Monday, February 19, 2007 Davao needs to update development plan: professor By Grace L. Plata
DAVAO City's Zoning Ordinance and the Comprehensive Development Plan should be revised if the City Government wants to be more productive and developed, said urban planner and UP Mindanao Professor Robert Alabado III.
Alabado said the 1996 assumptions in the plans are no longer valid in the present time considering the rate of growth the Davao City is taking on.
Speaking before members of the Rotary Club of Urban Davao, Alabado said, "Long-range zoning of 25 years, which is what the city has now, is not advisable. It should have been 10 years instead to address changes that comes along in between."
Alabado said that policies in land management have to be integrated in the ordinance such as incentives for best land use and penalties for misuse or disuse of land in order to encourage investors and landowners to develop their property.
"Most landowners just leave the land just as it is because the government asks for really low taxes on undeveloped land," Alabado said.
As an effect, tracts of land within the city that might have been useful to the local government are not utilized.
Allocation of lands must also be rationalized with other development projects, said Alabado, to avoid conflicts in land use -- one of the emerging problems that confront the city.
Other problems confronting the city include rapid increase of population, increasing difficulty to generate jobs, increasing difficulty in accessing basic quality social services like health and education, increasing environmental risks, and increasing difficulty in accessibility, as there are already pockets of traffic congestion, thus a longer commuting time.
Alabado said that because of these things, Davao City is still considered to have a low quality of life based on European standards beside the fact that it has been named one of the most livable cities in Asia.
However, Alabado said the City Government is trying to do its best by building more reads, having a modern traffic system, and a stable peace and order situation.
"There are conscious efforts on the part of the local government but there is a need to put in necessary legal infrastructure and encouraging citizen's participation through consultations to improve the quality of life in the city," Alabado said.
