THE Cagayan de Oro City Government needs at least P28.5 billion for its housing program as it projects a housing backlog of 79,073 households in the next 8 to 10 years.
During the 2nd Housing Summit held last Tuesday, November 20, the City Housing and Urban Development Department (CHUDD) disclosed that from only 34,898 informal settlers in 2013, the number of informal settlers rose to 51,437 as of August 2018.
Informal settlers are those families living in hazardous areas, no-build zones, as well as those affected by government projects facing order for demolition and eviction.
According to the city's Local Shelter Plan, the city needs at least 350,000 hectares of land to accommodate the increasing number of informal settlers.
Engineer Ermin Pimentel, CHUDD head said, the fast rate of births and migration are the two main factors of the rising informal settler families in the city.
The needed P28 billion meanwhile shall only be achieved if there is a collaborative effort between the private and the government sector, he added. The amount will be used for land acquisition, land development, construction of housing units, and to sustain the project.
Pimentel said the city will focus on investing an amount to buy lands where the housing units will be built. In fact, a proposal of P250 million for land acquisition is pending approval before the City Council.
"We will then mobilize our beneficiaries so that they can avail the housing loans of Pag-IBIG and the Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC)," he said.
"Ang city hall didto moinvest sa pagpalit sa mga yuta, karon naay interested developers kay naa naman tay yuta so malibre na atong gastuson diha," he added.
Pimentel said the private and public agencies aid is important to fast track land acquisition and subsidize socialized housing to make it more affordable to the beneficiaries.
Currently, the city has acquired a total of 13.3056 hectares, 39 hectares are in the process of acquisition, and the other 37 hectares are for survey.
"Housing program is a very expensive program, dili mahimo ni tanan sa syudad, our strategy is to partner with land developers so we also must be attractive to them. It is important that we must know how to do this, develop the expertise, dili sayon sa government office to do these things but its precisely we're doing," he said.
"Ang pinakaimportante nga source sa pondo are our partners including developers, PagIbig, NHA, SHFC, and congressmen," he added.
The housing summit was started in 2013 to address the problem of the growing informal settlers in the city. The summit was able to gather local and national players in the socialized housing field.
With the theme "Panimalay sa Pamilya, Malungtaron ug Lig-ong Dakbayan," the summit aims to identify the roadmap of the housing engagement for the next 5 years.