Tuesday, December 1, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
Antonio V. Osmeña
Estatements
IN PRACTICE, the terms “subdividing” and “developing” are used interchangeably. Professionally, however, the application of these terms differs significantly.
There are owners, operators and speculators, for instance, who are interested only in the less intricate business functions of acquiring tracts of land at wholesale and selling them, subdivided, at retail. In the case of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s pet project, the South Road Properties, the reclaimed area covering a total of more or less 300 hectares of raw land is now being subdivided and offered retail to those interested in developing them.
Filinvest and, more recently, SM, are interested in going far beyond this initial stage of urbanization. They seek to assume business functions that involve the creation of an entire development and the building of “living” areas that will integrate effectively with the surrounding civic and cultural environment, which is the business concept of Mayor Tom.
Literally interpreted, subdividing merely means the breaking up of one or more large tracts of land into smaller sites or plots.
Where subdividing is the owner’s intent, as in the SRP, he need not incur any additional expenses, other than those incidental to reclaiming the foreshore area and survey of the land.
He or she will also have to place markers or stakes at intended plot boundaries and submit a surveyor’s “plat” (or survey plan) of the proposed subdivision for city officials’s approval.
On the other hand, whenever land improvements are carried out in accordance with subdivision plans, and expenditures are made to provide essential site facilities, the field actions are appropriately classified as “land development.” Mayor Osmeña does not favor undertaking this in the SRP.
The SRP was planned and approved as a site for light manufacturing industries. Then, because of China’s cheap labor force, the SRP lost its economic opportunities in light manufacturing.
What the critics are now concerned about is whether the SRP has become a hodgepodge road network. It might be worthwhile for Mayor Osmeña to submit to the public a coordinated road network system, so that Filinvest and SM can synchronize their plans with the master plan for the 300-hectare property.
This road master plan is necessary for all those who wish to invest in either development or joint venture arrangement; they should subscribe to the master plan so that the different developers’s road systems interconnect.
To illustrate: The City of Cebu has consistently failed to implement a comprehensive road network system, thus developed subdivisions have no access to other adjacent properties. Mayor Serging Osmeña Jr. had the planning board prepare a comprehensive road network system, but unfortunately, it has never been properly implemented.
A good look at the map of the City of Cebu will show that different residential subdivision developments do not follow a pattern of achieving a comprehensive road network interconnection.
Cebu’s national roads suffer constant traffic snarls, and the only solution to decongest this is for Metro Cebu’s town and city planning agencies to interconnect municipal and city roads.
Most city-owned roads are narrow, as these were planned earlier for horse-drawn vehicles.
Who, then, among the political candidates have the political will to solve the obsolescent city-owned roads? Thousands of automobiles can no longer be accommodated in the national roads, and secondary city or municipal roads are a must. Hopefully, the SRP will have wide-enough roads for the ever-increasing number of automobiles.
This early, the Cebu Business Park is encountering traffic snarls, because of its road network design.
The introduction of the automobile and the lowering of the cost per vehicle, through mass production, has provided unlimited mobility and affordability, that have caused the urban sprawl.
Well-designed roads and highways need to be accomplished by the government and private land developers. Cebu’s limited coastal plain has made land developers and property owners stingy in providing the public with a generous area for vehicular use.
Will these SRP-awarded developers and buyers follow a certain pattern of road width that will conform to future vehicular traffic needs? Another problem is the greed of land developers who want to maximize profits by sacrificing vehicular amenities.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on December 2, 2009.
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