|
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Osmeña: Ill-equipped government planning boards
By Antonio V. Osmeña
In ecological or land use planning, decisions to grant permits for residential, commercial, industrial or other uses of land are normally made by our country’s hundreds of separate city and municipal governments.
Relatively few of these local governments have the money, staff and information needed to do comprehensive land use planning. This major problem has resulted in hodgepodge attempts to limit or promote growth, based primarily on the extrapolation and reaction to crisis methods of land-use planning. The artificial political boundaries of cities, towns and barangays bear little relation to the natural airsheds, watersheds and ecosystems in an area. As a result, land use planning and control in one area may be undercut by lack of planning—or planning—in the neighboring local government unit.
Cebu towns and cities should set up advisory councils of government (COGs) to draft and implement integrated land use plans for the entire province. The councils should have the expertise, funds and the authority to implement decisions. There are environmental nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that can help make inventories of their respective natural communities—the ecosystem, and the plant and animal life it contains. Such information can be useful in developing comprehensive land use policies at the national, regional and local levels.
Japan is the only country with comprehensive planning and zoning. The entire nation is divided into five major land use zones (urban, agricultural, parks, nature reserves and forests). Congress should enact laws establishing guidelines for land use but leave the actual planning to localities.
There is a need to preserve urban open space. Mayor Tom and the City Council need to be concerned with preserving open space within and around urban areas. Urban open space can be a large, medium or small area of land or water in or near an urban area that can be used for recreational, aesthetic or ecological functions. To some people, urban open space means large wooded areas, wildlife sanctuaries and other natural areas. These areas provide habitat for wildlife and help reduce noise, air and water pollution.
These areas provide quiet and beautiful places where urban dwellers can experience natural diversity. They also help block harmful patterns of urban growth and development.
Some consider urban open space as moderate-sized areas set aside within urban areas for picnic, boating, swimming, playgrounds, zoos and other forms of recreation. To other individuals, it means small abandoned lots, dried-up creeks, abandoned road beds and other strips and patches of unused urban land that can be revitalized for use as vest-pocket parks and playgrounds, bicycle and jogging trails and other recreational or aesthetic uses.
The Cebu City Government, for lack of land use choices, continues to squander valuable areas to illegal squatters instead of preserving them as urban open space. But it is not yet too late. Government planning and zoning officers, and business and political leaders can lobby and support a national, regional and local comprehensive land use plan.
(August 31, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
