Saturday, July 07, 2007 More study set on traffic in Cebu City north
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is meeting with homeowners’ associations and business owners to get their take on the temporary moratorium on development projects from the Banilad area up to Barangay Binaliw.
As a direct consequence, the “careful evaluation and selective approval” of applications will be extended.
Controlling development in the north district, the mayor said, will impact on the city for the next 30 to 40 years, and not acting on development applications while a study is being made for a few months is just “a spot in eternity.”
Without any legislation supporting it, City Hall’s executive department implemented an expanded moratorium while the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) is yet to come up with results of its traffic study on the Talamban cluster.
“You don’t need an ordinance if it’s only temporary... But we might eventually make it permanent, depending on the request... We don’t really have to implement it, we just sit on the applications,” Osmeña has said.
Majority of the affected barangay captains are in agreement with the move, which came months after the council imposed a moratorium in Banilad because of the worsening traffic problem.
But the move also followed Osmeña’s conflict with Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, who is pushing for Ciudad, a proposed development on a Capitol-owned lot in Barangay Banilad.
The mayor said yesterday that outputs of a series of dialogues he plans to conduct will be incorporated in the results of the traffic study.
Dialogue
Business owners, meanwhile, have expressed their concerns to City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem on the possible effects of the moratorium on their ventures.
The mayor has said they should remember that in buying properties in the Talamban cluster, they knew of the risks, which include the moratorium. If there’s a gridlock in traffic, property values plummet anyway, he said.
“They should realize that I’m doing this for them,” the mayor said, referring to residents and business owners.
The mayor already asked former Banilad barangay captain Leah Japson, a newly elected city councilor, to set appointments for him in the barangay.
He said he will keep on talking with different homeowners until he gets a common sentiment among them.
“Different places have different reactions from the people. We will play it by ear,” he said.
The mayor said he needed guidance in deciding on the issue, and residents should naturally be consulted as the correct approach in urban planning.
CPDO Chief Nigel Paul Villarete has said his request for the City Council to include Barangays Talamban, San Jose, Budlaan, Pit-os, Pulang-bato and Binaliw in the moratorium, originally imposed in Banilad, is due to the rapid development in these areas.
“While rapid urbanization is a welcome development, unrestrained and uncontrolled growth generally results to runaway development, which more often backfires into urban blight and traffic congestion,” he said in a memorandum dated June 18 that he sent to the council.
His request, though, did not mean that no development will be allowed. It only means applications will be “carefully evaluated” to determine if they will add to the worsening traffic in the Talamban area.
Villarete said several locational permit applications are pending in his office. (RHM)
