A total of 5,000 poor families in Quezon City would be having their own homes before the end of 2018, a city official announced on Monday.
“We hope to be able to process 50 more Bistekvilles by the time I step down as mayor. The [finished and] ongoing projects will house 5,030 more families; the projects for development will house another 2,926,” Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista said during the eighth state of city address on Monday.
In his speech, Bautista reported that there are now a total of 22 Bistekville communities with 1,899 families residing.
Bautista, who is on the second year of his third term as the city’s mayor, stressed the importance of strengthening foundations and improving on good governance strategies, particularly the badly needed housing program.
However, Bautista noted: “We are encountering certain challenges with the national government housing and financing agencies, because of some changes in priorities and program directions that came with the transition of leadership. We hope to resolve these through negotiations.”
Bautista declined to give details on “changed” priorities, but the budget for six important housing agencies was slashed by Congress by as much as 70 percent to a mere P4.5 billion, from the current level of P15.3 billion, saying that the 1.2-million housing backlog will not be resolved with the budget cut.
The amount approved recently by the House of Representatives is the combined allocation for the National Housing Authority, the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, Social Housing Finance Corp., Housing and Community Development and the National Home Mortgage and Finance.
The local government, through its Housing and Community Development and Resettlement Department, is pursuing housing allocation for Quezon City families in government housing projects in Montalban, Teresa and Morong in Rizal, as well as in San Jose del Monte, Norzagaray, Balagtas, Bocaue and Pandi in Bulacan.
To recall, Quezon City has received recently the approval of the HLURB for the Quezon City Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) from 2011 to 2025.
The CLUP drafted in the administration of Bautista is a long-term framework plan defining the city’s desired physical pattern of growth in the landscape, in business, nature, residential and disaster mitigation.