Behind last week’s inaugural of the ritzy SM Aura is a bitter fight between the national and the local government. And as always it is the private entity that gets miserably caught in the middle.
The multi-use shopping mall and office condo SM Aura sits on a 3.4-hectare portion of the 40-hectare Taguig Civic Center. In 2006 and 2008 the Bases Conversion and Development Authority had bequeathed the estate to the city, with no restrictions on land use or property zoning. The Taguig city hall promptly auctioned off parcels to private developers. In 2010 SM Prime Holdings Inc. won public biddings to lease two separate lots, on which it built a P3.5-billion, 30-storey complex. The first six floors consist of swanky shops and restaurants, the next 12 of government offices and Filipino businesses, and the last 12 of multinational companies. SM veered away from its usual giant shoebox design to erect an ultramodern artistic structure for high-end businesses.
While SM Aura’s construction was ongoing, the BCDA questioned Taguig City’s commercial development of the area. Supposedly, the latter had breached certain terms on land use for exclusively public purposes. City hall debunked the BCDA claim, pointing out that the land titles and deeds of conveyance contained no such terms or annotations. SM Prime also won a Supreme Court injunction of the BCDA’s plan to retake and rebid Aura’s property for its own grand development.
Unable to argue ownership or authority over the estate, the BCDA turned on SM Prime. It barred the developer from paving old unfinished roads, particularly the McKinley Parkway leading to Forbes Park-Makati and other contiguous commercial and residential zones. ( i think someone here asked what's the reason behind those unpaved access roads-me) SM said it had public safety and convenience in mind in undertaking the roadwork, for which city hall had issued the approvals and permits. BCDA replied that it owns the land on which the roads were being paved. City hall interjected that, under the Local Government Code, it had jurisdiction over all roads, public or private, within its boundaries.
And so SM suffers from yet another conflict between national and local policy.
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