Davao Council approves coastline project

THE Davao City Council approved on second reading on Tuesday an ordinance granting City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte the authority to sign a joint venture agreement between the Davao City Government and Mega Harbour Port Development Inc., the winning bidder of the Davao Coastline and Port Development Project.

The item was approved after the arrangement of the relocation of affected residents, traffic impact assessment, and the environmental impact of the project were assured by Davao City Planning and Development Office head Marcelino Escalada who was present in Tuesday's regular session.

An amendment on the JV agreement proposed by Councilor Lea Librado-Yap has been passed that it is the obligation of the developer to provide and identify relocation sites for the residents that are to be affected by the reclamation project.

It was agreed that the relocation areas must be identified before the final approval of the application.

Escalada also assured councilors that the environmental studies for the reclamation project had also been done by Mega Harbour even before the bidding of the project.

He said that the City Council will be provided with pre-qualification report on the traffic impact and environment studies conducted for the project implementation.

Councilor Jimmy Dureza said that once approved the project will still be assessed by a three party team including the Philippine Reclamation Agency (PRA) that will study and amend parts of the agreement in case it does not align with the national law.

It was also clarified that the PRA after its evaluation and endorsement will go back to the council for approval of the project.