Luna Terraces : Socialized Permaculture Housing Community

Why was this project started?

The pandemic has imposed threats to public health, availability of food, and access to social welfare and protection in the City. It has caused severe economic disruption and the City’s estimated loss is pegged at US$35.7M. 5,000 Micro/small/medium enterprises closed; the construction industry went to an abrupt halt; the transport sector was shut down, and 10,000 lost jobs.

The pandemic has also shut the beneficiaries into their temporary shelters and should a disaster happen, as the City is a high-risk area in terms of earthquakes, sinkholes, flooding, and landslides, their present vulnerabilities would have been put to a catastrophic level.

The City had been trying to implement a low-cost housing project. A 1.8-hectare property for this purpose in the 1980s and it was in 2019 that two (2) grants from the national government totaling US$4.2M were acquired by the current city leadership. Memorandums of Agreements between the city, the National Housing Authority, and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development were signed in 2020. The grants are programmed for site development and the construction of two (2)
medium-rise housing buildings for sixty (60) families.

The City intends to design a participatory living laboratory program that is a definitive step away from the build-then-award method for shelters and to take the more challenging path of co-planning, codeveloping, and empowerment through early social and environmental preparation. There is a need to prepare the families to acquire and practice lifelong skills towards self-sufficiency. In 2019. the Philippines
National Housing Authority reported housing completions of 25,280 housing units for calamity victims, but no built-in permaculture component was included, thus, an innovative “manual of change” guiding the implementation of the living laboratory is a prerequisite to achieving desired impacts.

The results of the project so far

Field visits provided the city government with a glimpse and a fortified empathy to the poor state and a resolution to develop a way to help the beneficiaries. Their poor living conditions, exposure to possible disasters, and limited access to jobs and livelihood had been exacerbated by the pandemic. There is a determination within them to access housing opportunities, and an openness and willingness to actively participate in a proposed community that 75% of them do not know of. Access to food and nutrition, a possible livelihood, and the wellbeing that comes with a secure and safe home is metric enough.

The priority target population for the project are the 3,361 informal settlers who are currently living in environmentally-critical and disaster-prone areas and were validated by the City Building and Architecture Office as due for demolition/eviction, and who are likewise identified by the City Social Welfare and Development Office as urban poor. The National Housing Authority, likewise, has identified that four hundred forty-six (446) of these families are entitled to resettlement assistance. Currently, two
hundred (200) applications were able to meet the set criteria and the computed maximum carrying capacity of the project is at two hundred and sixty (260).

The City Planning and Development Office, City Veterinary and Agriculture Office, and the City Social Welfare and Development Office visited five (5) households maintaining permaculture/survival gardens. They discussed the layout and size of their gardens, how they used their produce (for personal consumption and/or selling), their income, how the pandemic affected them, and where they got support.

A total of 20 people were chosen at random from the 200 qualified applicants to be interviewed. Seventy-five percent (75%) of the respondents are not familiar with permaculture but all of them are willing to live and participate in an agriculturally productive community.

What are specific, distinctive, strong elements in this project?

The internal stakeholders who were engaged in this project are the executive and legislative branches of the City government; relevant regional and national agencies;
local government committees particularly the Beneficiary Selection and Arbitration Committee, Housing and Urban Development Committee and the Committee on Social Services, Women and Urban Poor; and the socialized housing project team members make up the internal stakeholders who have been engaged through Executive Orders, Memorandum of Agreements, and Council Resolutions. Other parties who have an interest in this program due to their office mandates are the City Departments that provide services in social welfare, health, trade and industry, agriculture, and disaster risk reduction and management. The plans had been jointly developed by the City Planning and Development Office, the City Engineering Office, and the City Buildings and Architecture Office.

The external stakeholders are the potential beneficiaries, the volunteer practitioners-collaborators, and the residents of the host community where the program will be implemented. They were engaged through public consultation in January 2021, the volunteers signed up for their participation in December 2020, and a permaculture planning workshop was undertaken with them in February of 2021. The potential beneficiaries came to know of the proposed project in July 2020. Future engagements with them are being planned and scheduled.

The short-term indicators of success for this endeavor are the following:
1. The 1,500 inquiries, expressions of interest, and application submissions as a prospective beneficiary after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreements and presentation of the project to different stakeholders;
2. The volunteerism and participation of permaculture enthusiasts in the first permaculture community planning workshop held in February 2021;
3. The 75% prospective beneficiaries from the survey interview who are unfamiliar with permaculture and are willing to live in a community that practices such;
4. The support from national and local governments in terms of funding grants and other instruments to pave the way to implementing the project;
5. The number of committed housing beneficiaries who will undergo education and training; and
6. The development and start of execution for a living laboratory and the “manual of change.”
The long-term outcomes are the following:
7. The actual permaculture practice of the first sixty (60) households;
8. The expansion of beneficiary households to two hundred and sixty (260);
9. The generation of investment opportunities from the practice;
10. The improved quality of life of the residents; and
11. The participatory living laboratory is replicated in other parts of the City and in the country

Which specific lessons, do's and don'ts would you like to share? What would be suggestions for others when preparing or implementing the project in their own city?

The importance of strong public stakeholder engagement. The City had been hosting public consultations to present the Initiative's plans, to forge a shared understanding and eventual ownership of the City's plans and programs, and to build on the agenda of transparency and accountability.

The active involvement of volunteers shows that the community understands and share the vision of the City. They are invited to planning activities and will sit at the beneficiary selection, education, and training process.

Implementing a participatory living laboratory shall test and showcase a whole-of-society approach as the success of this initiative will lie entirely on active partnership throughout the lifetime of the program.

Aside from government partnerships, the key collaborators of this program are the following: the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who will provide the socio-economic perspective; the permaculture practitioners, environmentalists, green building practitioners, and engineering specialists within and outside the City who share their technical skills; the Technical Education and Skills Development institutions like the Baguio School of Arts and Trades and other Vocational Schools that will learn from
this living laboratory and use this community as their laboratory as well; the Non-Government Organizations involved in social development and housing, environmental conservation and protection, and the public health experts. The City is also the home to several universities that are engaged in urban and environmental studies. Women leaders and gender mainstreaming authorities are also actively in
partnership with the local government. The financial contributions of housing developers and contractors for the implementation of socialized housing in the country through an escrow fund maintained by the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development. These relevant actors jointly address crosssectoral challenges that may arise in order to improve the quality of support given not only to the target
beneficiaries but to the success of the entire endeavor.

Have others adopted, or shown interest in adopting, your idea in their own area?

The idea is the first of its kind in Baguio City and the Philippines, which programmed and designed a lowcost resettlement housing project with permaculture practice. Traditional housing selection based on the capacity to pay shall be enhanced with the capacity to learn and commit to a lifestyle change geared towards permaculture practice and self-sufficiency. Physical development shall no longer just be about the design and plan of housing units but the incorporation of landscape aspects, valuing ecology and urban regeneration.

The provision of housing units is an important agenda in the national and local governments in the country, in fact, innovation in the provision of better living conditions is welcomed. The National Housing Authority “envisions not just the building of homes, but thriving and flourishing communities where the integration of culture and advancements in the lives of the Filipino families are sustained.” This
statement served as a challenge and influenced the conceptualization of the project. According to research, none of the reported Philippine housing completions in 2019 had a built-in permaculture component and targets beneficiaries from the marginalized sector.