ENVIRONMENT advocates criticized the amendments over Davao City’s land use plan, which they claimed will result in the reduction of the open space requirement for development.
In a statement emailed to Sun.Star Davao, Interface Development Intervention (Idis) director Ann Fuertes said the move is a “short-sighted response that will have long-term repercussions on the city’s response to climate change.”
“We need more green spaces and not a cement. Green spaces perform an essential function and that it serves as urban storm water absorption and filtration for the city,” Fuertes said.
“Where the floodwaters will go if all the subdivisions will be covered with cement,” Fuertes said, adding that the existing storm water drainage can only take a small amount of run-off.
She also said that reducing the 30 percent open space requirement into the 10 percent will most certainly exacerbate flooding.
“We are surrounded by watersheds. Our city’s development should take that into consideration, instead of accommodating land developers,” Fuertes said.
Save the Shrine Hills Movement spokesperson Norma Javellana expressed the “irony of the amendment.”
She said the plan placed the city behind other Asean cities in achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
“With all the environmental ordinances that the city has crafted to ensure life is here, how can our councilors lack the foresight to realize that sacrificing green spaces for development is not the way to ensure sustainability,” she said.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) standards, Javellana said, the city must have 9,000 square meters or almost one-hectare) of green space per 1,000 city inhabitants.
“Here in Davao City, we only require 500 sq meters of parks/open spaces per 1,000 population and this is measly by international standards. We should be increasing this requirement, not decreasing it,” Javellana said.
Fuertes said the projection alone for 2016 reveals that Davao City should by this year has a total urban green space of 69.42 hectares or .4128 square meters per Dabawenyo.
Both groups also pointed out that under the Davao City Development Plan for 1996-2021, the city aims to increase its green spaces by developing open spaces within the poblacion and its nearby environs into urban and/or pocket parks and establish tree parks in every barangay. (Vee Tejano, SUNSTAR DAVAO)