I GREW up on a quiet street in Mandaluyong City, in a compound filled with family, with bungalows for houses. Soon enough relatives started to migrate and sell their land. We have seen a beautiful bungalow demolished for a set of tiny townhouses. For a while we lived with a huge gaping hole in the lot in front of us, excavated for a condominium that didn’t happen.
This is a very interesting article for it shows the conflicting interests at work, personal privacy and a right to a certain lifestyle, unrestrained development by people with money, and the cause of it all . . . too many people, little civic planning and no outlets for complaint. The rich and powerful deploy their power with little regard for others. Development of multi-family residences ought to be in the correct zones for that, not mixed with individual homes. Just as industry and business ought to be in their proper place.
But aren’t.
I agree with Katrina on this one.
Unfettered development ang tawag diyan. And it’s because of banks.
I asked a developer why they can’t limit their construction activity to office hours. He replied, “It would be nice, it would even save us the extra pay for night time work if we did not have to do it. But interest on our loan runs 24 hours a day so it’s really the bank that you should ask.”
Of course we can ask for city ordinances etc but developers will only add the extra cost of interest to their selling price. So less noise equals more expensive units. But then if we go after the banks to change their lending policies, the banks will transfer that loss to other forms of lending. At the end of the day, we’re fucked either way.
What to do, lah?
sabi naman ng isang tagakuha ng permit permit sa munisipyo, nung banggitin ko yung schedule na 8 to 5 daily, halfday saturday, peace and quiet sunday, dapat given ito pag residential area — kasi daw me time limit rin na ini-impose ang munisipyo. kailangan tapos ang construction in so many months, years, whatever. at pag di natapos, panibagong building permit, o extension, bayad na naman. eh fucked talaga tayo every which way.
One of my favorite quotes:
“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely” – Hunter S. Thompson.
I think the problem with Metro-Manila land development is there is no rational URBAN planning as well as lack of strict enforcement of zoning. Unlike major cities in Asia, like Singapore or Hong Kong, due to lack of space, you can see cluster of high-rise condominiums which are built in areas where i believe old residential communities were either re-located or govt has assigned specific districts strictly for commercial and high rise building.