2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE ONE - The Commonwealth (§§ 1 — 5289) › Chapter 21 - Discrimination Against Disabled Persons Prohibited (§§ 501 — 511b) › § 507 - Reorganization of programs and facilities

Public or private institutions that offer and render education services at all levels may not discriminate against persons with disabilities and shall make the arrangements and adopt those affirmative measures to ensure equal educational opportunities to students with disabilities. To those effects it is hereby provided that:
(a) Public or private institutions must commence and carry out, in the measure which their financial resources and facilities allow, a reorganization and restructuring of their programs and facilities so that they are totally accessible to persons with physical, mental or sensory disabilities. For such purposes, the Disabled Persons Investigating Official may request that they submit a plan on the methods needed to achieve said access, which shall include measures such as: redesign of equipment, scheduling of classes or activities in accessible buildings, designating assistants to persons with disabilities, remodeling of existing facilities or construction of new ones, including the identification, through tactile signs written in Braille System in Spanish level I, which shall be located at the main entrance of buildings that house associations, societies, federations, institutes, entities, natural or juridical persons, including all public agencies, offices, bodies, corporations, buildings, and facilities that carry out, offer or render any service, program, or activity, to which persons with disabilities resort.
The sign shall follow all specifications contained in the guidelines known as American with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines, known by its acronym ADAAG for the removal of architectural barriers in its Sections 4.30.4—4.30.6, which establish the measurement, height and size of letters, etc., and the Uniform Federal Architectural Standards (UFAS.) In the selection of methods to make their program accessible to persons with disabilities, public or private institutions shall give priority to those methods or measures that allow the implementation thereof in an integrated, easy and efficient manner.
(b) Those nonprofit institutions that are duly registered with the Department of State may request that the Planning Board and the Regulations and Permits Administration, as well as any other government entity subject to the regulations that govern the construction industry in Puerto Rico, exempt those institutions from the payment of the construction, remodeling, alteration or improvements fees when the purpose of the project is to provide accessibility and mobility for persons with disabilities. Likewise those persons with disabilities, their relatives to the third degree of consanguinity and to the second degree of affinity or their legal guardians may request exemption from the payment of the construction, remodeling, alteration or improvements fees when the purpose of the project is to provide accessibility and mobility to those persons with disabilities in their own homes as well as the homes of their relatives.
(c) By 2020, forty percent (40%) of the recreational facilities operated by any government entity and private for-profit and nonprofit entity, for use by the citizens shall have adaptive equipment for persons with disabilities, within a staggered compliance plan, in order to integrate them into all the activities or attractions offered by such recreational facility. The staggered compliance plan shall be implemented as follows: fifteen percent (15%) by 2015, with subsequent five percent (5%) increases per year until forty percent (40%) is achieved by 2020.
History —July 2, 1985, No. 44, p. 155, § 7, renumbered as § 8 and amended on Dec. 20, 1991, No. 105, § 9; Aug. 11, 2001, No. 102, § 1; Sept. 7, 2004, No. 251, § 3; July 30, 2007, No. 91, § 2; Aug. 13, 2008, No. 259, § 2; July 1, 2011, No. 155, § 1.