URBAN STREETGAZER: Who plans Davao City? Developers or planners?

“…local planning agencies…demonstrates the weaknesses of regulation for

implementing plans…. the reactive nature of the regulatory process leaves the

initiative for implementation in the hands of developers rather than planners.”– Linda, C. Dalton., The Limits of Regulation (1989)

The current surge of developers ranging from basic public housing to multi-storied condominiums to shopping gourmet, theme parks and resorts developments in Davao city have been a phenomenon since the turn of the 21st century. For almost two decades, metro Davao has been a willing beneficiary of various real estate developments by developers. The spontaneous changing of the city’s skyline is an authentication that Davao city has come of age; gearing to be introduced as an emerging modern city trying to be competitive among the league of modern cities in Southeast Asia and perhaps globally.

Developers assert that they risk financial capital and view themselves as city builder, deserving to have utmost profits which simultaneously maximize social welfare. Planners are viewed by developers as having no deep appreciation of financial risks to develop property. Planners have no comprehension why high profits are essential and planners are never at risk. Planners are thus not responsible, and are perhaps irresponsible. Developers regard planning staff (local government planning agencies) more often as too inept, ignorant or too often unqualified. Their appointment to planning positions are too often a brazen act of political accommodation, thus no iota of planning expertise whatsoever. These ham-fisted qualifications of planning staff and political acts marginalize the role of planning as unimportant in urban place-making. Hence, in their attempts to make things better, planners often make them worse.

In the opposite side, planners distrust developers. Planners consider that developers’ profit is entirely outrageous with the welfare of the society since their profit emanate at the expense of community’s wellbeing. Developers are wealthy and powerful, and make more money than they deserve. They legitimately afford a life of unashamed luxury. Developers are insensitive. They possess values with alternating greed and pseudo-social responsibilities. They do not understand or care enough about who gets hurt by their actions.

The argument for giving planners (i.e. local government planning unit) the foremost clout is that they are in charge of master planning and land use regulation. They give a balance to the power of the rich and influential. Most planners have a mission to create a just and more humane society. They believe that they understand better than others what a more humane society is and how best to achieve it. Planners feel more comfortable in a technical world than a political world, where many well organized interests make conflicting demands on politically vulnerable planning agencies.

Whether fact or fiction, these metaphors create a wall between planners and developers to the detriment of Davao city. Although there are developers and planners who fit the worst stereotypes, the vast majority of both professions have the same objectives – to build better cities. If planners properly understood the role of risk taking and profit in development, and if developers understood that most planners are as eager as they are to generate high quality development, both professions would be able to work together better and achieve mutually shared goals faster.

In an era of heightened city place-making, if government planners are not primarily responsible for planning the way Davao city looks, are developers? Certainly, developers have in fact had the dominant influence the way Davao cityscape looks. While local government planners administer design guidelines (e.g. building code, housing regulations, and condominium law, etc.), at the ground level it is the developers and their architects determine the cityscape. However, planning becomes cumbersome when other actors dip their fingers – fire safety authorities, traffic officials, health officers, environmentalists, air quality officials, interest groups, bankers, etc.; these groups also plan for Davao city landscape.

Some factors should be considered to increase the dependence of developers on planners and of planners on developers; few of these are a) traffic and environmental concerns are causing backlashes against development and are spawning no growth movements, b) climate change should be a major concern to both planners and developers as Davao city has more to lose in properties and lives, and c) increasing complexity in the development process means that neither developers nor planners can accomplish what they want by themselves.

Today, developers need planners as never before. In the past, developers could bypass planners by going directly to city council for zoning and development plan approvals. Currently, despite the developers full compliance with city’s zoning, they must go through by design reviews or other regulatory and discretionary public approvals. In most situations, planners hold the keys for development approvals. Even where the approvals include agencies other than planning office, developers must increasingly rely on planning consultants ranging from design to approval process navigation. Developers who cannot learn to work under the new rules will not survive, while those who can will prosper because greater risk in the approvals process means greater rewards for those who successfully pass through it.

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