- Details
- Category: Properties
- 22 Apr 2014
- Written by Amor Maclang
How safe is Metro Manila for today’s real-estate buyers?
A study conducted by Swiss Re, a Switzerland-based international reinsurance company, came out, I think, about three weeks ago, and cited Metro Manila as the world’s second riskiest place to live in, next only to Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan. “Besides being exposed to frequent tropical cyclones and storm surges, many cities in the region are also located in zones of high seismic activity, including Tokyo, Taipei and Manila,” the report said. “In locations with a multi-hazard risk, the probability of an event increases substantially. Tokyo-Yokohama, Osaka-Kobe and Nagoya in Japan as well as the Pearl River Delta in China, Taichung, Taipei and Tainan-Kaohshiung in Taiwan and Manila in the Philippines face a high likelihood of being impacted by different perils. This amplifies the threat to their inhabitants and economies.”
Others named into the top ten list were (from numbers three through ten): Pearl River Delta in China; Osaka-Kobe also in Japan; Jakarta, Indonesia; Nagoya, still in Japan; Kolkata, India; Shanghai River in China; Los Angeles in the United States; and Tehran in Iran. Swiss Re made its conclusion based on the geographical location of cities all over the world that exposes a considerable chunk of its urban population to natural catastrophes, such as earthquake, storm, storm surge, tsunami and river flood.
While I would not deny that this statement speaks volumes about the future that awaits the Philippine property market, in general, and its susceptibility to man-made disasters and natural calamities—owing, in part, to rampant corruption that has deprived much of the country the progress that it deserves—Metro Manila and its stakeholders can still seek help from a lot of measures to swing such a very disadvantageous reputation to its favor.
Working with the landscape
If safety was what governed human decision-making from the beginning of time, adrenaline-pumping activities like base-jumping or sky diving, for example, will surely not exist.
With a major portion of Metro Manila lying precariously on top of fault lines, such as the West Valley Fault and the East Valley Fault—two major fault lines that are said to be ripe for movements at any given time, according to experts—the lives of millions of Filipinos certainly lie in peril in the case of a major earthquake, for example. Much has been said, too, about the social and economic backslash that the Philippines endures on a regular basis after natural disasters like Typhoons Yolanda, Pablo, or Ondoy, or even the unforgiving state of Metro Manila traffic that continues to pester urban dwellers.
These facts only imply that real-estate development traverses a complex path where profitability and good reputation encounters issues involving risks—like safety and security—very frequently.
Safety and security are among the primordial considerations that real-estate developers constantly put high on their checklists prior to the actual development-planning phase. And this is where the value of innovative solutions and intelligent development master plan comes into play.
Integrity and sustainability
Several weeks ago, I talked about urban planning in the context of social responsibility carried out by property developers. If championed the right way, proper urban planning helps create a peaceful and orderly community that becomes a place of progress—both for urban lifestyles and businesses that thrive within a given area. Ample lighting facilities, enforced and sustained deployment of security personnel, reliable public transport systems, and active street life are just some of the considerations that make for a safe and people-friendly urban development.
Bonifacio Global City (BGC), for example, has managed to fulfill these requirements and even more. I’ve mentioned in my previous entry, too, that BGC also runs a pioneering floodwater catchment facility, which can hold as much as 22 million liters of water within a given period of time, thus eliminating the possibility of rampant flooding in the entire district. This, in turn, ensures that there will be no additional cost to be shed for unnecessary infrastructure repairs and that business will continue to progress smoothly and free from any urban disturbance.
Apart from this, property developers also assume a responsibility to plan and build developments that are on a par with—or even go beyond—normal industry standards. Design and aesthetics truly brings a lot of positive gains that developers can tap to capitalize on good business within a particular time period, but it is structural integrity and sustainability that ultimately rewards them with exceptional market reach for the long term. Are their buildings built based on green standards? Will the process of integrating complex measures help minimize their carbon footprint to a significant level? Will these structures safeguard lives and assets even in the face of disasters? Try asking yourselves these kinds of questions.
Beyond all of these, what will really benefit today’s real-estate market is for these best practices—and many others more—to become constants in every property development cycle. Filipinos—36 million of whom are calling Metro Manila their home, me and my family included—have had a long, epic bout with risks and disasters, picking up the pieces after a terrible beating from Mother Nature and other elements; it is about time that stakeholders from the real-estate sector did something about the issue by championing high-quality, world-class developments that help consumers and the market, as a whole, deal with the so-called “new normal.”
In Photo: Map of the West Marikina Valley and the East Marikina Valley Faults bssa.geoscienceworld.org
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