Industrial parks near Buenos Aires: the legal definition

Buenos Aires provincial Law 13.744 sets up the regime of Agrupamientos Industriales, industrial groupings, for the whole provincial territory. It was passed on October 3, 2007 and published in the official gazette on November 9, 2007, and its article 29 remains vetoed by the promulgation decree. Law 14.792, published in the official gazette on December 21, 2015, rewrote articles 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 18 and 24.

An agrupamiento industrial is, in the words of article 2, a property enabled for the settlement of manufacturing and service activities, with infrastructure, common services and suitable equipment for running them. Article 24 types them in categories a) to f) (the statutory text says "five (5)" but enumerates six):

• Parque Industrial, industrial park: a bounded piece of the industrial zone, laid out and subdivided for manufacturing and service plants, with the infrastructure, equipment and services the provincial executive sets.
• Sector Industrial Planificado (SIP), planned industrial sector: the same design and subdivision logic, with the infrastructure conditions the provincial executive determines.
• Área de Servicios Industriales y Logística: groupings of complementary services for industry.
• Incubadoras de Empresas, business incubators: space for the temporary settlement of micro and small businesses.
• Unidades Modulares Productivas: spaces for installations tied to technology driven processes, with access to roads or routes.
• Small and medium industrial parks: premises for at least two manufacturing or service companies that, by their size and infrastructure, do not meet the licensing and operating conditions set by the law, with a minimum surface of 1,500 m2.

Article 38 explains where the industrial zone comes from: the lands a municipality delimits under its own land use and zoning law. An industrial park is always a piece of that zone with an approved design and subdivision.

Article 25 applies sector classifications (general, sector-specific or scientific and technological) to industrial parks, SIPs, industrial services and logistics areas, and business incubators, article 24(a)–(d), not all six categories. Article 26 classifies by promoter: official, private, mixed or promotional mixed. Check the category and applicable classifications in the recognition act.

The difference is a decree. Article 28 says that creating, expanding or renaming a Parque Industrial or a Sector Industrial Planificado is formalized by a decree of the provincial executive once the statutory requirements are in place.

Behind the decree sits a project file submitted to the authority with: documents on title to the land, municipal feasibility reports, the hydraulic aptitude of the site, the planimetry subdividing it into parcels and internal streets, the detail of services supply and of industrial and stormwater effluent handling, and a draft of the Reglamento de Administración y Funcionamiento, the administration and operating bylaws (article 4).

A real creation decree reads like a complete administrative act. The one that created the Sector Industrial Planificado de Moreno 1 in April 2021 classifies the grouping, fixes its parcels by cadastral reference, records that the site sits in a zone suitable for industrial siting and that the competent authority issued the environmental impact certificate, and notes that the provincial industrial development directorate verified the completion of the infrastructure works and approved the administration and operating bylaws.

The downside of the alternative is documented in the policy statement behind the bill enacted as Law 13.744: it describes groupings without a creation decree that are not parks under provincial law, with companies that could not access the benefits of the provincial industrial promotion law and, in the worst cases, could not obtain a deed for their sites. Article 22 adds a consequence: using the names the law reserves, or any name likely to mislead, draws a warning or a fine for the owner, the intermediary and everyone involved.

Order matters: the status of the development first, your site second. If you are looking at a standalone plot inside a municipal industrial zone, Land and land use follows that route instead.

The provincial Ministry of Production, Science and Technological Innovation publishes a Buscador de Agrupamientos Industriales, a search over the provincial register of industrial groupings. Every line carries the name and the type, and you search by name: entries include AZUL I - PI, LA PLATA - PI and EZEIZA - PIP Canning I. A matching entry is a starting point, not a replacement for the creation or recognition act. If a name is absent or the lookup fails, ask the Ministry for confirmation: absence from the search does not prove illegality.

The province also publishes the Agrupamientos Industriales dataset on its open data portal, listing the groupings approved by decree. It was released on February 22, 2019 and updates once a year. The latest update published for the dataset is dated May 20, 2026. It is an annual publication, not a real-time legal register: use it to locate the decree and then check its current status. Small and medium parks have municipal recognition under article 8; do not automatically extend the PI and SIP decree requirement to them.

PlataStar has area pages with the listings at Parque Industrial Pilar, in the north of the metro area, and Parque Industrial Canning, in the south. Match each name against the Buscador before you go further.

What it gives sits in the definition: infrastructure, common services and equipment for manufacturing and service activities (article 2). The decree that created Moreno 1, for example, records the completion of infrastructure works before recognizing the grouping.

What it asks starts with the Reglamento de Administración y Funcionamiento. Article 8 sets its minimum content: how the administration is organized and works, which share of common expenses falls on each industrial parcel or functional unit, the conditions and duties around the use of common assets and services, and the operating conditions for that type of grouping. It is the document that defines what you may do inside the site, so read it before you sign anything.

A non profit Ente Administrador runs the administration, with compulsory membership for title holders (article 10). Internal streets and common assets reserved for official purposes are ceded to the municipality or the province through the approved planimetry and belong to them alone (articles 19 and 20).

Ordinary and extraordinary service charges, expensas, are an inexcusable duty of the parcel owner (article 15), and article 21 provides for warnings, fines and closure as sanctions for breaches of the law. Your side of the deal carries a concrete load too: article 13 conditions free disposal of the property on having completed the works project behind its industrial siting (radicación).

Law 11.459, article 3 generally requires a Certificado de Aptitud Ambiental (CAA) before the municipal industrial permit. Article 16 exempts first-category establishments qualifying as microenterprises under Law 11.936 and its regulation from prior environmental fitness: they may seek the permit with a sworn report on location and operating conditions. Confirm eligibility and the current process with the environmental authority and municipality; the exception does not remove the grouping CAA. The general allocation is provincial for third category and municipal for first and second, but is not absolute: Decree 531/2019, Annex 1, article 3 assigns provincial-jurisdiction premises to the provincial authority regardless of category and allows agreements for second category where the municipality lacks technical capacity or resources.

Being inside a park changes one piece, not the whole board. Article 4 of Law 11.459 says industrial parks and every other form of industrial grouping must hold, in addition to the duties attaching to each establishment, their own environmental fitness certificate, issued in all cases by the implementing authority and before any municipal or provincial permit. That certificate attests the fitness of the chosen zone and the fit of the types of industry allowed to locate in the park or grouping.

Decree 531/2019 reserves the grouping CAA to the provincial environmental authority. It names OPDS or its successor: today this is the Ministerio de Ambiente de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, whose responsibilities appear in Law 15.477, article 20. A valid historical certificate may name OPDS; do not reject it on that ground alone. Annex 1, article 4 provides no routine renewal, but requires a new CAA for changes to admitted industry types or categories or proposed expansion. Consult the environmental instructions portal for the current process.

Where your plant requires a CAA, the certificate runs through three integrated phases: the environmental complexity classification (CNCA), the authorization to build the works and the authorization to operate (article 11), with a four-year validity set by the same article. Before all of that, Law 11.459 allows a prior feasibility consultation with the municipality, which must answer within ten days for first and second categories and twenty for the third, valid for 180 calendar days (article 14).

The paperwork does not change because you sit in a park: a description of the industrial activity, the plant project, the treatment and destination of waste, a location in a suitable zone with a characterization of the surroundings, and a feasibility report for water, gas and power supply (article 7).

Inside a grouping, the two forms the law names are a lease and a transfer of ownership of a parcel or functional unit.

In a lease contract, article 15 requires the tenant to declare expressly that they know the rules applying to the property and submit to them and to the administration bylaws. The owner is not released: they answer jointly with their tenant for the service charges. Make sure that declaration is written into the contract, and load expensas into your numbers from month one. Leasing a warehouse or depot continues with the lease contract itself.

When you buy a parcel, article 13 guarantees full ownership: you may sell the property or encumber it with real rights as long as common areas stay untouched and you have completed the works project behind its industrial siting. Property taxes, fees and levies on the parcel fall on the owner alone.

The deed carries two checks specific to the regime. Article 17 obliges the escribano, the notary, to record the restrictions set by the law, its regulation and the bylaws of each grouping, and to request from the administrator a certificate of no outstanding service charges before the act. And where the grouping was subdivided under Law 13.512, the Reglamento de Copropiedad y Administración, the co ownership and administration bylaws, is the instrument sufficient to constitute the administering body, with its text approved beforehand; the land registry notes the restrictions on the title record of each parcel (article 10).

1. Ask for the creation decree

   Number, date, parcels and category of the creation or recognition act. For PI and SIP request the provincial decree; for small and medium parks, municipal recognition under article 8. Compare lookup and act; consult the Ministry if they do not match.

2. Read the grouping CAA

   It must come from the competent provincial environmental authority and cover admitted industries. A historical certificate may name OPDS: check its current validity with the Ministry of Environment. For changes in admitted types or categories or expansion, check the certificate for that change.

3. Read the bylaws and the charges

   Permitted uses, restrictions, each parcel share of common expenses and how the administering body works, under article 8.

4. Sequence your own procedures

   Confirm environmental category, competent authority and any first-category microenterprise exception. Then coordinate prior consultation, CAA phases where required or the permitted sworn report, and municipal authorization; park membership does not replace those procedures.

5. Fix the contract

   In a lease, the declaration of knowledge of and submission to the bylaws. In a purchase, the notary, the record of restrictions and the certificate of no outstanding charges.