Quezon City wants environment-friendly buildings

The Quezon City council will push for a "greenfrastructure ordinance" that will require that new buildings be environment-friendly.

Quezon City Vice Mayor Herbert Bautista said one of the city council’s priorities once the performance team of Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. gains a fresh mandate in the coming elections is the enactment of the "greenfrastucture ordinance" to complement the clean and green program undertaken by the city government.

"The greenfrastructure ordinance will require new buildings to have mini-gardens and trees and to recycle water for watering plants within the vicinity," Bautista told city hall employees during yesterday’s flag raising ceremony.

The environment-friendly ordinance will complement the clean and green project to ensure the efficient collection and segregation of garbage.

Quezon City has been named as the second cleanest and greenest city in the county and is also the first local government to comply with the Clean Air Act by converting Payatas from an open to a controlled dumpsite.

Through the use of a methane generator, the city government has tapped methane gas from decaying garbage to provide electricity for the city.

Bautista said that, once enacted, the proposed information and technology (IT) park at the University of the Philippines complex, which will be developed by Ayala Land Inc., will serve as the experimental site for the new measure.

He said an intermodal transport system in the city is also one of the priority legislative measures they seek to implement over the next three years. – Perseus Echeminada