By Mae Singuay

The Bacolod City Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) chairperson of the committee on urban poor, housing and resettlement disclosed that the city has already identified four additional sites for the implementation of the housing program for informal settler families.

Aside from the identified housing sites in barangays 8 (Reclamation Area), Vista Alegre and Banago, the city also named four more areas which include barangays Mandalagan, Cabug, Estefania, and Felisa, committee chair Councilor Vladimir Gonzales said.

“We want to spread out the housing project in various areas of Bacolod,” Gonzales said.

The four private land owners on additional sites also signified their support for the implementation of the said program, he added.

Gonzales explained that the city and the developer will go into a memorandum of agreement in which the private developer will provide the structure and the land while the city will identify the housing beneficiaries,” he added.

It learned that the city government will start to build the initial 10,000 housing units under the Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino Housing program of the national government through the Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development.

This was followed by the signing of a joint venture agreement last month, which governs the public private partnership relationship between the city government and the consortium of the two property firms.

Part of the provisions in the consortium will build a total initial set of 10,000 units at the city’s relocation site in Barangay Vista Alegre (3,000 units) and on the Reclamation Area (7,000), with a commitment to build another set of 10,000 units./MS, WDJ