Davao housing developers asked to set aside 20% for urban poor
by Prix D Banzon
Davao City (4 December) -- Some 20 applications from real property developers are still with the Davao City Council committee on housing pending their submission of proposals with regards to allocation of 20 percent housing balance requirements.
Councilor Arnolfo Renato Cabling, chair of the committee on Housing said that of the high end projects that developers has to put up in the city, they must set aside 20 percent for the urban poor.
He clarified that the 20 percent could either be in a form of raw-land, infrastructure or money and that developers have to sign a memorandum of agreement with the city government.
He said that if developers could provide that 20 percent allocation, it could in a way support initially some 5,000 projects for the poor.
There are others however who already complied like the Alsons Property Development, Inc., which donated 20 hectares land in Bunawan area for their North Crest Subdivision project, a high end subdivision of 15 hectares in Cabantian, Buhangin, this city.
He said the 20 percent housing balance requirements if complied would support the housing requirements for the urban poor even as he stressed that definitely the scheme for this sector is not dole out.
He said their counterpart could be in the form of sweat equity just like what the "Gawad Kalinga" did to the beneficiaries.
The 1997 figure of housing backlog in Davao City of 40,000 has gone high of ten folds and he said they are studying what to do about the problem.
He said with the formulation of the Shelter Code they now have guideline with regards to housing needs especially for the poor.
The city government, he said had been allocated P40 million for shelter program but it was not sustained.
"But I proposed that a budget for the shelter program has to be maintained each year so they could come up with projects that would respond to the housing needs of the poor," he said. (PIA XI) [top]
