MANILA, Philippines – Major property developers will likely start laying the groundwork for the Philippines’ first smart and totally environment-friendly metropolis next year, a government official said.
State-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) will start bidding out this year a 1,300-hectare portion of the 36,000-hectare Clark Green City project in Pampanga, a government official said.
“We will parcelize the lot into six. We want different developers to come in,” BCDA president and chief executive officer Arnel Paciano Casanova said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) welcome reception.
Major listed property firms, which approached the BCDA for the 1,300-hectare portion of the urban project, will likely start construction of mixed-use developments as early as 2015 as bidding is seen to be conducted this year, Casanova said.
While the master development plan for the Clark Green City has already been approved by the National Economic and Development Authority, the state-run agency is still waiting for President Aquino’s go signal before the contract for the development could be offered for bidding.
“It’s about time, we have a lot of opportunities and we are riding on the optimism of the market,” Casanova said.
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The country’s property sector is on a boom for the past few years on the back of strong end-user demand, large housing backlog, investor optimism and the increasing middle class capable of buying properties.
BCDA said the Clark Green City project is a $5-billion development that will transform a sizeable chunk of the Clark reservation into a fully automated, state-of-the-art metropolis. It is a little more than half of Metro Manila’s 63,000 hectares.
Once operational, Clark Green City is expected to generate approximately P1.57 trillion per year to the economy and create 925,000 jobs.
