IF IT were not for the opposition, Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera said that big developers would not have expressed interest in developing projects in the South Road Properties (SRP).
In an interview last Friday, the opposition councilor said the closure of the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill in December 2016 is a factor for why developers such as the Universal Hotels and Resorts, Inc. (UHRI) and Federal Land wanted to invest there.
“Do you think they would show interest in buying the property if the place stinks?” the councilor told reporters.
If not for the intervention, Garganera believes that UHRI, which is a part of the Gokongwei group of companies, and Manila-based Federal Land would not be interested in doing business at the SRP.
UHRI has proposed to transform Kawit Island into an integrated resort facility that is projected to be worth P18 billion, but the council has disapproved this plan.
Recently, Federal Land also expressed interest to buy a portion of a three-hectare lot in the SRP and develop it into a residential and commercial hub.
The developer is offering to buy the 29,881-square-meter lot at P115,000 per square meter, for a total purchase price of P3.4 billion.
Garganera added that existing locators at the SRP would have pulled out their investments if not for the closure of the landfill.
“Angayan siya (Osmeña) magpasalamat nako kay sa iyahang kagahi og ulo, manghawa na unta kanang present locators dinha. Pero napasirad-an, na-magnet na nuon diha. Siya ra unta ang mu-invest diha kay siya raman wala baho-i. He will move heaven and earth to remove me in the next election,” he said.
Osmeña, though, is unfazed by the councilor’s statement.
“Federal Land long expressed an interest in buying in the SRP. Gargenera should be honest enough to admit that SM, Filinvest and Bigfoot invested in the SRP even before the landfill was closed and even before (former mayor Michael) Rama became mayor. It’s credit-grabbing, obviously. In all the years Garganera was a barangay official, he could not even bring a single investor to his barangay (Tinago),” he said. (RTF)