Not all city government does this but Manila City Government is bold enough to take care of its employees – the very essence why the city government operates. REBPH salutes this initiative.
Employees in the city government will be among the primary beneficiaries of Manila’s public housing projects, Manila Bulletin reported.
Initially, informal settler families and households residing in vulnerable areas were the ones to be accommodated in the government-sponsored shelters. But in the revised plans, the city administration included dwellers who belong to the middle class, covering local government workers. This is in accordance with the goal of providing everyone an opportunity to own a condominium in the city.
According to Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, 35 percent of the capacity of the government housing will be dedicated to the working class. Beneficiaries will receive a unit that has 40 square meters, equipped with two bedrooms.
Build, Build Manila
The government housing project forms part of the bigger initiative of the city called Build, Build Manila, inspired by the national government’s massive infrastructure program Build, Build, Build.
Back in September, Manila Bulletin reported that the city allocated P10 billion for the construction of public housing and improvement of the Ospital ng Maynila.
Tondominiums 1 and 2, which are part of the Build, Build Manila program, broke ground in June at Vitas, the city’s most densely populated slum area. Meanwhile, Binondominium, a vertical housing project located in Del Pan, started construction in July.
The city government had ten more sites identified for government housing.
Last month, Mayor Domagoso visited the Binondominium site and expressed plans of connecting the building to the nearby basketball court to provide an activity area for the future residents. There will be an access road as well that leads to the nearby leisure park.
New Rules, New Normal
Meanwhile, the inter-agency National Human Settlements Board (NHSB) announced last month that they will be setting a minimum size standard for future housing projects to accommodate physical distancing requirements amid the pandemic, Business Mirror reported.
The new rules will include the number of rooms per housing unit to provide space for those who will be in quarantine.
The Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) explained that each member of the household must have six sqm in their home to observe physical distancing.
The current sizes of houses in the metro fall short of this standard, since approximately a third of the capital region’s population live in less than 20-square-meter homes, with an average number of 4.7 people in each household.
Aside from housing projects’ standard sizes, the NHSB will be offering new financing options to help Filipinos buy a home. The board will be evaluating the price ceiling for socialized subdivision and condominium projects.
Moreover, they will talk about the loan ceiling for economic, low, and medium-cost housing, draft details of the Balai Rental Housing Program, and establish a housing microfinance initiative.
VAT-Free Socialized Housing
On the matter of socialized housing, property developers have been calling for the delay of reinstating taxes in low-cost projects in 2021, Philstar reported.
Under Republic Act 10963, or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, low-cost housing, residential lots worth up to P1.9 million and house and lot units up to P3.2 million, is exempted from payment of value added tax (VAT) until December 31, 2020. On January 1, 2021, only those worth P2 million and below would be VAT-free.
The Subdivision and Housing Developers Association Inc. (SHDA) said that the taxes would make developers increase prices and discourage buyers altogether.
The Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Secretary Eduardo del Rosario said that the imposition of tax can significantly affect the sales of homes that accommodate low-income buyers.
Not all city government does this but Manila City Government is bold enough to take care of its employees – the very essence why the city government operates. REBPH salutes this initiative.
He acknowledged the private sector’s contribution to addressing the country’s housing backlog. According to statistics as of May, private developers have built 75.4 percent of 30,096 state-funded homes, settled through concessional government loans. The National Housing Authority (NHA) directly built only 9,820 houses.
According to CNN Philippines, the country is facing a housing backlog of 6.5 million for both formal and informal sectors. Northern Samar Rep. Paul Daza, the sponsor for the DHSUD’s 2021 budget, said that a fund allocation of P30 billion is necessary annually for the next 20 years to solve the backlog.
He likewise mentioned the importance of streamlining transactions to enable projects to take off and provide the housing the poor and most vulnerable need, Manila Bulletin reported.
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Article and Photo originally posted by Lamudi last December 7, 2020. Minor edits have been made by REBPH to cater to its own readers.
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i like this very appropriate article