‘NHA policy flip-flop may delay housing project’
CHANGES in fund release policies of the National Housing Authority will delay implementation of the Cebu City urban poor housing project.
Collin Rosell, head of the Department for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP), said the change in policy in the NHA’s P12-million outlay for the development of the city’s resettlement site in a mountain barangay expected to accommodate 300 families would cause the delay in implementing the project.
“We will have to make the necessary clarifications with NHA before we proceed with the project,” he told Cebu Daily News.
NHA has offered the city a P78-million loan and a P12-million grant for the city’s urban poor housing projects.
Rosell said the city applied for authority to use the P12-million grant to develop the city’s existing relocation in Kapasar II in Budlaan.
The P78-million loan was also pegged for medium-rise condominium units at the old Lorega cemetery to accommodate danger zone occupants.
However, Rosell said NHA disapproved of the use of the P12-million fund for Kapasar I, which has a slope of 20 to 30 meters. NHA requires resettlement sites to only have a slope of 15 meters.
Rosell said he was thinking of applying for use of the P12-million outlay for development of the city’s resettlement site in the mountain barangay of Sinsin, which could accommodate about 300 families.
NHA already agreed to the Sinsin relocation site but sent word that instead of a P12 million grant, half of it would have to recoverable.
“Nag flip flop ang NHA. The last time we talked, I was told the funding will be given to the city as a grant but now they are changing the guideline to make it recoverable by at least 50 percent. I will have to check on that first because if that were the case then our approach will also have to be different. How can we recover if development is slow?”
Rosell said he does not have the same problems with the proposed Lorega urban poor condominium which the NHA approved for use of the P78 million loan.
