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Thursday, October 01, 2009; Posted: 02:52 AM
MANILA, Oct 01, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- Ayala Land Inc. (PSE:ALI), the property arm of conglomerate Ayala Corp., will develop a 20-hectare lot near the Sta. Rosa, Laguna-Tagaytay area with an estimated development cost of P2 billion (US$42.2 million).
This was revealed by Jaime Ysmael, senior vice-president and chief finance officer of the Ayala Land Inc., to reporters at the launch of the Certificate of Real Estate Investment Finance (CREIF) program.
He said the new development would start in the first half of next year.
Ysmael said their participation into the economic housing category is largely due to the huge demand for this market segment.
"This is the kind of development that would address the needs of the 34 per cent of the Filipino households," Ysmael said.
ALIs kind of development has been mostly catering the lower, middle and upper class. But it has not participated in the economy segment of the housing sector.
According to Ysmael, this new development would offer row houses or single attached units between 40 to 60 square meters each with a price range of P600,000 to P1.5 million.
The targeted market are those households with combined earnings of between P15,000 to P50,000 a month.
Buyers can also avail of the Pag-ibig financing aside from bank financing.
Ysmael said only 10 per cent of their buyers pay in cash, 30 per cent through bank financing and the rest are in-house financing.
Most of the ALI developments are located in the southern part of Metro Manila, although Ysmael said they are also looking at a new area in the north.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Not an act of God but a sin...
By Alcuin Papa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:19:00 10/02/2009
MANILA, Philippines — The flood disaster that struck Metro Manila over the weekend was not an act of God but a sin of omission by government and private real estate developers, according to urban planner Felino “Jun” Palafox.
The green architect said that a land use plan that took floods into consideration was drawn up as far back as 1977, titled “Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Planning Project,” sponsored by the World Bank.
Palafox said that the study had already noted the possibility of heavy flooding in at least three sites of urban growth in the Philippine capital—the Marikina Valley and its northern and southern parts.
“When I saw the damage caused by the floods recently, I realized that these were the same areas that had already been identified,” he told the Inquirer.
“Urban development is spreading into areas which are, in their present state, unsuitable for development—either because they are low-lying and liable to flooding, or because development is without adequate facilities for the treatment and disposal of sewage (the norm in Manila) and so will continue to contribute to the severe pollution of areas such as Laguna de Bay,” the study said.
But what did government do to mitigate the flooding and other problems identified by the 1977 study?
Nothing, according to Palafox.
Need for spillway
“This is not an act of God, as what people have already said. This is a sin of omission on the part of government and leadership. Practically all the measures outlined in the study could have addressed the flooding we are seeing these days,” he said.
For one, there was little infrastructure to prevent flooding. Palafox cited the need to construct a spillway in Parañaque to drain excess water from Laguna Lake to Manila Bay.
“The Manggahan floodway was constructed to drain floodwater from the mountains flowing through the Marikina River into the Laguna Lake. But what happens when the Laguna Lake is overflowing? That is why there was a need for the Parañaque spillway to direct excess water from the lake into the Manila Bay,” he said.
But he said the government never constructed the spillway. “I don’t know why,” said Palafox, who earned a degree on urban planning from Harvard. “But you don’t need an engineer to understand this.”
Palafox also said that the study proposed desilting the Pasig and Marikina Rivers to accommodate more water. “What should have been done was to use the silt and mud collected from the river to construct ‘green islands’ just like in Holland.”
The green islands should have been constructed at the mouths of the rivers and could be used for “recreational purposes” like parks, arboretums and sports arenas. “You let these islands settle, say after 15 years. Then you can use them for industrial purposes like oil depots.”
Erase parts of capital
If he were to redesign Metro Manila, Palafox said he would take a “big eraser” and wipe out parts of Metro Manila in the east, north and south, where development did not conform to standards, particularly the construction of housing below the flood lines.
“Government knows what the flood lines are. Why did developers of subdivisions allow construction of housing projects below the flood lines?” he asked.
Palafox said corruption might have come into play because it would take the approval of 32 agencies to sign papers for land development and 12 agencies just to do one building.
He recalled that he did some development in the portion of the Nile near Khartoum in Sudan where the construction was done well above the flood lines.
Also, there is a chronic lack of foresight in the land development with developers looking only beyond 25 years of flood history.
“The international standard is to look at the flood history of the past 500 years, like the Khartoum project,” he said.
If he had his way, Palafox said he would have planned out Metro Manila according to plans by American architect Daniel Burnham in 1905.
According to Palafox, Burnham envisioned a Manila designed the same way as Paris, built near the Seine River, and Venice with its waterways.
“In Venice, you work on the first floor and live on the second floor,” he said.
Other recommendations in the plan included the construction of catch basins under buildings that could collect rainwater for recycling or for flowing into rivers.
Also, Palafox recommended the building of houses on stilts to go above the flood lines, just like the Badjaos.
In addition to the lack of foresight, there was also a chronic oversight by government over the years on the issue of garbage and illegal logging.
“The pressures for development in areas unsuitable for development exist and will continue to exist, and without action, high and unnecessary environmental, social and economic costs will be incurred,” the study said.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:19:00 10/02/2009
MANILA, Philippines — The flood disaster that struck Metro Manila over the weekend was not an act of God but a sin of omission by government and private real estate developers, according to urban planner Felino “Jun” Palafox.
The green architect said that a land use plan that took floods into consideration was drawn up as far back as 1977, titled “Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Planning Project,” sponsored by the World Bank.
Palafox said that the study had already noted the possibility of heavy flooding in at least three sites of urban growth in the Philippine capital—the Marikina Valley and its northern and southern parts.
“When I saw the damage caused by the floods recently, I realized that these were the same areas that had already been identified,” he told the Inquirer.
“Urban development is spreading into areas which are, in their present state, unsuitable for development—either because they are low-lying and liable to flooding, or because development is without adequate facilities for the treatment and disposal of sewage (the norm in Manila) and so will continue to contribute to the severe pollution of areas such as Laguna de Bay,” the study said.
But what did government do to mitigate the flooding and other problems identified by the 1977 study?
Nothing, according to Palafox.
Need for spillway
“This is not an act of God, as what people have already said. This is a sin of omission on the part of government and leadership. Practically all the measures outlined in the study could have addressed the flooding we are seeing these days,” he said.
For one, there was little infrastructure to prevent flooding. Palafox cited the need to construct a spillway in Parañaque to drain excess water from Laguna Lake to Manila Bay.
“The Manggahan floodway was constructed to drain floodwater from the mountains flowing through the Marikina River into the Laguna Lake. But what happens when the Laguna Lake is overflowing? That is why there was a need for the Parañaque spillway to direct excess water from the lake into the Manila Bay,” he said.
But he said the government never constructed the spillway. “I don’t know why,” said Palafox, who earned a degree on urban planning from Harvard. “But you don’t need an engineer to understand this.”
Palafox also said that the study proposed desilting the Pasig and Marikina Rivers to accommodate more water. “What should have been done was to use the silt and mud collected from the river to construct ‘green islands’ just like in Holland.”
The green islands should have been constructed at the mouths of the rivers and could be used for “recreational purposes” like parks, arboretums and sports arenas. “You let these islands settle, say after 15 years. Then you can use them for industrial purposes like oil depots.”
Erase parts of capital
If he were to redesign Metro Manila, Palafox said he would take a “big eraser” and wipe out parts of Metro Manila in the east, north and south, where development did not conform to standards, particularly the construction of housing below the flood lines.
“Government knows what the flood lines are. Why did developers of subdivisions allow construction of housing projects below the flood lines?” he asked.
Palafox said corruption might have come into play because it would take the approval of 32 agencies to sign papers for land development and 12 agencies just to do one building.
He recalled that he did some development in the portion of the Nile near Khartoum in Sudan where the construction was done well above the flood lines.
Also, there is a chronic lack of foresight in the land development with developers looking only beyond 25 years of flood history.
“The international standard is to look at the flood history of the past 500 years, like the Khartoum project,” he said.
If he had his way, Palafox said he would have planned out Metro Manila according to plans by American architect Daniel Burnham in 1905.
According to Palafox, Burnham envisioned a Manila designed the same way as Paris, built near the Seine River, and Venice with its waterways.
“In Venice, you work on the first floor and live on the second floor,” he said.
Other recommendations in the plan included the construction of catch basins under buildings that could collect rainwater for recycling or for flowing into rivers.
Also, Palafox recommended the building of houses on stilts to go above the flood lines, just like the Badjaos.
In addition to the lack of foresight, there was also a chronic oversight by government over the years on the issue of garbage and illegal logging.
“The pressures for development in areas unsuitable for development exist and will continue to exist, and without action, high and unnecessary environmental, social and economic costs will be incurred,” the study said.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Property firms seen to suffer rout after ‘Ondoy’
By Chino S. Leyco, Reporter
The Manila Times
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
AFTER signs of recovery in recent months, the local property sector may suffer a rout in the wake of the record flooding unleashed by Typhoon Ondoy. Prince Christian Cruz, Global Property senior economist, said the industry would suffer the most from the devastation caused by Ondoy. While it is hard to estimate the financial impact of Ondoy on the local property sector after it struck Metro Manila and a large part of Luzon, Cruz said there will be a definite “wait-and-see attitude” in the minds of potential buyers after seeing the devastation that Ondoy wrought on cities already congested by several property developments.
In the first half, listed companies in the property sector suffered a 3.6-percent contraction in profits, but the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said this was largely due to one-time gains last year. The combined earnings of all listed firms, however, surged 46.3 percent.
“[The flooding] has an impact on the industry because many of our developments right now are concentrated in Marikina or Cainta. Because there’s no more space in the center of Metro Manila, there’s no way than to go in these areas,” Cruz said, referring to areas to the east of the capital.
The value of properties in Pasig, Marikina and Cainta are expected to drop, but Cruz said it is still difficult to say how huge would be the decline.
Ramon Jose Aguirre, Colliers International research manager, said there might be a shift in preference from horizontal to vertical developments in the Marikina, Cainta and Pasig areas.
“It is possible that people would now prefer condominiums than the other developments,” he said.
Aguirre said the hardest hit subdivision in Marikina “would be a hard sell in the next two to three years,” adding that the marketability of that property will now depend on how the government will rebuild the city’s image.
Cruz cited a seller who claims that even if his house was spared from last weekend’s flooding, the value of that property will still drop because of news that Marikina, Cainta and Pasig were the worst hit areas.
Both Cruz and Aguirre agreed the present disaster will have dampen the sales of real-estate companies, especially those with on-going and up coming developments in the flooded areas.
For people who plan to buy houses, Cruz said they should look not only at the property’s accessibility, design and ambiance, but also the drainage system of the development.
“They should now demand that the developer [ascertain the] drainage system of the development, like how much volume of water it can accommodate. This aspect was often set aside before this tragedy happened. All they cared about was the ambiance and the design,” he said.
At the PSE, the property index inched up nearly two percent, but individual issues were broadly flat on Tuesday.
The Manila Times
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
AFTER signs of recovery in recent months, the local property sector may suffer a rout in the wake of the record flooding unleashed by Typhoon Ondoy. Prince Christian Cruz, Global Property senior economist, said the industry would suffer the most from the devastation caused by Ondoy. While it is hard to estimate the financial impact of Ondoy on the local property sector after it struck Metro Manila and a large part of Luzon, Cruz said there will be a definite “wait-and-see attitude” in the minds of potential buyers after seeing the devastation that Ondoy wrought on cities already congested by several property developments.
In the first half, listed companies in the property sector suffered a 3.6-percent contraction in profits, but the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said this was largely due to one-time gains last year. The combined earnings of all listed firms, however, surged 46.3 percent.
“[The flooding] has an impact on the industry because many of our developments right now are concentrated in Marikina or Cainta. Because there’s no more space in the center of Metro Manila, there’s no way than to go in these areas,” Cruz said, referring to areas to the east of the capital.
The value of properties in Pasig, Marikina and Cainta are expected to drop, but Cruz said it is still difficult to say how huge would be the decline.
Ramon Jose Aguirre, Colliers International research manager, said there might be a shift in preference from horizontal to vertical developments in the Marikina, Cainta and Pasig areas.
“It is possible that people would now prefer condominiums than the other developments,” he said.
Aguirre said the hardest hit subdivision in Marikina “would be a hard sell in the next two to three years,” adding that the marketability of that property will now depend on how the government will rebuild the city’s image.
Cruz cited a seller who claims that even if his house was spared from last weekend’s flooding, the value of that property will still drop because of news that Marikina, Cainta and Pasig were the worst hit areas.
Both Cruz and Aguirre agreed the present disaster will have dampen the sales of real-estate companies, especially those with on-going and up coming developments in the flooded areas.
For people who plan to buy houses, Cruz said they should look not only at the property’s accessibility, design and ambiance, but also the drainage system of the development.
“They should now demand that the developer [ascertain the] drainage system of the development, like how much volume of water it can accommodate. This aspect was often set aside before this tragedy happened. All they cared about was the ambiance and the design,” he said.
At the PSE, the property index inched up nearly two percent, but individual issues were broadly flat on Tuesday.
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