BAGUIO CITY – The city government will tighten the requirements in issuing clearances for lot registration applications to prevent the titling of lots that are part of road right-of-ways (RROWs).
Mayor Mauricio Domogan said that aside from the usual requirement of a certification that the lot being applied for is within or outside the identified city or barangay needs being issued by the City Planning and Development Office, the city will impose another requirement this time a certification showing if the lot is within or outside the road right-of-way.
The RROW clearance will be issued by the City Engineering Office for city roads and the Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for national roads.
The mayor said this procedure would help the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) identify lots that are within the RROWs and are therefore not qualified for titling.
This was reached during the recent meeting of the City Lands Identification Committee chaired by Mayor Mauricio Domogan and co-chaired by council committee on lands chair Coun. Edgar Avila, where the officials agreed to toughen the city’s stance to ensure that RROWs and even areas considered as critical or danger zones will not be built upon.
During the meeting, the committee also agreed to pursue the survey of all public lands identified for city or barangay needs to make the claims absolute and guarantee their preservation and protection from unscrupulous land speculators.
The mayor earlier formed a task force to undertake the final survey of all the identified lands while a P5 million fund was set aside to finance the survey.
“By all means we have to finish the final survey of these lands so we can save them from enterprising individuals and allot them for use of the public,” the mayor said.
During the meeting, it was also agreed that small parcels of land located in between a titled property and a road will automatically be made part of a greenbelt area and therefore will also be considered as no-build zones.
As to the lots covered by 211 titles, the mayor said the committee’s stand remains that there is no need to open those unvalidated for revalidation as doing so would create more trouble.
“As we all know, these unvalidated lots have long been made alienable and therefore are now occupied thus making them open for revalidation would pit old and new claimants against one another and would result to conflicts. We would not want that to happen,” the mayor said.
By: Aileen P. Refuerzo