Senate hearing exposes sharp divide over PC 1557, the short‑term rental bill

Senator Ada García Montes convened the Commission on Education, Tourism and Culture on April 29, 2024, to take testimony on Proyecto de la Cámara 1557, which would create a regulatory framework for short‑term rentals in Puerto Rico. Witnesses represented a wide cross‑section — neighborhood residents, condo owners, Hispanic Federation, hotel associations, industry coalitions and major platforms — and delivered sharply conflicting recommendations.

Community groups and the Asociación de Titulares de Condominios told the commission the bill as currently amended treats short‑term rentals as effectively “residential” for some legal purposes while only recognizing their commercial character for tax collection. Marimar Pérez Riera, president of the condominium association, said that approach leaves condominium owners without tools to stop what they described as the intensive commercial use of communal facilities: “El arrendamiento a corto plazo es una actividad comercial que debe regularse en consecuencia,” she said, urging the Senate to define the activity as commercial for all regulatory purposes.

Hispanic Federation presented research linking the proliferation of short‑term rentals to housing‑cost pressures and displacement in a…