ANOTHER HIGH-RISE residential building is set to loom over the Katipunan skyline, but the fate of Blue Residences rests on shaky foundations.

This is because the Shoe Mart Development Corporation (SMDC), developer of Blue Residences, has drawn the ire of concerned groups in the Loyola Heights area, such as the Ateneo, Miriam College and Loyola Grand Villas (LGV).

These groups are calling for a temporary stop to the ongoing construction, citing the lack of due process in the issuance of the building’s permits.

SMDC argued, however, that the company has a responsibility to their potential buyers to finish the building’s construction on time.

In a meeting held March 9 at the Quezon City Hall, SMDC met with Loyola Heights representatives and city council members to address concerns on technical procedures. It was the second time that the company faced the Loyola Heights representatives, following a heated four-hour hearing held in the Loyola Heights Barangay Hall last February 3.

Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte facilitated the closed-door meeting.

Barangay, bypassed

Loyola Heights representatives questioned the manner in which SMDC obtained construction permits. According to them, the company had gone straight to the city council before completing the necessary steps at the barangay level.

Before construction begins, a company is required to secure a location clearance from the barangay and a locational permit from the city council. These are needed before a building permit is issued.

Barangay Loyola Heights Captain Caesar Marquez said that the company had been issued a location clearance and a fencing permit, but not a construction permit. To acquire this, Marquez said a public consultation should be held.

According to the Loyola Heights representatives, however, they were not consulted, and the corporation had already started with the construction.

Blue Residences is projected to reach 45 stories, well beyond the maximum allowable level of 24 stories, according to the zoning ordinance in the area. An exemption permit, along with other documents, must be secured from the city council if a building does not meet zoning requirements.

Technical issues

Before answering the issues, Atty. Mena Ojeda of SMDC said that the company had received the Loyola Heights position paper a day before. He asked that they be given time to address the procedural concerns raised during the meeting.

He added that the company had complied with the technical requirements needed for the exemption permit from the city council.

In response to the Loyola Heights representatives’ concerns about the absence of a public consultation, Ojeda said that they had conducted a social perception survey within a hundred meter radius of the construction site. He added that they could not impose on the barangay or the city council if they did not call for the public consultation.

Marquez however, said that the company had not even returned to the barangay to complete the required paperwork.

When asked about the survey, a social scientist from the SMDC camp said that they had conducted an environmental impact assessment. Respondents included people within the immediate vicinity, such as the jeepney drivers and people along United Coconut Planters Bank in Katipunan, until Ateneo’s Gate 1.

If the respondents had environmental concerns about the project, mitigating measures would be studied and implemented, the representative said.

LGV Homeowners Association President Mila Arnaldo, however, criticized the company’s survey. “[Those drivers] are transient,” she said. “That is not a survey of the people who will be affected in the area.”

To get the permit, SMDC was also required to obtain consent from the building site’s immediate neighbors. Ojeda countered that the building site was isolated.

“We should define first what ‘immediate’ means. If you look at the site of the project, we do not have any neighbors,” he said. “The nearest would be Ateneo. But I think there is a parcel of land separating the project from Ateneo. [It’s] also the reason why when we conducted the survey, Ateneo might not have been consulted,” he said.

By this time, tensions were already running high between the two parties, as Ojeda and Arnaldo exchanged questions about the technicalities of the procedures. Arnaldo eventually asked the company to be transparent and restart the procedure in the right order.

She said that SMDC should just “stop the construction” as a sign of its good will, and then acquire the necessary permits by going back to the beginning and following the process properly.

Communities, not condominiums

Outgoing Sanggunian President Rob Roque meanwhile joined in the discussion and said that he will not question the legal technicalities. He said, however, that he was “appalled” that the company had placed more importance on the construction rather than on its effects on the community.

“There is no technicality into being in a community,” he said. “[We Ateneans] are [also] part of that community…I would really like [SMDC] to consider far beyond their interests or the interests of [their] buyers, which incidentally, might be us.”

Roque also expressed his unhappiness at how the other camp has been bringing up technical matters from the beginning. “Development is not just about building condominiums; it’s about building communities, [and this is] something that you cannot forget when you begin a dialogue with us.”

Ojeda pointed out that their camp acted in that manner because the Loyola Heights representatives also raised technical issues at the onset, which Roque acknowledged.

He said that although the problem may be with governance in the city council level, it is still a concern that SMDC allowed the council to go through the exemption procedure without having public consultations with the affected community.

As of press time, the case is at a standstill. The city mayor has yet to decide on the request to issue a cease and desist order on construction while the two parties dialogue.

With reports from Klarisse P. Felix, Jose C. Cua and Katrina B. Gadong