Osmeña to hire urban planner who designed Boardwalk South Road Properties

Cebu Daily News

Cebu City, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña plans to acquire the services of an internationally renowned urban planner and design specialist to help in the city's urban planning and the design of the South Road Properties (SRP).

But Osmeña said it would take a little while before he will be able to ink a consultancy contract with Felino Palafox Jr. He did not elaborate why.

Palafox is the founder of the Palafox and Associates that is known for their architecture, interior design, urban and master planning and landscape architecture.

The design of the proposed Mandaue City Boardwalk, SM South Mall and the Cebu Business Park are among their numerous works.

“We plan to hire Jun Palafox for consultancy, as a consultant for urban planning,” Osmeña said in a media forum on Tuesday at the Marco Polo Hotel.

Osmeña said he was able to work with Palafox and four other consultants in 1995. They did a year-long study on the viability of the proposed Cordova Reclamation Project on behalf of the Lopez Group.

While Palafox is an internationally known design and urban planning expert, Osmeña said he also had to travel abroad to attend waterfront and tourism development conferences and observe the design of tourists destinations in Hawaii, Saipan and Phuket among others.

Because of their exposure together, Osmeña said, “many of the inputs in the SRP has his (Palafox's) background and my exposure to tourism and background of what they have in the different parts of the world.”

Osmeña said the city government needed Palafox’s expertise.

Recently, Osmeña met with representatives from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to solicit their technical assistance especially in the marketing of the 300-hectare reclamation project to Japanese investors.

City Planning and Development Officer Nigel Paul Villarete said in an earlier interview that they were awaiting a formal proposal from JBIC on how to go about the implementation of their marketing strategies.

Villarete said JBIC had always extended free technical assistance to countries where they had projects.

Osmeña said he wanted to make sure that the SRP is properly cared for because it is the “future” of the city.

“Cebu City now has the ability to control its destiny (because of the project income that will be derived from the SRP). We are near to being financially self-reliant,” he said.

Osmeña said that while the city government incurred billions of debts from the SRP, it was also expected to raise revenues that would augment whatever it was that the city government raised from taxes.

The city government now operates on a P2-billion annual budget. Of the allocation, at least 25 percent goes to projects, while another 25 percent is allocated for debt servicing.

He said the remaining 50 percent of the city's annual budget is spent for personnel services and maintenance and other operating expenses. /Reporter Doris C. Bongcac