DAGUPAN CITY, (PNA) — Mayor Belen Fernandez mulls giving incentives and tax holiday next year to owners of business establishments in the city’s central business district to encourage them to renovate or remodel their establishments.
This after the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP), Pangasinan chapter headed by Joel Santos, presented to her their Urban Renewal and Enhancement Plan for the city’s central business district in a bid to make it more attractive in the eyes of investors and shoppers.
“I think we can sacrifice not to collect some taxes from them for a little period of time. This income will surely go back to us in case the businessmen can recover after renovating and remodeling their establishments,” Fernandez said.
It was Architect Editha Parayno-De Vera, a UAP official, who drew up the plan for an urban renewal and enhancement program for the city’s central business district that can be adopted as a model when the businessmen start renovating or remodeling their buildings.
City Planning and Development Coordinator Romeo Rosario said the move is necessary because the old downtown area of Dagupan where many big businessmen of Dagupan started their businesses had lost its old magic and needed revitalization.
Fernandez, who tapped the help of the local UAP chapter to draw up plans for for a new Dagupan, said that when A.B. Fernandez Avenue was elevated by more than one foot, the ground floor of buildings on both sides of the road must likewise be elevated
The urban renewal plan covers not only establishments along A.B. Fernandez Avenue but also those located on both sides of Burgos Street and Extension, Perez Boulevard, M.H Del Pilar, Arellano Street and networks of roads within the central business district.
De Vera noted the increased elevation of the carriage way on A.B. Fernandez Avenue made the establishments on both sides of the road more vulnerable to flash floods caused by frequent rise of tidal water from adjacent rivers than before.
Residents noted that after the July 16, 1990 earthquake, tidal floods became more often in the city of 150,000 people, which is one meter below sea level. The first one being affected in these tidal flood is the Dagupan’s central business, including city hall.
Fernandez agreed. “We have the high tide to convince the business owners to agree to now elevate the ground floor of their establishments as they can not pump out water from their establishments all the time,” the mayor said.
The plan calls not only the upgrading of the floor level of stores but also the raising and fixing of their frontages and canopies, which Fernandez said will cost a lot of money, thus the need to give then incentives and tax holidays.
The UAP plan suggests among others the provision of two-meter vertical clearance of the sidewalks and the establishments must have standard dimension of horizontal signs, the installation of plant boxes, litter bins, traffic signs, street lights, close circuit TV cameras, bus stops, among others.