Cagayan de Oro City—The Organization of Socialized Housing Developers of the Philippines, Inc. is calling on the government to streamline the requirements for building housing projects.
OSHDP chairman Christopher Ryan Tan said that currently 68 regulatory permits must be secured to build a low-cost socialized housing project. “That would take at least two years to accomplish and the housing need rises while we are still processing permits.”
At the 7th OSHDP national convention here, Tan said that for the last 21 years, their organizations have supported government programs for affordable socialized housing, giving inputs based on their studies.
Earlier this week, Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo, citing records from the National Housing Authority, said there is a backlog of 5.7 million houses in 2016.
Tan said the OSHDP is supporting the creation of the Department of Housing that would cater to the needs of the housing sector.
“We are supporting the need to create a department of housing, the same way we are supporting the Land Use Act,” he said.
Tan added that they are also studying the proposal to remove the value-added tax exemption for social housing.
“We are also studying the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Moratorium on Land Conversion as this will affect access to land that is needed to develop housing projects,” he said.
“If we restrict access to land, available land would be more costly, especially in the urban areas,” Tan added.
“That’s why our call is not to prefer our sector (housing) but to come up with balanced priorities and balanced development with concern and compassion since our urban areas more often than not are stricken by calamities,” he said.
Tan said that land inaccessibility may leave more people without houses as the land available may be too expensive, especially for socialized housing.
He pointed out that only 2.5 percent of the land area of the country has been developed, “so it is not true that we are running out of land, we just need to develop these lands outside our cities.”
“The government must come in to subsidize low-cost housing, we need to graduate it into the formal housing sector,” Tan said.
According to him, the lowest cost of socialized housing is at P450 thousand.
He said another solution might be mid-rise social housing, but it would require government subsidies.
“This will take up less land and supply affordable housing in the city,” Tan said.
These mid-rise condominiums would also be environmentally sustainable as they will integrate green development, he said.
Tan also suggested that a government-to-government approach in dealing with regulatory requirements be taken.