Ledesma: What’s between HLURB and Robinsons Homes?

FOR years, the homeowners association at Robinsons Highlands Subdivision of Robinsons Homes yearned for a sustained and direct supply of potable water from the Davao City Water District. This was heightened on account of the erratic operation of the generator that pumps water from DCWD to the elevated reservoir of the subdivision. There were times that water supply was a problem to many.

DCWD has agreed to extend and promptly started to transfer connections to the individual homeowner but discovered in the process that it was not possible because the distribution pipes which Robinsons Homes laid in the subdivision were substandard.

This prompted the officers of the Robinsons Highlands Homeowners Association (RHHA) to seek the intervention of then City councilor Bonifacio Militar who chaired the housing committee in the Davao City Council. In a formal hearing conducted by Militar, RHHA appealed to the councilor to prod Robinsons Homes to replace the substandard pipes. Present during that meeting was the representative of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board. The developer agreed to replace their inferior water pipes. Within the week I saw a crew digging across Beverly Drive, which is about 30 meters from away my house. Hardly a week elapsed however, the crew disappeared leaving a deep cut on the concrete road which to date was never restored.

That was almost five years ago. Councilor Boni Militar had completed his three-year term and was replaced by his son who was elected councilor in his lieu. Boni Militar had returned to the City Council but until today not an inch of pipe was replaced by Robinsons Homes in Robinsons Highlands.

I was motivated to write this piece anew for my homeowners who had been cheated by the developer. Yesterday, I paid my real property tax to the city treasurer and it is not small amount of blood money. I am sure my fellow homeowners, whose houses are far bigger than mine, had paid their tax dues too. The assessment had increase and we pay dutifully because personally I believed that with the tax I pay I contribute to the infrastructure development and services of the City Government.

We at Robinsons Highlands deserve these from the City Government attention too. In my musing, I therefore ask why HLURB and the City Council allow this blatant abuse of developers to go on unimpeded. In some case why allow them to fill-up natural waterways to develop this to subdivisions resulting in floods in our roads and highways?

For HLURB and housing authorities and the City Council of Davao, I am serving this friendly warning and piece of advice: By next year, the bulk water project of DCWD and Apo Agua Infrastructura will come to completion. If you noticed that for some time now DCWD had been replacing old and small pipes in addition to the new ones that the water district laid in the expansion areas. This is meant to address problems that may result from extreme water pressure. Once the supply of water is migrated from the production wells at the aquifer areas in Dumoy to Gumalang reservoirs, the pressure of water from the new source will be far greater than the present. It is by gravity and given the distance and height, any substandard pipes, like what Robinsons Homes provided in Robinsons Highlands subdivision will, for certain, be busted.

In the meantime I hope HLURB will act quickly on the plight of RHHA and countercheck on other projects of Robinsons before it is too late.

In its enticing propaganda, Robinsons Homes lures prospects with fantastic promise:

“Welcome to the HIGH LIFE! Minutes away from the Davao downtown area, Robinsons Highlands’ landscaped gardens surround a serene, family-friendly private community that enjoys the comforts of modern lifestyle amenities in stylish contemporary elegance.” Really?

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