VICE PRESIDENT and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council chair Jejomar Binay aims to fill up both sides of the South Luzon Expressway with a mixture of reasonably priced mid-rise condominiums as well as horizontal residential communities.
For Binay, this stretch alone—starting from Parañaque City down to Santo Tomas in the province of Batangas—has the space to accommodate enough number of reasonably priced housing projects that could significantly reduce the country’s housing backlog estimated at 3.6 million.
There’s a compelling reason Binay is so keen in developing this area.
Binay explained that SLEX’s recent rehabilitation, upgrading and extension have significantly shortened commuting time, a fact that is also welcomed by several developers operating in the Calabarzon area or the region made up of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon.
“With an improving transport infrastructure, homebuyers are discovering that it doesn’t require much effort to head south and find a new house and lot or even a condominium unit at a good-value price,” said Romarico Alvarez, chair of PA Alvarez Group of Companies, a property dev elopment company that owns one of the most extensive collections of horizontal residential communities, including the first mid-rise condominium project in Laguna.
Trend
As one of the leading developers in the low- and mid-priced category in Laguna as well as one of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board’s leading developers for socialized housing in Calabarzon, PA Alvarez Group of Companies will always welcome homebuyers moving to the south of Metro Manila.
This is a trend that Alvarez expects to continue for the next few years as industrial and special economic zones continue to sprout in Calabarzon.
The recent linking of the SLEX to the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road and the rehabilitation of the Philippine National Railways’ Bicol-bound tracks are also helping open up areas once considered difficult to reach.
“Moreover, there are so few spaces left within Metro Manila that developers have few options and are often limited to building vertical residential developments. It’s a different case here in Laguna and Cavite for example, where developers could still build an affordable range of expansive if not gentrified neighborhoods,” Alvarez said.
17th year
For PA Alvarez Group of Companies that celebrates its 17th year in the business, the more urgent need is the expansion of all its existing developments in Laguna and Cavite.
Since its establishment in 1994, PA Alvarez Group of Companies has already delivered a total of 14,481 house and lot units with prices ranging from P450,000 to P3.5 million.
With 152.2 hectares already developed, Alvarez said the group is in the process of developing an additional 53.8 hectares (including Bridgepointe Place in Pampanga), which will add another 5,795 house and lot units to the group’s list.
On the other hand, the medium-rise condominium projects—priced between P900,000 and P2.6 million—in the cities of Pasig, Pasay, Caloocan and Santa Rosa in Laguna, has a total of 31 buildings, which according to Epifanio Santillan Jr., president of PA Metro Residence Builders Inc., offer a total of 2,469 units.
Big impact
“We want to make a big impact in reducing the housing backlog. We are in a better position to contribute more since majority of our homes are priced from P400,000 up to around P1 million—the price range that most middle-income families could afford and within what the government wants to concentrate on,” said Jonathan Lu, president of PA Alvarez Properties and Development Corp., which takes care of the group’s horizontal projects.
Alvarez explained that the low- and mid-priced housing could deliver the most number of units than any other segment.
“This category also has the capacity to uplift so many people’s lives as some 98 allied industries including skilled labor, hollow block makers, cement companies, GI sheet manufacturers stand to benefit,” Alvarez added.
Moreover, he added that Calabarzon has had considerable accomplishments in housing, is currently experiencing rapid urbanization, and is one of most dense, with a population exceeding 11 million. “And with an area of 1.6 million hectares, Calabarzon offers ample land for developers to exploit.”