PHINMA Properties: More low-cost houses for LGUs
The Manila Times
By Catherine Talavera
March 7, 2016
Affordable housing developer Phinma Property Holdings Corp. (Phinma Properties) will build more low-cost housing projects in partnership with local government units (LGUs) to benefit their homeless citizens, a company official said.
On Saturday, the property developer held its turnover ceremony for its socialized housing project called Grand Strikeville 4 in Bacoor, Cavite, where the town administration, led by Mayor Strike B. Revilla, facilitated the project.
In an interview with The Manila Times, engineer George Richard Siton, Phinma Properties vice president for socialized housing division, said the firm is open to partnering with other local governments for similar projects.
“Hopefully, we can do another project [like this],” Siton said. “We have potential [LGUs], but we have to talk to them—the landowners—to do projects like this.”
Siton said the firm is currently in talks with several LGUs, and has recently signed a deal to build a similar project in Malabon City in Metro Manila.
“We have an ongoing project in Malabon,” he disclosed. “Then, maybe, another in Bacoor. Maybe, in Caloocan. But these are all in the negotiation stage, except for Malabon.”
Siton explained partnering with local governments for socialized housing projects is different from commercial projects, as LGU-supported housing have to meet the policies and situations of the beneficiary town, like setting lower prices.
“This is not similar to a regular project that’s commercially priced,” Siton said.
According to him, the local government of Bacoor serves as the beneficiary of the Strikeville housing project, as government employees of the city are the priority buyers of the housing units.
“This is different from the regular housing (because here, we deal) with the employers,” Siton expounded. “The government employees in Bacoor—they’re the priority. Then, we expand to other government agencies outside the local government.”
The Phinma Properties official said the local government of Bacoor has assisted the firm in securing the permits and licenses for the projects, and also served as the project beneficiary, particularly, its employees.
Grand Strikeville 4 offers 872 residential units that sit on a 4.5-hectare property.
Of these units, 757 are classified as socialized housing, with loft-type units on 28-square-meter lots 27-square-meter floor areas.
Meanwhile, 115 units of the project are under the so-called economic housing, which come in a two-storey residential townhouses, with floor areas that range from 58 to 69 square meters.
Siton noted that Phase one of the project only involves around 350 units of the socialized housing component. He said construction of the said phase began in October 2015.
Siton said that total development cost for the first phase of the project is P150 million.
The rest of the socialized housing units, he added, would be constructed in the second phase of the project, which also costs about P150 million.
The third and last phase of the project will involve the construction of the economic housing units or townhouses, with a development cost of P100 million.
Siton said total development cost of the Strikeville project is around P400 million.
He said the units from the first phase of the project are already sold out, while more buyers show interest the project’s subsequent phases.
“Phase I is sold out,” Siton said in Filipino. “In fact, we already have about 700 letters of intent. So we just need to process it.”
Units for the socialized housing component of the project are priced at P450,000, while the firm is yet to put a price on townhouse units of the project, which, he said, have stirred interest from the vicinity.
Siton said the Phase 2 of the project is currently under construction and is expected to be completed within the year.
He noted that the last two phases of the project are set for completion by yearend.
As for its project in Malabon in Metro Manila, Phinma Properties has agreed to put up a condominium project under socialized housing with the city government.
It will be a six-building condominium project with five storeys each and a total of 674 units, according to Siton.
He said construction period has not been set yet, since the Malabon land still needs to go through some piling procedures, as it used to be a swamp.