§910 — Title 48 Territories and Insular Possessions | U.S. Code

Summary

Puerto Rico’s legislature can create public corporate authorities or let cities, towns, or other public bodies handle slum clearance, urban redevelopment, and urban renewal. Those bodies may take on the powers, duties, and responsibilities needed to get federal help under Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 (Public Law 171, Eighty-first Congress), 42 U.S.C. 1450 et seq., including things like planning and zoning. Public corporate authorities, however, cannot levy taxes or pledge the territory’s or any municipality’s full faith and credit to back a loan. The legislature can set how members of those authorities are chosen and what powers they have. It can let them accept federal aid and, despite other federal laws, borrow money and issue notes, bonds, or similar obligations as the legislature allows. Those obligations are debts only of the issuing authority. They are not debts of the United States, Puerto Rico, or any city or local government, and they do not count against federal borrowing limits that apply to Puerto Rico or its local governments.

Title 48, §910

Territories and Insular Possessions — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

The government of Puerto Rico acting through its legislature, may create a public corporate authority or authorities and may authorize such authority or authorities or any other public corporate authority or any municipal corporation or political subdivision, acting directly or through any officer or agency thereof or through a public corporate authority, to undertake slum clearance and urban redevelopment projects and urban renewal projects and to do all things, exercise any and all powers, and to assume and fulfill any and all obligations, duties, responsibilities, and requirements, including but not limited to those relating to planning and zoning, necessary or desirable for receiving Federal assistance under title I of the Housing Act of 1949 (Public Law 171, Eighty-first Congress), as amended [42 U.S.C. 1450 et seq.], or any other law, except that public corporate authorities (as distinct from municipalities or political subdivisions) created or authorized to operate in accordance with this Act, as amended, shall not be given any power of taxation or any power to pledge the full faith and credit of the people of the Territory, or municipality, or political subdivision, as the case may be, for any loan whatever. The Legislature of Puerto Rico may, with respect to any public corporate authority or authorities empowered or which may be empowered to undertake slum clearance and urban redevelopment projects and urban renewal projects, provide for the appointment and terms of office of the members thereof, and for the powers of such authorities, including authority to accept whatever benefits the Federal Government may make available for slum clearance and urban redevelopment projects and urban renewal projects, and authority, notwithstanding any other Federal law, to borrow money and to issue notes, bonds, and other obligations of such character and maturity, with such security, and in such manner as the respective legislatures may provide. Such notes, bonds, and other obligations shall not be a debt of the United States, or of any Territory or municipal corporation or other political subdivision or agency thereof other than the public corporate authority which issued such notes, bonds, or obligations, nor constitute a debt, indebtedness, or the borrowing of money within the meaning of any limitation or restriction on the issuance of notes, bonds, or other obligations contained in any laws of the United States applicable to Puerto Rico, or to any municipal corporation or other political subdivision or agency thereof.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

The Housing Act of 1949 (Public Law 171, Eighty-first Congress), as amended, referred to in text, is act July 15, 1949, ch. 338, 63 Stat. 413. Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 was classified generally to subchapter II (§ 1450 et seq.) of chapter 8A of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, and was omitted from the Code pursuant to section 5316 of Title 42 which terminated the authority to make grants or loans under such title I after Jan. 1, 1975. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

note set out under section 1441 of Title 42 and Tables. This Act, referred to in text, means act

July 18, 1950, ch. 466, 64 Stat. 344, known as the Territorial Enabling Act of 1950, which enacted sections 480 to 480b, 483a, 483b, 721 to 721b, 910 to 910b, 1408 to 1408e of this title, amended sections 481 to 483 and 722 of this title, and enacted provisions set out as notes under section 480, 481, and 722 of this title. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Tables. Codification Section was not enacted as part of the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act which comprises this chapter. section 101 of act

July 18, 1950, cited as a credit to this section, as applicable to Alaska and Hawaii, was classified to section 480 and 721 of this title.

Amendments

1955—Act Aug. 11, 1955, included urban renewal projects, and inserted “as amended” after “(Public Law 171, Eighty-first Congress)” and after “this Act”.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Urban Renewal ActivitiesFinancial assistance available for urban renewal projects, see section 107(1), (2) of act Aug. 11, 1955.

§910 Slum clearance and urban redevelopment and renewal projects; powers of government