Ordinance 163-2023, an amendment to City Ordinance 13-2015-1047 known as the “green building ordinance” enacted in 2015, was approved on its third and final reading Friday, March 31, 2023.
City Councilor Jun Arcilla, chairman on planning and development who authored the ordinance, explained Monday, April 17, 2023 that the measure would help encourage the business sector to venture into establishing green buildings.
However, an official of a lawyers’ group pushing for the implementation of environmental laws in the Philippines acknowledged that there would be difficulties in complying with the green building rating system that is the basis for the incentives.
Under the ordinance, a voluntarily certified green building may apply for the incentive within three years from receiving its BERDE certification provided that the project owner does not have tax delinquencies, has the appropriate permits, aside from the existing tax credit they could avail of which is not more than 15 percent of the total amount of real property tax due on the building for the same taxable year.
Though included in the provisions of the previous ordinance, the incentives were not specified.
BERDE refers to the Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence Rating Certification System of the Philippine Green Building Council.
Perks for buildings that voluntarily achieve BERDE certification include a real property tax discount of five percent for one-star BERDE certified, 10 percent for two-star BERDE certified, 15 percent for three-star BERDE certified, 20 percent for four-star, and 25 percent for five-star BERDE certified buildings.
Green building construction is still mandatory in public structures, especially those with a minimum total gross floor area of 5,000 square meters and in Planned Unit Development (PUD) areas or the lots intended for a city’s future big developments. But it would now also be mandatory during renovations of such structures.
The exemptions are heritage or cultural buildings, post-disaster structures, and buildings where the repair is less than half of the gross floor area or abatement of the damaged buildings.
Buildings located in a PUD and other mandatorily required buildings may get a real property tax discount of five percent if four-star BERDE certified or 10 percent discount if five-star BERDE certified.
Consider resources and time
Arcilla said constructing green buildings is a good strategy to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change, especially since Mandaue is known as a flood-prone area.
However, Joy Argallo, legal and policy officer of Philippine Earth Justice Center Inc., told SunStar Cebu Tuesday that shifting to green building would take time and resources.
She said these challenges could lead contractors to have difficulties in complying with the green building rating system.
“When we talk of green buildings, these are structures whose design, construction and lifetime operation consider and assure the healthiest possible environment while ensuring the most conserving, efficient and least disruptive use of land water energy and resources,” said Argallo.
Challenges would be the shift of existing buildings, because it would take time and resources to comply with the BERDE standards, or the green building rating system in the country.
“Other challenges would probably be on the monitoring end of compliance and also massive information dissemination among the stakeholders concerned, both public and private persons/institutions,” she added.
Better in the long run
Mandaue City’s Environment and Natural Resources Office head Araceli Barlam emphasized that constructing a green building will be expensive at first but will cost less in the long run.
“What makes it expensive at the start is the technology it needs, such as making sure it consumes less electricity, has proper water and air circulation, and has waste disposal. But it has a return on investment that will be felt in the end. The earliest to be felt is the less electricity consumption,” said Barlam.
She described a green building as being similar to a “bahay kubo,” a simple structure with very sustainable and wise air ventilation and well-utilized space with eco-friendly materials.
She said building contractors would not need to worry about getting materials, as most of the green building materials are locally sourced.
Among famous green building structures in Mandaue are Gatewalk Central Superblock in Barangay Subangdaku and International Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IPI) Tingub branch in Barangay Tingub (three-stars BERDE certified) and the Mandani Bay Suites Tower 1 and 2 in Barangay Centro, the first-ever five-star green building in Cebu and Central Visayas.