Developers offer help on Metro slum problem

The country’s largest group of real estate and housing developers has proposed a public-private partnership to resolve the worsening urban squalor.

The proposal of the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association Inc. (SHDA), which counts over 200 chapters nationwide as members, entails construction investments on its part and subsidy from and the provision of housing loans by the government.

According to the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, over 570,000 informal-settler families live in communities with unacceptable sanitary standards, high crime rates, and lower access to education and employment.  Four out of 10 residents of Metro Manila now live in the slums.

Under the SHDA proposal, private developers will prepare building plans, undertake and finance the construction of socialized low-rise buildings, assist in the processing of housing loans for informal-settler families, and organize a condominium corporation for these housing projects.

The SHDA, of which Paul Tanchi is chair and national president, hopes that in turn, the government will subsidize the provision of in-city land that is fully developed and buildable.

Government agencies can then assist by recognizing the project as the developers’ compliance with the socialized housing requirement, setting a price ceiling for the socialized housing units, and extending affordable home loan values to the beneficiaries.

Details of the SHDA proposal will be explained at the 22nd National Developers’ Convention and General Membership Meeting on Sept. 26-27 at the Fairmont Makati.

For details, contact the SHDA secretariat at 8561554 or e-mail [email protected].