P.R. Laws tit. 17, § 117
The Puerto Rico Planning Board is hereby authorized: (1) to prepare and draw up a practicable commonwealth program for the clearance, control, and rehabilitation of slums and blighted areas, including urban renovation, which program shall provide for establishing in Puerto Rico a methodical urban renovation procedure financially possible of execution by the Commonwealth and connoting a well planned and well organized course of action which will bring into use every instrument, both public and private, for the prevention of slums but which is not confined to physical rehabilitation, to the preservation of communal unity, and to slum clearance, so that in the long run healthy cities and towns will develop, and (2) to prepare for each community, either at the request thereof or whenever deemed meet, a practicable program (which may include a plan for official action such as now exists) for effectively dealing from time to time with the problem of slum areas, blighted areas, run-down areas, and areas in the process of becoming blighted in the community, for establishing and maintaining a well planned community with well organized areas or residential units of decent homes and surroundings fit and proper to live in, for utilizing public and private means for clearing and preventing the development or expansion of slums, urban blight, and deterioration, for promoting the necessary urban rehabilitation, and for providing for the redevelopment of slum areas, blighted areas, and run-down areas, or carrying out such of the aforementioned activities or such of any other practicable activities as may meetly be utilized for achieving the objectives of such program. Every practicable program prepared under this section by the Puerto Rico Planning Board for any community shall be submitted for the study of the local planning committee, if any there be, of the community concerned. Such local planning committee shall, within a period which shall not exceed forty-five (45) days following receipt of such program, submit to the mayor of the community and to the Puerto Rico Planning Board a report embodying its recommendations with regard to the said program. In approving a practicable program proposed for a community, the Puerto Rico Planning Board shall take into consideration the recommendations of the local planning committee and such approval shall be evidenced through a resolution duly adopted by the Puerto Rico Planning Board. Upon approving a practicable program proposed for a community, the Puerto Rico Planning Board shall submit such program to the mayor of the community for his consideration. The mayor of the community shall, within a period which shall not exceed forty-five (45) days following receipt thereof, either approve or disapprove such program for the community. Should the mayor approve the proposed practicable program, such program shall be the one which becomes effective for the community, but if the mayor disapproves such program, same shall be ineffective and inoperative. Should the mayor in any case take no action whatsoever, either by way of approving or by way of disapproving the proposed program within the prescribed period of forty-five (45) days, the said proposed practicable program shall then, upon the expiration of the said period of forty-five (45) days, be considered as disapproved and shall be ineffective and inoperative. In communities in which a local planning committee has not been set up, the Puerto Rico Planning Board shall, upon adopting a resolution approving a practicable program proposed for any such community, submit such program directly to the mayor of such community for subsequent action pursuant to the procedure hereinabove prescribed.
History —May 9, 1947, No. 97, p. 226, added as § 20 on June 20, 1955, No. 82, p. 302, § 1.