MANILA, July 19 — More urban areas are developing their sustainable development plans to manage traffic congestion and create livable areas.
“We are doing a comprehensive plan for Metro Cebu (and) Metro Davao to make sure that we not only grow but make the cities livable for the population,” bared National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Undersecretary Rolando Tungpalan.
Tungpalan said these urban areas were recipients of a grant from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to develop a comprehensive plan to “avoid the kind of congestion that comes with development.”
He noted cities that could serve as role models for livable cities are Sydney in Australia and Singapore.
The NEDA official said the country had started developing the Clark Green City that would hopefully be a model of future developments.
The Clark Green City project is envisioned to become the Philippines most modern and the first technologically-integrated city with a mix of residential, commercial, agro-industrial, institutional and information technology developments at the same time having a green, sustainable and intelligent community.
It is one of the big-ticket projects under Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program.
Tungpalan said the first 1,000 hectares of the project would be transformed into mixed-use development. The masterplan covers 11,000 hectares. (Leslie D. Venzon/PNA)
