Tourist Interest Zones: no billboards, cross-street banners or commercial tarpaulins

It is Rule 8.7.10 of Chapter 8.7 of Joint Regulation No. 9473. It governs not a calification district but a designated area: the Tourist Interest Zones, and with them the tourist calification districts. Its logic is to protect those zones’ landscape, urban and environmental quality against visual pollution, and so it closes whole categories of advertisement that other districts do allow.

The rule applies to every sign or advertisement to be sited in a Tourist Interest Zone or in a tourist calification district. Tarpaulins or meshes are evaluated only where they are directed at a public purpose and sponsored by a municipal, state or federal governmental entity; those carrying commercial advertisements are not permitted.

• Having the Tourism Company’s recommendation for every sign or advertisement to be sited in a Tourist Interest Zone or in a tourist calification district.Verified against the official source
• Not installing advertisements, billboards, cross-street banners, digital boards, advertising tarpaulins or any other similar sign or advertisement that affects, through visual pollution, the Zone’s landscape, urban and environmental quality.Verified against the official source
• In the case of tarpaulins or meshes: that they be directed at a public purpose and sponsored by a municipal, state or federal governmental entity.Verified against the official source
• That the sign or advertisement harmonize with the character of the area.Verified against the official source
• That the design be adjusted proportionally to the dimensions of the structure where it will be installed, no more than twenty-five percent (25%) of the area.Verified against the official source
• That they be justified from the standpoint of public necessity and interest.Verified against the official source
• Installing signs or advertisements on the façade constituting the building’s front, or on any other façade with visibility from the public way, all parallel and not perpendicular to the façade on which they are installed.Verified against the official source

• Tourism Company recommendation for the sign or advertisement in the Tourist Interest Zone or tourist calification district.
• Justification from the standpoint of public necessity and interest.

1. 1

   Step 1: First, the Tourism recommendation

   The rule opens with the condition that decides everything else: every sign or advertisement to be sited in Tourist Interest Zones or in tourist calification districts must have the Tourism Company’s recommendation. It applies to both settings — the designated zone and the calification district — and does not distinguish a business sign from a third-party advertisement.

2. 2

   Step 2: What is barred from the start

   The installation of advertisements, billboards, cross-street banners, digital boards, advertising tarpaulins and any other similar sign or advertisement that affects, through visual pollution, the Zone’s landscape, urban and environmental quality is not permitted. The list names five categories and then closes with an open clause: any other similar one producing that effect. It is why a Tourist Interest Zone lacks the billboards and digital boards that do appear along commercial corridors.

3. 3

   Step 3: The only tarpaulin that gets evaluated

   Only tarpaulins or meshes directed at a public purpose and sponsored by a governmental entity — municipal, state or federal — shall be evaluated. And in case of doubt, the rule says it in reverse too: tarpaulins or meshes with commercial advertisements shall not be permitted. Note the verb: the rule says such tarpaulins shall be evaluated, not approved; they remain subject to the section’s other criteria.

4. 4

   Step 4: The criteria for what is allowed

   Three demands govern what passes the filter. Signs and advertisements must harmonize with the character of the area. The design must be adjusted proportionally to the dimensions of the structure where they will be installed, no more than twenty-five percent of the area. And they must be justified from the standpoint of public necessity and interest. That twenty-five percent is notably stricter than the thirty-five percent ruling in other districts of the same chapter.

5. 5

   Step 5: Parallel to the façade, never perpendicular

   Placement is not negotiable. Signs or advertisements shall be installed on the façade constituting the building’s front, or any other of its façades that may have visibility from the public way, all parallel, not perpendicular to the façade on which they are installed. That rules out the projecting or blade sign that juts toward the street, common in other commercial settings. A note on the source: this rule’s items run without letters or numbers, and the requirement to harmonize with the character of the area appears twice in different wordings; we publish it once and record it.

The sign permit is processed before OGPe or the autonomous municipality with the corresponding hierarchy, and in a Tourist Interest Zone or a tourist calification district it must be accompanied by the Tourism Company’s recommendation. The rule publishes no form of its own nor a different office for that recommendation.

• Processing a billboard, cross-street banner or digital board inside a Tourist Interest Zone, where the rule does not permit them.
• Hanging a commercial advertising tarpaulin in a Zone, when only those of public purpose sponsored by a governmental entity are evaluated.
• Installing the sign perpendicular to the façade, when the rule requires them all parallel.
• Going beyond twenty-five percent of the area of the structure where the sign is installed.
• Assuming other districts’ thirty-five percent also applies inside a Tourist Interest Zone.
• Filing without the Tourism Company’s recommendation, which the rule requires for every sign or advertisement in Zones and tourist calification districts.
• Presenting the sign without justifying it from the standpoint of public necessity and interest.
• Designing without attending to the sign harmonizing with the character of the area.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (OGPe)

  OGPe

  docs.pr.gov

• OGPe Single Business Portal

  ogpe

  www.permisos.pr.gov

• Planning Board

  jp

  jp.pr.gov