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SUMMARY

In the second week of May, bills were introduced in the Puerto Rico Senate and House of Representatives that, if approved, would radically alter the permitting process for the Caribbean U.S. Commonwealth. The bills are said to be a solution to the backlog of permits and a means to attract investors and stimulate the ailing economy. The Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, has been outspoken about attracting outside investors to promote construction.

While all sectors of society agree that Puerto Rico’s present permitting process should be updated, the bills as presently drafted have raised serious concerns among professional associations, academia and community groups throughout Puerto Rico, and have been characterized as discriminatory, anti-democratic and unconstitutional. The consensus is that the proposed bills would have a significantly negative impact on the quality of life of Puerto Ricans and on the natural environment of the U. S. Caribbean Commonwealth islands.

The first concern is the accelerated timeframe at which the changes are proceeding through both legislative chambers, seeming like an unfortunate attempt to bypass democratic participation in the decision process.  Unannounced public hearings began in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on a Sunday morning and continued through the Memorial Day holiday weekend, with only 5 representatives seated to listen to professional and community statements being read into the record.

The island municipality of Culebra is seen as particularly vulnerable to the possible negative impacts of the proposed changes. Even so, there have been no public hearings for the local Culebrenses, inhabitants of a geographically isolated island whose socio-economic situation more closely reflects the Virgin Islands than the big island of Puerto Rico. With only a few days to review the 200 pages of proposed legislation, several members of the Culebra community managed to put into the record that their island is especially at risk from this legislation, as the proposed changes would place both the island’s community and their protected natural resources in peril from the many mega-development projects now attempting to gain traction.

In a statement given on the 28th of May to the House of Representatives, the Mayor of Culebra, Abraham Peña Nieves, criticized the legislative proposal to streamline the construction permits and demanded removal of the proposed changes to the Conservation and Development Authority of the Municipality of Culebra (ACDEC.)

“It’s unbelievable that this bill devotes 13 pages, I repeat, 13 pages to the Authority for Conservation and Development of Culebra,

“What hidden interests are behind this part of the bill? Who, with land or interest in over-development disproportionate to our eco-tourism, has put his hand in this project?”

The Mayor recalled that in the last term, the now-convicted former PNP Senator Jorge de Castro Font, tried to dismantle the ACDEC Board.  He told the Representatives: “If we can’t make our case in the House, we go to the Senate, if we can’t make the case in the Senate, we go to La Fortaleza. If we do not manage to stop the speculators, we will fight with the same energy as we fought the Navy for decades.”

Beyond the undemocratic lack of transparency in the legislative process to-date, other objections to the bills as currently drafted include the following points.

• Unconstitutionality: Article 12.3 of the bills includes a requirement for bonding in order to intervene in the planning process. Article 13.1 removes the courts as appellate oversight, referring instead to a self appointed board. Appeals to the decision of this board would go directly to Supreme Court, likely to become desensitized and over burdened. The result of these proposed amendments in these bills will be that community, merchants or community advocates would have to demonstrate standing as decided by appointed government official, and be bonded in order to intervene in the planning process.

• Destruction of environmental and cultural resources: Article 2.6 proposes the elimination of multidisciplinary review for construction projects.  The environmental sustainability or cultural impact of a project would be evaluated by a “Licensed Professional,” a government appointed architect or engineer, not required by law to have expertise in environmental or archeological sciences.

• Will facilitate rather than curb corruption: Article 9.10, indicate that once a structure is built with a permit, it will not be demolished even if an error of law is determined. This would make a permit, whether legally or illegally obtained, extremely valuable, and harm caused by illegal projects irreversible.

• Dubious economic benefit for Culebra:  In Culebra, with its almost non-existent involuntary unemployment, large construction projects employ workers from outside the local community (a majority from neighboring islands), providing little if any local economic benefit and, to the contrary, adding incremental stress, which negatively impacts the quality of life and environment of the locals. Carlos Geigel Bunker, the attorney representing the municipality of Culebra, wrote in a statement to the legislators: “A wise man once said: if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The economy of Culebra is in a much better state than the rest of Puerto Rico, with unemployment and crime almost non-existent, and tourism more stable than throughout Puerto Rico.

• Dubious economic benefit for communities around Puerto Rico: As many developed countries look back at the past 8 years of unsustainable growth resulting in abandoned condominium projects overshadowing skylines and bankrupting economies, it is shocking to see legislation being rushed today with no lessons learned from the global economic crisis. This week the Governor of Florida is about to consider environmental legislation to protect Florida’s coral reefs, and international building trends are focused on green-job creation that also produce meaningful long term benefits for all of society. It is frustrating that, although given only a few days to evaluate the proposed legislation, almost all professional statements agree that the legislation appears to have been penned by hungry and frustrated local developers. This “by any means necessary” development legislation will fuel conflicts that a viable planning legislation should strive to minimize and as a result will not serve the intended purpose of attracting off island investors.

• Environmental impacts to Federally protected and listed critical natural resources and nature tourism: To our knowledge there have been no comments solicited by the legislators or the Governor from the United State Fish and Widlife Service, or the National Marine Fisheries Service, despite the many critical habitat designations that exist for Culebra and Puerto Rico.   The Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Carl Axel Soderberg announced to the press on the 26th of may, that the EPA will be reviewing the proposed changes to evaluate whether the amendments will affect federal programs delegated to states or dependencies.  Visitors from around the world are attracted to Puerto Rico and Culebra for world class beaches, El Yunque, marine reserves, volunteer nesting sea turtles programs, coral reefs and fishing. Tourists do not come to see nature destroyed.

• Amendments being proposed to Law 66, 1975 (as amended) without benefit of meaningful public participation of the Culebrenses violates Article 1(m), Puerto Rico Law 114, June 13, 2006 which further “guarantees the participation of the culebrenses in deliberative and decision-making processes that affect their communities and their environment.”