3k structures marked
The Lapu-Lapu City government is set to start dismantling the estimated 3,000 structures illegally built within the three-meter easement zone along the Mactan Channel within the month.
Mayor Paz Radaza said this in a press briefing on Wednesday that they were still finalizing the list of structures and giving the owners of these structures ample time to transfer or to demolish them voluntarily.
Personnel from the city government had been marking the structures to be demolished first such as boarding houses and piggeries.
Radaza said that they would only provide financial assistance to qualified settlers affected by the demolition since the city government could not provide a relocation site for them due to a lack of government lots available for relocation.
Some of the owners of the boarding houses and the piggeries had heeded the mayor’s call for them to voluntarily demolish these structures inside the three-meter easement zone.
The Lapu-Lapu City government had also sent notices to these settlers to vacate the area and that the structures there would be demolished, and they had been aware of the deadlines for their stay there.
“The DENR had been pushing us to take action against the illegal structures along the Mactan Channel. And so, we asked for understanding among the affected dwellers since the city government had to do this,” said Radaza in Cebuano.
Mila Uy of Lapu-Lapu City’s Urban Poor Affairs has been working with the different Urban Poor Associations as the city government also offers a bridge financing program for the Urban Poor Associations for them to buy a lot for them.
Lapu-Lapu City’s Urban Poor Affairs Office in an earlier report said that the planned demolition of 3,000 illegal structures within the three-meter easement zone from barangays Poblacion, Pajo, Pusok, Ibabao, Buaya and Mactan, all along Mactan Channel, would affect an estimated 1,000 families.
“Aside from being dangerous to build a house or a structure at the shoreline as declared by the law as a danger zone, it is also the city’s aim to clean our shorelines to preserve cleanliness of our seawaters,” said Radaza in Cebuano.
The City Legal Office has been notifying the owners of these structures since last year and had postponed taking action as they considered the settlers’ pleadings citing humanitarian reasons.