A question of area for home lots

I had a talk with the president of Lorega San Miguel last week. Her house was among those that were burned in one of the biggest conflagration that hit the city in recent years.

This Lorega  resident relayed to me the plan of the city to subdivide the city-owned lot to the fire victims so that they may rebuild their homes. It looked to me then that the plan of the city was good. But when I heard some details,  my initial euphoria vanished.

The residents shall be given a home lot with an area of more or less 34 sq meters. This Lorega resident with whom I had a talk told me that this was more or less the area of his home. And so far as they are concerned they will just return to the original size of the residence.

Those living near the cemetery area might be given a much smaller size. The area mentioned was an unthinkable area of 12 meters. But the intended beneficiaries still would welcome the 12 square meters of home lots.

Let's assume that the 34 sq m and the 12 sq m of partialized lots of residences are acceptable to the beneficiaries. I still question the reasonableness of the area.  Manifestations from socialized housing owners project a sad story. The socialized houses that I am talking about have an average area of 40-50 sq m. These are paid by home owners on a program of installment basis. Most of these installments would run for a period of 25 years. Developers of socialized housing make the pricing seemingly attractive because those availing these kind of homes only shoulder an equity of 10%. So the price range of the total package per home of the 40 sq m property is something like 400T. The buyer only pays an initial sum of 40T and moves in to his brand new home. The developer goes to the government and assigns his right for the entire balance. It is the government that collects the installment payments. I have heard that some buyers pay a small sum of money monthly. The figure mentioned is about P7,000.00.

I have observed that a new socialized home lot buyer finds it an improvement of his social standing to move from being a squatter or a renter to a higher status of being a home owner. He is therefore very pleased with his new status that paying P7,000.00 a month does not appear to be very burdensome. But after a year of paying religiously or perhaps a little longer, he begins to realize that a 40 sq. m home lot is still small. True to his human nature he yearns for a bigger space and begins to feel that his monthly amortization is not fulfilling his need that he starts to default his payment. If anyone questions this observation, all that he does is open the inside pages of local dailies. Everyday there is advertised for sale by way of foreclosure proceedings small home lots of about 40 sq. m.

A 34 sq. m. lot of a residence (or worse 12 sq. m. in so far as those living near the cemetery are concerned) might be attractive to a beneficiary. There is no doubt it is an improvement from being only a settler. The status is higher with the resident being an owner of the land. But really, when we acknowledge the fact that a 34 sq. m. home is just a little bigger than a car park, it is not really ideal. Sooner than later the occupant will yearn for a bigger lot. And yes sooner than later he will feel that he has not really improved in his lot. Such that it can be expected that he may not continue with whatever installment form he has availed himself of but would rather default his installment payments and seek another area to settle in.

Before his Honor Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama proceeds with this plan of distributing this diminutive sized home lots he should look farther beyond to the future.  He must conduct further studies not only the immediate effects of the distribution of small-sized properties but in the long term perception.

I am certain that the dire lessons of socialized home buyers will be considered for the mayor to revise his plan.