work as a control. First, the four entities have a continuing duty to inform the Board, no later than thirty days after each fiscal year ends, of compliance with the Strategic Action Plans. Second, and this is the one that stops the map showing properties already sold: any juridical business involving the purchase, sale, exchange or transfer of one of the Registry’s properties must be notified to the Board no later than thirty days after the date of that transaction.

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   Step 8: What this Act does not give you

   It is worth saying without hedging. This Act creates a catalogue, not a procedure. The Registry publishes “opportunities for investment, acquisition, lease or any other request for proposals or auctions relating to the property’s use,” but the Act does not describe how a property is applied for, what requirements exist, how long it takes or how a refusal is appealed. That process runs through the owning entity — Fomento, Terrenos, Tierras or Vivienda — under its own rules, which this source does not contain. What it does give you is the information to arrive prepared: what exists, where, of what size, with what zoning, what it was appraised at and what debts or liens it carries.

The Registry is kept by the Planning Board, through the Geographic Information Systems Sub-Programme, and the Act provides it shall be available to the public as part of the Puerto Rico Interactivo services. To acquire or lease a listed property one must go to the owning entity — the Industrial Development Company, the Land Administration, the Land Authority or the Department of Housing — whose procedure this Act does not describe.

• Believing all government properties appear: only those of Industrial Development, Land Administration, Land Authority and Housing.
• Looking for municipal properties here: municipalities are not among the four entities bound by this Act.
• Thinking the Registry processes the purchase or lease: it publishes the opportunities, but the procedure runs through the owning entity.
• Assuming you must pay to consult it: the Act requires casual, limited, periodic and free access for the general public.
• Ignoring the debt or liens item: the Act requires publishing it and it is among the most useful things to know before pursuing a property.
• Expecting any type of housing: the housing development framework is limited to social-interest and middle-class housing.
• Taking it for granted the information is current: the duty to notify sales or transfers runs at thirty days from the transaction, and we did not read the Registry.
• Confusing it with the Property Registry: that one records private titles; this is a promotional catalogue of public real estate.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Junta de Planificación de Puerto Rico (JP)

  Junta de Planificación

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov