The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Daryl Rose Virtudazo
The Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA) has asked the government to provide the much needed buyer amortization subsidy and to make available ample raw land by not pursuing the land conversion moratorium in order to minimize if not eliminate the housing deficit in the country.
In a resolution adopted by SHDA during their recent convention in Iloilo city, SHDA also encouraged developers to produce more than its average annual production of 240,000 houses to 350,000 units a year.
With the confirmed gap in the housing stock, developers are encouraged to focus their production effort in affordable housing, especially in low-cost, economic and socialized housing, while at the same time foster economic growth and maintain sustainability and stability of real estate.
The SHDA encouraged its members to actively participate in the consultation for policy reforms on the removal of VAT ceiling on low cost housing; removal of mass housing projects located in Metro Manila in the BOI Investments Priorities Plan and proposed two-year moratorium on land conversions for residential real estate developments by the Department of Agrarian Reform.
SHDA will also adopt and utilize new technologies adhering to standards, that will produce more resilient shelters and communities, especially areas predominantly affected by disaster and will formulate affordable and alternative methods, through the use of innovative technologies, to improve and expand business models that will unlock more financing sources, to facilitate and expedite production of the needed affordable and adequate housing.
They are also encouraging their members to provide decent and affordable housing using innovative means that are customer-oriented business models, which transcend the main function of housing from simply providing shelter, towards granting protection and investment to the prospective property owners and to create a standard for Financial Literacy of the market in order help them move from to better standard of living, from mass housing to mid-housing buyers.
The group will also enter into a Memorandum of Agreement with TESDA to train and develop more skilled workers needed in the production of decent housing to meet the targets laid down in the SHDA roadmap, especially in areas where the housing backlog is prevalent.
Other measures that will be adopted by SHDA to ensure the achievement of the Housing Industry Roadmap objectives is to have dialogues with various stakeholders to study the implications and impact of the proposed policy to stop land conversion; to Identify publicly-owned lands and unlock the use for socialized and economic housing through PPP projects; to reduce titling fees for socialized and economic housing; to update and to effectively implement the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) for all cities and municipalities, in order efficiently create programs that will spur production of Socialized low-rise buildings for in-city development for ISFs ( Informal Settler Families) and come up with an Executive Order that will establish the reasonable timelines for permits and licenses for housing.