Biz sector pushes Clup revision
DAVAO CITY’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (Clup) needs revision, a business leader in the city said.
Architect Daniel T. Lim, chair of the Davao Investment Conference (Icon) 2015, said with the clamor to revise anew the Clup, the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (DCCCII) is open to sit down with the City Planning and Development Office to discuss the city’s outlook as far as investments and planning are concerned.
“I believe Clup is a plan that was developed based on the known factors of that time. I believe it has to be improved but the law says it should be updated every five years, now we would be very eager to help to work with the CPDO on planning ahead the city’s development given the current interest to invest and growth of the city,” he said.
“If we do not plan in advance, yes development will still happen but it may come out in an unwanted way,” he added.
Ivan C. Cortez, officerin-charge (OIC) of Davao City Investment Promotion Center (DCIPC), for his part, said the Clup needs to be revised in an overarching directive.
“It needs to be revised in such a way that we will have an overarching directive over a single zone wherein they can play around with the subzones within the mother zone,” Cortez said.
Cortez emphasized that Clup should have a certain kind of flexibility in terms of meeting the present need.
“The scenario of Clup is you have a five-year study and then it takes about 2 to 3 years for it to be revised, and it has to be revised when it is no longer responsive to the needs of the time,” Cortez said.
Meanwhile, the city’s Clup was revised last year. The amendment provides expansion in key priority areas providing a “stricter” plan for economic growth in agriculture, IT and tourism, rezoning of geohazard areas, expansion of commercial areas, relocating of commercial areas nearer to residential zones, making Chinatown as a tourism development zone, and lesser industrial zone.
It also included the declaration of conservation zones and the establishment of buffer zones between conflicting zones like commercial and residential zones or industrial and agricultural zones, addition of Water Resource Areas, and declaration of Marine Protected Areas in the city.
Under the revised Clup, it states no-reclassification policy for all areas under general zone (agriculture, conservation, water resource, and non-tillage) within five years and three years for sub-urban zone comprising residential, industrial and commercial.
The new Clup focusing on available public-private partnerships (PPP) projects for the region will be discussed during the DCCCII-led event dubbed as Davao Investment Conference (Icon) 2015 slated on November 4 to 6 at the SMX Convention Center. Some 300 to 500 visitors and stakeholders in the real-estate, manufacturing, ICT and tourism sector will gather during the three-day event.