White Papers

Occasional research and policy analysis from //Avvia on the technical and regulatory issues shaping infrastructure, real estate, and public investment in Puerto Rico.

Toward a Puerto Rican Seismic Retrofit Incentive

By Alex G. Miranda-Poggys, PhD, PE, PMP - August 2026

Excerpt (Executive Summary): Puerto Rico sits at the intersection of severe seismic risk and an aging, under-retrofitted building stock, yet has no dedicated fiscal incentive to drive private-sector seismic upgrades. This white paper examines Italy's Superbonus, Ecobonus, and Sismabonus programs, three fiscal-incentive mechanisms that mobilized billions in private building-renovation investment, and distills the design choices that made them effective (and the pitfalls that made them costly). It then proposes a framework for a Puerto Rican Seismic Retrofit Incentive, tailored to the Commonwealth's fiscal constraints, housing stock, and regulatory environment, as a policy pathway to reduce seismic risk while catalyzing local construction and engineering activity.