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SEVERAL
initiatives are under way to reduce the application time
for housing release to only seven days from the current
slow pace of up to one year in response to the clamor of
developers, Vice President Noli de Castro said
Wednesday.
Addressing the Philippine Business Conference at the
Manila Hotel on Wednesday, de Castro said the delays
encountered by the developers owing to red tape in
regulatory agencies have been so embedded in the system
that even Executive Order (EO) 45 issued as early as
2001, and setting a definite timetable for the release
of all necessary housing permits, is not being followed.
With
this, de Castro said he gathered the different
stakeholders, specifically developers and the heads of
the concerned government agencies, to identify solutions
to the problem and presented them to the Cabinet for
swift action.
Four
initiatives, he said, came out of this meeting.
First is
the issuance of a memorandum circular by the Department
of the Interior and Local Government on October 2,
defining the guidelines and schedules in the issuance of
development permits mayor’s permits, and barangay
clearances for housing projects.
This, he
said, primarily addresses the lack of guidelines in the
issuance of barangay permits, which has been a major
concern among private developers.
Lucille
Ortile, secretary-general of the Housing and Urban
Development Coordinating Council, said developers are
complaining that barangay leaders often abuse their
powers in issuing permits since the law does not
restrict how much fees they can charge; neither does it
define how fast they have to issue them.
“They [barangays]
are imposing unreasonably high fees because no law has
set the range on how much they could charge,” Ortile
said.
The
second work in progress, de Castro said, is the review
being undertaken by the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) to amend and align guidelines
on the issuance of environmental clearance certificates
(ECC) to housing projects with EO 45.
The DENR
is now also releasing maps of environmentally critical
areas such as fire-prone areas, those close to
facilities with hazardous materials, and areas within
the valley fault system in order to guide developers in
planning their future housing projects.
The
third initiative is the commitment of the Department of
Agrarian Reform to consider the automatic issuance of
conversion certificates if the area is already
classified as residential under the Comprehensive Land
Use Plan.
Last,
the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) will
set up a one-stop shop in December that will accept
applications for licenses to sell and assist developers.
The
HLURB will undertake a quick review of the developer
applications; those found to be in order will be issued
temporary licenses good for six months and renewable for
another six months.
The
office, he said, will also assist developers in securing
permits from other concerned agencies and local
government units.
“Having
said this, maybe it’s time for us in government to hear
from you if all these initiatives and guidelines have,
in fact, changed the way we do business with you,” the
housing czar told businessmen. |
