A PROPOSED URBAN RESETTLEMENT COMMUNITY

A new form of urban landscape can provide spatial orientation within areas of urban sprawl. It can also help favorably in the enhancement of small-scale and mixed-use rural structures. Fragmentation, the ability to respond quickly, infiltration and conversion are displayed as real assets of urban agriculture.

Local Related Studies

Evaluation of Housing Situation of Urban Poor in Resettlement Community in Metro Manila: A Case Study on the MRB Housing Project of the NHA in Brgy. Commonwealth, Quezon City

The Housing Situation in MRB project in Brgy. Commonwealth, Quezon City The Medium-Rise Building(MRB) The MRB by the NHA is a 5 storey residential building. Each storey is composed of 12 units thus giving a total of 60 units housed inside the building. The building measures 28m in length and 14m in width with entrance and exit is located at both ends of the building. Utility rooms are adjacent to the stairs but we can easily notice that there is no proper fire escape provided for the building.

Circulation Given that the building is consisting of 5 stories, there shall be an elevator for convenience in vertical circulation. But considering the fact that its a low income housing, it shall not be equipped with elevator for economic reasons. Therefore, the number of stories shall had been limited to 4 stories early on the planning stage.

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The Housing Units Each unit has a dimension of 6m x 4m which consists a bedroom, a shared living and dining, toilet and bath and a balcony. All squeezed in a mere 24 sqm. A family of 4 members or more shares this tiny space.

Image taken from the NHA bulletin board

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Recreational Facilities The amenities are located on the central part of the development surrounded by MRBs around the perimeter. Consists of a covered basketball court ,a Sepak Takraw court a stage and an grandstand on 2 sides of its perimeter. These recreational areas serves as a place congregate and socialize for the residents of the community.

Education During the planning of the resettlement community, a public school was not taken as a part of the plan but as the population increase in the development, the city government decided to provide a school inside the resettlement community. This public school serves both elementary and secondary level.

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Health and Religion

A health center was also provided inside the resettlement area to cater the medical needs of the residents since the nearest public hospital is a few miles away from the site. With the increase in population a church of the Iglesia ni Cristo was built adjacent to the resettlement community but majority of the residents is of a Roman catholic in religion. Absence of a proper market in the area

The absence of a proper market place near the resettlement area leads for the generation of small businesses and a temporary wet market occupying the sidewalk of the street.

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Inadequate parking spaces

Owning vehicles is a sign that there is an upgrade in the livelihood of the occupants but along with this issue means that there is also a need for more parking slots. Due to this reason people park their vehicles on the street occupying a lane or almost half the width of the narrow street. Waste Disposal Though the garbage collector arrives three times a week, the people in charge in the management of the community failed to prevent the improper disposal of garbage. Although some of the reasons can also be blaimed on the otherside since the management themselves wasnt able to provide garbage cans along the street.

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The emergence of Barong-barong on vacant spaces These shanties emerge because of the lack of oppurtunities to generate income in the area. Some residents have made these temporary structures to run their business. While other other shanties are made by the people who were not residence of the resettlement project.

Critiques: A great number of the original resident was found to have moved from their new home, sold up and moved elsewhere. Previous studies had demonstrated that low-rise, high-density solutions work well for the poor, as often their homes double up as work-shops and businesses for income generation. Shelter Associates states that slum dwellers rehabilitated into high-rise buildings often sell and move back to the slum as this building style fails to satisfy the needs of the poor to provide space for income generation activities. That they are difcult to maintain over time and that with weak service networks it becomes particularly difcult for families on the upper oors. In a resettlement community, the designer should involve the residents during the planning stage. The resettlement project lacked the creation of employment generation activities. No business units were provided or community facilities such as meeting halls and a community market. These are all vital components of a community which are signicantly lacking at the resettlement community. The failure to include these has had major consequences on the residents livelihoods. However, the residents at the resettlement community are benetting greatly from the recreational facilities and courtyard building design with plenty of open space around which they would not have had if stayed at the slum areas. This effective building design has been particularly successful as it made use of the NGC architects who are experienced in the impact of building design on social cohesion and living styles of the urban poor.

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"Kaantabay sa Kauswagan" (Partners in Development) Mass Housing Strategy: The Case of Naga City The "Kaantabay sa Kauswagan or Partners in Development" is a program that addressed the needs of Naga's increasing urban poor through implementation of different mass housing strategies in partnership with various urban poor communities. These strategies were thought to be necessary in providing the urban poor communities security of tenure and/or basic infrastructures, which are prerequisites of a decent community. The City government has identified three (3) broad indicators of need for the Program. First, real estate cost keeps on increasing as a result of speculations by real estate developers and investors. The need to reclassify the lands that are presently being occupied by squatters also need immediate attention to enable the City to efficiently implement its resettlement/relocation activities. And lastly, as a consequence of the first two concerns, the availability of land for ownership and/or resettlement becomes limited. Strategies/Activities/Accomplishments The following are the support strategies employed in the different activities of the program: A. On-Site Development - On-site development strategies involve facilitation of transfer of land ownership from government and private owners to the individual occupants. The Program takes charge of negotiating with the landowners upon which the types of land acquisition will then be determined. Purchase of properties uses direct purchase and/or a combination of other modes of land acquisition: land swapping, exchange, sharing, and/or through Community Mortgage Program (CMP). These strategies are all implemented in existing urban poor communities.

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On-site development activities are screening and selection of qualified beneficiaries, subdividing and distribution of homelots and site development. a. Direct Purchase- involves the purchase of urban poor occupied-land from its owner by the City Government itself. The occupants then amortize the cost of their individual homelots to the City Government. b. Land Swapping scheme involves the exchange of an urban poor-occupied property with another of roughly equal value, preferably without occupants. The occupants then amortize the cost of their homelots to the new owner. An off-site project that used this seheme is the Bagong Estaran, Bagong Buhay Program Resettlement Project. e. Another on-site scheme the Program uses is Land Sharing. This strategy works out a mutually acceptable arrangement between the private landowner and urban poor occupants. d. Urban poor association is allowed to purchase a private property they presently occupied through the Community Mortgage Program of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC). B. The objective of projects using Off-Site Development Strategies is to provide resettlement sites for demolition and eviction victims, as well as urban poor families who want to acquire a homelot of their own. Lands for this purpose are acquired either through direct purchase or land swapping. Also, working for DENR authorization in disposition of public lands within the LGUs territorial jurisdiction

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enable the latter to give priority to the urban poor families to the said disposable lands. C. Other support strategies are community organizing, leadership training, and value reorientation seminars. These are all capacity building activities aimed at empowering the urban poor. Auxiliary services such as land surveys, relocation assistance and legal assistance during court cases are all given free to the urban poor families.

Critiques:
The competence of Naga City in response to the challenge to LGUs in providing and Financing social services to the urban poor was seen in the various projects of "Naga sa Kauswagan Program". The Program was able to successfully address some aspects of squatting problem focusing on land tenure security. It applies various modes of land acquisition and is exploring other means such as land banking and bond floatation. Other programs have adapted these approaches but the rate of success has not as wide an impact as the Naga sa Kauswagan Program had. It has also shown that a positive government/NGO/private owners joint undertakings are possible. The Program engaged the commitment of organizations and individuals that eventually evolved into strong and flexible long-term partnerships. The readiness of the urban poor communities and the challenge to the local government ensured the success of the Program. For any Program to succeed the main responsibility must rest within the cities themselves. The task ahead for the City of Naga now is how to sustain the Program for future needs, which it has started by putting up a Trust Fund. To the national government; to continuously trust the local

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government units in their capacity to manage their own resources and to incorporate lessons learned into national and local urban management strategies.

The "Lote Para sa Mahihirap" Housing Program of San Carlos City,Negros Occidental Innovations that can be Replicated The succes of Lote Para sa Mahihirap Program was based on the number of innovative strategies: 1. Low-Cost lots for the beneficiaries. The price of the lots are computed based on acquisition cost and no interest, beneficiaries are not required to pay downpayments, and interest was not applied to amortization cost. 2. Affordable and easy mode of payment. The daily instalment scheme and salary deduction for the government employees proved to be efficient and feasible both to the city government and the beneficiaries. 3. Assigning a collection agent to collect from the site. A collection officer who visits them daily to collect payments encourage the beneficiaries to pay their amortization on time. These scheme does not only shows the sincerity of the local government to make the program work but also saves time and effort for the beneficiaries in going to the city hall just to pay their amortization. 4. Their sense of neighbourhood was retained. The residents felt they were not uprooted from their original place of residence when they were transferred to the

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site because their lots were arranged in such a way that they will have the same neighbours as when they were in the old site. 5. The program is supported by the city ordinance that defines their rights and responsibilities. It is also supported by Sanggunian Resolutions providing budget allocation for the program and assurance of the programs continuity.

Critiques:
The strategy is feasible if the LGU have the sincerity of purpose in giving their citizen a chance to have a decent life through security of tenure. With security of tenure they are now proud owners of their land and are finding ways to improve their living conditions starting with the improvements of their housing units. The strategies employed by the city of San Carlos did not only empower its constituents by giving them the dignity of owning a piece of land but also successfully solve squatting and its and its accompanying social problems.

Foreign Related Literature

Foreign Related Studies Appraisal of Innovative Public Housing in New York: A case study on Via-Verde Housing Project in South Bronx, New York New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, 2012 Abstract Via Verde (the green way) is a 222-unit mixed-income and tenure housing development in the South Bronx area of New York City. The winner of the New Housing New York Legacy Project (NHNY) design competition, Via Verde is an incubator of sustainable design features that promote resource efficiency and a healthy, active lifestyle

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for residents. The LEED Gold-certified building includes many innovations in design and construction technology that offer important lessons for affordable housing developments across the country. The Site The site was on a narrow, triangular-shaped lot adjacent to the Melrose Commons neighborhood in the South Bronx. Comprised of 40,000 square feet of land and an additional 20,000 square feet of air rights, the dimensional constraints of the site were exacerbated by soil contamination, which led to the propertys designation as a brownfield. After years of public investment in the South Bronx, the property was one of the few remaining vacant city-owned parcels. (Federal Home Loan Bank of New York. 2010) Innovative Design and Program Via Verdes design includes many building form, programming, and technology innovations that create a model for the next generation of sustainable, affordable housing. Several of these innovations are realized through building massing and the ascending, tendril-inspired form, which responds to the narrow, triangular shape of the site as well as the neighborhood context. The project consists of three building types that wrap around the perimeter of the site. From the sites south side, the height of the buildings rise, from 2- to 4-story townhouses, to a 6- to 13-story mid-rise building that steps up to meet a 20-story tower on the north side, which serves as the projects apex. The wrapping, terraced form gives rise to a vertical network of rooftop gardens that provides the physical and social organizing elements of Via Verde. Totaling approximately 40,000

square feet of open space, the gardens ascend from a ground level courtyard to a 7th floor fitness garden, with a rooftop dining terrace above the towers 20th floor. The gardens connect through a series of stairways and include a variety of uses to both engage residents and

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incorporate green building technologies: an amphitheater (2nd floor), a grove of conifer trees (3rd floor), a fruit tree orchard (4th floor), community gardens (5th floor), and a fitness garden (7th floor). These open spaces are designed to promote physical activity and create dynamic community spaces that encourage both passive and active recreation. The garden on the seventh floor includes access to an indoor fitness center that offers commanding views of the Bronx and Manhattan to the south. The upper floors include six additional gardens that are planted with native vegetation. Although not accessible to residents, these areas provide building insulation and advanced stormwater management; the rainwater is harvested to irrigate the rooftop plantings. To ensure the success of the community gardens, the developers partnered with GrowNYC, a local nonprofit organization, to manage and operate the gardens during Via Verdes first two years of operation. The objective is to educate and train residents so that the gardens are managed and maintained entirely by the Via Verde community after this initial start-up period (Where is New York? Affordability at Via Verde. 2012). The innovations at Via Verde extend to the faade where advanced building technologies are used to further the goals of environmental sustainability and affordability. The terraced, south-facing walls harness the unobstructed southern exposure with six arrays of photovoltaic (PV) panels mounted to the buildings exterior. Combined with additional arrays on the roofs of the fifth and seventh floors, the project includes a total of 288 photovoltaic panels capable of producing 66kw of electricity, or the equivalent of $12,000 in electricity savings annually, based on the energy model developed for the building(Association for Affordability, Inc. 2011). In addition to the wall mounted solar panels, the building envelope includes technology to prevent water damage and promote building longevity. Via Verdes exterior includes a prefabricated rainscreen cladding that is engineered to minimize water from infiltrating the exterior wall and damaging the building materials. Via Verdes buildings accommodate different housing types to meet a diversity of resident needs. The project includes 222 housing units, 151 low- and moderate-income rental units and 71 moderate- and middle-income co-op units. The 20-story tower is comprised of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment rental units (Via Verde/The Green Way: Press Pack, 2012).The mid-rise building includes a combination of rental units in the northern section of the building and co-op units in the southern half. The mid-rise is

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comprised of two-bedroom units consisting of two stories with a central access corridor on every other floor. This duplex-style design was necessitated by the buildings narrow footprint and relatively shallow depth (approximately 48). Each unit has a first floor that is half the buildings depth (split by the access corridor) and consists of a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. The second floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom that spans the buildings depth, but is only half the width of the units first floor. This pattern repeats throughout the building and is used to maximize the number of units and living space (Where is New York? Affordability at Via Verde. 2012). The projects townhouses include a combination of one-, two-, and three-bedroom garden and walk-up style units. The majority of these units were designed with windows that maximize the use of natural light and ceiling fans that provide an alternative source of cooling and cross ventilation. The projects sustainability features have earned Via Verde a LEED Gold certification for new construction, including EnergyStar-rated appliances, energy-efficient lighting and mechanical systems, condenser clothes dryers, and plumbing fixtures designed to reduce water consumption. Efforts to promote healthy, active living extend from the vertical gardens to the interior of the buildings. A pilot of the New York City Active Design Guidelines, Via Verde is designed to achieve a LEED Innovation Credit for incorporating design elements that promote a more active lifestyle for residents. For example, the use of stairs is encouraged by locating stairwells in highly visible and accessible areas and by placing windows in stairwells to bring in natural light. Signage encourages the use of stairs and highlights the health benefits (calories burned) of residents daily climbs. Centralized bicycle storage facilitates encourage the use of active modes of transportation and a medical clinic on the first floor provides health services for residents. Experience Gained Via Verde includes many innovations in the design and programming of affordable housing that provide important lessons for future projects. The development is rooted in a community-based planning process that dates to the early 1990s, when local residents helped establish a revitalization plan for a mixed-income community that promotes environmental and social sustainability. These same principles have informed Via Verdes

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planning process, in that the NHNY design competition relied on community input to help shape the projects design. For those involved in the development of Via Verde, the project includes many lessons that can be applied to future efforts. As a result of the competition, HPD has placed a greater emphasis on sustainability in their RFP process for new projects, and the Department is using the design competition platform to solicit proposals to meet other housing needs.22 The project has enabled the designers and developers to explore innovative design and program ideas, including the prefabricated rainscreen technology, wall-mounted PV panels, and the vertical open space network that serves as both a community and a natural resource amenity. The incorporation of rooftop community gardens and the nonprofit start-up management model is being used in other projects involving the Via Verde development team. Via Verdes sustainable design is expected to help maintain housing affordability while providing immediate savings in utility costs, when the project is compared to a baseline development without similar green features. Total savings are expected to exceed $115,000 annually, representing a 27 percent reduction compared with a baseline building.23 Green Features Incorporated into Building Design The green roofs of the project starts at there were spiral all the way up so the idea was Via-Verde or the green way the name of the project based on the concept of using the roof top space as green roofs which serves as an insulations and storm water run-off and creating a nice amenities for the residents to use. The first level roof is planted with evergreen trees, the next level roof are planted with fruit bearing trees and large gardening plots for people to plant vegetables and do herb gardening in these 2ft tall planters. As the building steps up the roof is planted w/ different species of plants with 4-6inches of soil all the way to the 7th floor roof up to the 18th and on the 20th floor is a community room and terrace where people could view the surroundings of Bronx and the skyline.

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The vertical surfaces are equipped with solar panels from the south to the north. The solar panels are attached on a racking system which are tilted maintaining the optimum angle as the sun moves across the sky. The solar panels provides 65kilowatts that powers the elevators, pumps, etc.

The buildings step up from the south to the north in response to the site and the surrounding neighborhood; wall mounted solar panels optimize the southern exposure. The buildings define the central courtyard that leads to the rooftop open space network.

A fruit tree orchard and community gardening beds are included in the open

The open space network wraps the perimeter of the site as it ascends with the building

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Conceptual model of the housing types in each building

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The duplex housing typology is achieved with central access corridor on every other floor and by varying the width and depth of the first and second floors of each unit

AGROPOLIS: The Social, Political and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture Urban Agriculture and Food Security
Millennium Development Goals 1(MDG 1) calls for halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day, as well as 'the proportion of people who suffer from hunger', particularly the prevalence of underweight children and the proportion of the population who have a below minimum level of dietary energy consumption. More than 30 per cent of the population in South Asia and subSaharan Africa suffers from undernourishment and the prevalence has been rising in the Middle East and North Africa.

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