A recent trend in the global real estate industry is the building of so-called townships, where mixed-use development becomes the focus as well as its attraction to potential investors and occupants. In such a concept, public or private developers offer a self-sustained community or a “15-minute city” where one can live, work and shop for their needs and wants. In some cases, such mixed-use projects incorporate schools, hospitals and even churches. In these pandemic times, where isolations and lockdowns force us to be reliant on our immediate environment, such a concept makes perfect sense.
In our country, townships are more of the purview of private land developers, which is good, otherwise such reliable community build up will be caught up in the usual government bureaucracy. Still the government can participate crucially in this private initiative in many ways. Aside from coming out with policies encouraging such townships or amending ones that curb them on the other hand, one glaring gap that needs to be filled in would be to provide the transport catch-basin that would make these mixed-use communities more sustainable.
Transport, no doubt, plays an important part in the success of these townships. You may have the best facilities available in your land development, but if transport, especially public transport that will bring you to and fro to the main corridors that connects to the rest of the bigger city proper is inadequate or at worse non-existent, then such facilities will not be sustainable in the long run. The problem, however, is that fixing such transport regulatory ecosystem is outside the purview of these developers, even if they want to, as public transport franchises are regulated by the government, in this case the LTFRB. Even a mere shuttle service of a subdivision has to be covered under rules that govern public transport. Understandably so as this can definitely be abused to hide commercial operations that do not have franchises.
But developers aiming to provide legitimate transport needed to support such townships must be given more latitude by the government, especially if such a transport investment will be shouldered by the private sector. Faster route rationalization studies, active recruitment of public transport operators, and speedier granting of the necessary franchises would be a big help to these developers. We may even have the government require private land developers to manage and/or operate their own public transport facilities and connections to their prospective residents and other occupants, which I am sure they will embrace willingly.
Even the current townships and existing private business districts can be the venues for such initiatives. How about feeder routes to private communities such as Nuvali or bus routes connecting the various malls of, let’s say, the SM Group, Megaworld, Robinsons Land or Ayala Land that are all located in central districts that then connect to their townships. And if they have transport initiatives or solutions to make the lives of their residents and occupants more convenient, let’s hear them out and give them a chance, especially if it makes perfect sense and with government still not moving in that direction. The government can even go one step further. Call on these big developers and reveal to them the planned expansion of public road infrastructure. Then let them be the ones, or at least take the first crack, to develop the surrounding community development but under a program that would make sense and be beneficial to the future community and its future residents.
This concept of private land developers working hand in hand with the government, by the way, is nothing new. This is how it is done in other countries. We do, too, here but efforts stop short as far as the needed transport support is concerned. It is apparent that townships are now the growing trend in real estate. Let the private sector have wider latitude in the transport concerns in their projects. The government doesn’t even have to spend on this, but the benefits will be greatly felt, resulting in a better quality of life for its constituents.
The author maybe reached thru: thomas_orbos@sloan.mit.edu