2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-THREE - Public Planning and Development (§§ 1 — 11273) › PART I - Public Planning (§§ 1 — 229ccc) › Chapter 10 - School Zones (§§ 206 — 206l) › § 206 - Purposes

The education of Puerto Rican youth is one of the responsibilities of the Government of Puerto Rico that has the highest priority. In order to achieve the desired physical and intellectual development it is necessary that the educational activity be held in an appropriate and safe environment, free from all noxious activity that is foreign to educational pursuits. It is the public policy to provide the most effective protection and security to students and teachers and create a healthy environment in the schools and their surroundings. It is necessary that the problems which affect the school environment be dealt with in an integrated and coordinated manner by the government agencies that have jurisdiction in these matters, as well as promoting changes in attitudes and encouraging the participation and collaboration of students, teachers and citizens for the benefit of our education.
For the purposes of this chapter, “school” shall be understood to be the main building and every structure, annex, yard, garden and parking area, used for public or private education at the preschool, primary and secondary level, whether of an academic, vocational, technical or performing arts nature, located in urban as well as rural areas of Puerto Rico; “school zone” shall also be understood to be the physical area that surrounds the scholastic nucleus which meets certain requirements of silence, security, neutrality and order during the hours of school activities, which tend to contribute to the proper development of the students. The school zone shall comprise a distance of one hundred (100) linear meters to be calculated from functional accesses to school premises in all directions of the public road, including any transversal or lateral streets, or two hundred (200) radial meters from the school premise limits, for those uses that may adversely affect the development of school activities or the health, well-being and security of users of the school facility.
For purposes of this chapter, “light industry” shall be understood as the manufacturing industry in which the effects of the operation do not significantly transcend the scope of the lot, or that which, along with the installation of environmental control equipment, established voluntarily or by requirement of the Environmental Quality Board or other regulating agencies, mitigate or eliminate any significant adverse effect that could transcend the scope of the lot in which it is located, and by “legal non-conformity”, the use of a property which is not in accordance with the provisions of this chapter or its regulations, but which legally existed prior to its promulgation.
“Heavy industry” shall be understood as that in which machine-tools perform production and where the effects of the production transcend the scope of the facility. Said industries can be recognized because of one or several of the following resulting effects: intense traffic in the transportation of very heavy equipment and products; high consumption of water or electric power; the amount of solid waste accumulated or released; liquid waste which requires treatment; hazardous and non-hazardous waste; the production of heat by combustion or generation of noise above 80 decibels; the discharge of steam into the atmosphere, or the emission of gas or particulate substances that could affect animal and plant life if released into the atmosphere.
History —July 13, 1988, No. 84, p. 345, § 1; Aug. 20, 1997, No. 91, § 1.