P.R. Laws tit. 21, § 4621
The municipalities, the Planning Board, the Permit Management Office and the public agencies concerned are hereby empowered, as may be pertinent to each according to its jurisdictional scope, and pursuant to the provisions of an ordinance plan or a land use plan, to provide, administer or require the collection of a fee for the new development projects to defray expenses for the provision of public communal uses including infrastructure such as roads, mass transportation, aqueducts, sanitary sewers, electric energy, telephones and ports and airports, within or outside the boundaries of the project, as a direct result of said project. This power shall be exercised according to the regulations adopted by the Planning Board for such a purpose. A development project shall be liable to exaction by impact when it has an impact on the provision of communal uses, including the infrastructure.
Exactions by impact shall meet the following requirements:
(a) They shall be determined systematically and with due justifications which show the criteria used to establish the exaction; the service levels may be specified for various types of areas.
(b) They shall be determined with regard to the demands of the infrastructure of the project and of other communal uses, according to the cost of satisfying said demand.
(c) They shall not exceed a fee proportional to the cost incurred or to be incurred to provide the infrastructure or other communal uses required to meet the new demands.
(d) They shall avoid duplication, taking into consideration other payments, if any, that are made to provide infrastructure or other communal uses.
(e) They shall have a relationship between the fees collected and the benefits received and shall be proportional to their impact.
(f) They shall pay for the direct costs of the new development and not arise from the needs of the existing established communities or from the recurrent expenses of the municipality.
(g) The calculation of the exactions and their application shall be documented and justified in an ordinance plan or a land use plan.
The collection of the exactions shall be covered into a special fund for the provision of the infrastructure or other communal facilities related to the impact of the project and may and shall not be used to defray recurrent expenses of the municipality or the infrastructure agencies. The regulations adopted for this purpose by the Planning Board will provide the procedures for collecting fees, including their relationship with the powers transferred and provide the terms and conditions for the use of the funds collected.
History —Aug. 30, 1991, No. 81, § 13.023; Oct. 29, 1992, No. 84, § 81.