By
Aileen P. Refuerzo
BAGUIO CITY – The Dept.
of Environment and Natural Resources Cordillera (DENR-CAR) has set a public
consultation on key environmental issues facing the city which includes the
draft executive order setting a moratorium on the construction of high rise
buildings on July 29, 1 p.m. at the DENR-CAR Conference Room at Gibraltar.
DENR-CAR
Regional Executive Director Ralph Pablo invited Mayor Benjamin Magalong to
attend the consultation which will also tackle the requirements and procedures for
the issuance of tree-cutting permits and Environmental Clearance Certificate,
the geo-hazard status of the different areas in the city, solid waste
management and the draft executive order setting the building construction
moratorium.
“Recently,
the environmental state of Baguio City has been on the news due to various
issues of public interest such as tree cutting, solid waste management and
overdevelopment. Hence, the DENR-CAR will convene various stakeholders in
a dialogue to provide a venue to discuss these concerns, gather inputs and
agree on courses of action and possible ways forward,” Pablo noted.
Last week,
the mayor said he had worked out with Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu and
Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano the possibility of having
the President issue an executive order mandating the rehabilitation of the city
through a one-year moratorium on the construction of high rise buildings with
the inclusion of a funding component for the city to implement priority
rehabilitative projects like the expansion of the city’s sewerage treatment
system.
In their
meeting last July 9, Pablo and Magalong agreed that pursuing a halt in
constructions in the city would give the city a much-needed breather from
building activities and allow the city to concentrate on rehabilitating the
city’s environs.
The
mayor said the city is lining up projects that would address its pressing
environmental problems among which garbage and sewage management and the
dwindling water supply and imposing a freeze on buildings will help the city
concentrate its efforts on these aspects.
Pablo said he
is inclined to support the construction moratorium because of the city’s
limited carrying capacity.
The
moratorium on the construction of high-rise buildings which was first broached
during the Senate hearing on the creation of the
Baguio-La-Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) Development Authority
early this year has been the subject of debates in the city.
Moratorium
advocates anchored their petition on safety concerns citing the city’s
susceptibility to earthquakes and the need for the city to have proper urban
plan that will include “properly conducted and peer-reviewed soil investigation
and testing reports for foundations of structures, performed by a licensed
geotechnical engineer and that no structures will be constructed over the 8
stories limit specified by the City of Baguio.”
Former mayor
Mauricio Domogan said it is doable but would entail a whole new process of
amending the Zoning Ordinance which had just been revised in 2016.
“If the issue
is on the safety, I believe this had already been answered by experts who
during the exhaustive consultations for the drafting of the City Land Use Plan,
opined that the soundness of the structures does not depend on the height of
the buildings but on ensuring their structural stability, which means
compliance with the national building and safety codes including the soil test
requirements. If the issue is overdevelopment necessitating suspension on
high-rise buildings, then it has to go back to the city council, call back the
experts and follow the process again,” he earlier said. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
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