Strategic urban planning urged

Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Secretary Michael Defensor has urged the central and regional technical staff of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) to push with greater vigor the use of the guidelines on strategic planning for urban areas.

In a message at the HLURB training workshop on the strategic planning guidelines Defensor said strategic planning guidelines will address the problems of the urban sector.

He identified these problems as "rampant spot zoning, conflicting land use demands and land availability, environmental pollution and traffic congestion." Defensor is the HLURB chairman.

Defensor said, "With your technical capability, we hope to carry out these strategic planning guidelines not only to improve the standard of living of urban dwellers, especially the urban poor and their access to urban services, but also to push overall our country’s economic progress."

Local government units are mandated by the Local Government Code to draw up their comprehensive land use plans to set the development pace, direction and strategies for the best use of land resources in their respective communities, including housing projects.

The mechanisms for the housing sector are now in place, Defensor said, what we need is good governance. For land use planning, he said, the LGU officials play a vital role. Under the leadership of the mayor and the sangguniang panglungsod, the LGUs can significantly help the national government in attaining its objectives.

President Arroyo, he recalled, directed government agencies to cut down to 90 days the processing of permits required to start up a housing subdivision project.

The HLURB regional director or the local zoning officer is required by the presidential order to process within 10 days from receipt of the application for certificate of registration and license to sell and after fully complying with documentation and publication rules.

HLURB chief executive officer Romulo Q. Fabul also commended Commissioner Roque Arrieta Magno, chair of the project coordinating committee, and the board’s technical group led by Gracia Ang for successfully pilot-testing the strategic planning project in Cagayan de Oro City.

Fabul also thanked Australia’s Agency for International Development (AusAid) consultants led by Chub Fadgyas and Natalie Fuller for their commitment to help countries like the Philippines develop into world-class communities. "Your inputs certainly bring us not only economic benefits, but also the opportunity to enhance the technical capability of our local planners," Fabul said.

The HLURB had earlier signed an agreement with the Philippine-Australian Governance Facility (PAGF) and AusAid for the drafting and implementation of the guidelines on strategic planning in urban areas. The Philippines is the fourth country, after Indonesia, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea to avail of funding assistance from AusAid in the project. HLURB is the government’s principal agency regulating land and housing development. Full-time HLURB commissioners are Fabul, Teresita A. Desierto, Francisco L. Dagnalan and Magno – PLG News & Views