SHDA mulls massive rental housing via medium-rise buildings

In a bid to contain the heavy urban migration and its consequent infrastructure squeeze, the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA) is developing a new housing scheme that taps private developers to work on government idle lands.

Under a concept of "Massive Rental Housing via Medium-Rise Buildings (MRBs)," this build-operate-and-transfer scheme allows real estate firms, using efficient building technology, to construct and operate five-story residential units for 10 years and collect rentals from occupants. Government allows the use of its idle in-city landholdings as project sites.

In a paper presented to the Asia Convention of the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planning last week, SHDA national president Jesus Atencio said the concept is consistent with urban revitalization.

"The use of MRBs is a potent tool of urban revitalization," Atencio said. "There is this prevailing sentiment that only home ownership is the acceptable means towards decent and affordable housing. And yet, home ownership really has little to do with improving one’s quality of life and living standards. Rentals can be a pre-requisite for eventual ownership in the meantime that a person’s affordability is still low."

Under the MRB rental housing concept, government provides a fixed subsidy equivalent to 50 percent of the rental to give more sector housing access to urban poor and low-income groups. Given the steady income for a fixed period, the rentals can be securitized to assure an immediate return for developer’s investment. At the end of the fixed period, the subsidy ends and the government collects the rentals.

"This is a win-win situation for all involved parties: Government gets to develop its idle-land holdings using private sector resources. The developer receives a timely fair rate of return for his business. And the beneficiaries get to move out of depressed slum areas to live in decent houses near their places of work," Atencio said.

The SHDA proposals is aimed at enlarging the access of low-income groups to housing units. From 1993 to 2001, the National Shelter Program (NSP) had only provided for less than one million households. About half or 51 percent belong to the formal housing sector, only 13 percent benefited through NHA resettlement programs, and only 16 percent obtained security of land tenure through government proclamations. This skewed distribution has led to "slumification" of cities "Decent and affordable housing closer to places of work and business in a milieu that improves the standard of living. That is the aim of this concept," Atencio said.

Atencio, also the chairman of the Private Sector Consulative Council for Shelter, said that many SHDA member-developers are already contributing to urban revitalization efforts. Robinson’s Land, for example, uses the principle of "integration" in promoting the creation and restoration of high density, compact, self-contained and mixed-use complexes that integrate shopping malls, residential condominiums, hotel and office towers in one contiguous piece of urban land.

Ayala Land, Inc. considered a first-class, high quality real property developer with its involvement in upgrading the city’s mass transport system, plans to maximize its participation in the MRT project and be more active in rehabilitating the South Rail System.

Property Holdings Corporation (Phinma) is ivesting in technology for five-story, walk-up Medium-Rise Buildings (MRBs). Using a concept of high-density project and low density building clusters of only 29 units per cluster, Phinma builds its units around stairwells, eliminating he need for corridors, thus ensuring a sense privacy even in a high-density environment.