DAGUPAN CITY – The long wait is over!
The Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board finally released on May 3 a Certificate of Approval of the city’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) and Zoning Ordinance covering the period 2015-2025 as provided for in Resolution No. 945 series 2017.
Mayor Belen T. Fernandez personally received the Certificate of Approval along with retired City Planning Officer Engineer Romeo Rosario, City Administrator Farah Marie G. Decano, City Engineer Virginia Rosario, City Legal Officer Vicky Cabrera, Professor Nick Melecio, Civil Society Chairman lawyer Liberato “Ope” Reyna Jr. and former City Legal Officer George Mejia at the HLURB office in Quezon City.
“Congratulations to the people of Dagupan. We are looking forward to a bigger and better Dagupan. Thank you, too to our councilors Maybelyn DC Fernandez, Jeslito “Jigs” Seen, Jose Netu Tamayo, Alvin Coquia, Marvin Fabia, Lino Fernandez, and former councilors Dr. Jess Canto and Karlos Liberato Reyna IV,” said Mayor Fernandez.
She said with the CLUP and zoning ordinance finally approved, the city faces another remarkable milestone in the city’s history under her watch.
The new CLUP and Zoning Ordinance will be the dominant bases for the future use of the city’s land resources.
Dagupan waited for 38 long years before updating its old CLUP enacted through Ordinance No. 957, series of 1978 while other cities in Region 1 already updated their respective CLUPs, the mayor said.
In 2003, there was an attempt to revise the 1978 zoning ordinance but it failed to get the approval of the national HLURB.
The proposed CLUP highlights the optimum use of the finite land and water resources of the city through the proposed development projects of the city in the next 10 years, as well as its newly identified growth areas like Lucao-Pantal tourism growth center, Poblacion growth center, Caranglaan-Tebeng growth center, and the Bonuan growth center.
The growth centers shall become the focus of more intensive policy interventions and investments to serve initially as the focus of decentralized services.
It is also the intent of the CLUP to institutionalize the organizational structure of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office to address disaster risk reduction concerns and to ensure continuity of effective preparedness activities especially on rescue and response operations.
Among the interventions proposed under the CLUP for flooding is road elevation, rehabilitation of creeks and waterways, construction of floodgates along waterways outlet and dredging and the possibility of constructing a by-pass channel towards Calmay and Pantal, among others.
With the new CLUP in place, Dagupan shall continue to remain as the premier city of Pangasinan and Region 1 and will further strengthen its position and economic vibrancy by adopting a new spatial strategy that seeks to enable the other barangays to catch up with the traditional urban area in terms of level of development. (Joseph C. Bacani/CIO/May 3, 2017)