Taking Our Property

in #philippines7 years ago

We live in the Philippines. Calbayog City Samar Philippines to be exact. The main highway that goes through here is getting ready to be expanded. It is only a 2 lane highway in the area we live in, but they decided that they need a 4 lane highway. Well, today they came by and tell us it's going to be a 6 lane highway. This highway usually is not even busy enough for the 2 lanes that it is. I've no idea why they want 6 lanes. Maybe they have big business coming in here and they are not advertising it yet. Maybe I'll be able to sell my property for some ridiculous amout of money soon. I've already been offered almost 4 times what I paid for it. I think I'll hold out for 20 times as much. Hey, big businesses equal big money. Plus our property is directly across from the biggest hotel on the island. Of course, after the road extension, they will no longer have a parking lot out front.
They were already taking part of our property for the 4-lane, almost wiping out a couple of businesses we have out front. Now they want 6 lanes. That's just going to completely wipe out both businesses. Of course, we are to be paid for the property and that was their mission for today, to take pictures of just exactly needs to be removed. Only a small portion of the house is to be removed.
Still, that's going to leave the highway right at our property line. I hope they at least have some shoulders on the road. Here in the Philippines, people like to park on the street, so I expect the 2 outer lanes will have parked cars in there most of the time. Maybe that's why they decided to expand it to 6 lanes instead of 4.
Something that upsets me about all this is that they just built a by-pass road not too long ago. They spent a lot of time and money on that. The intention of that road was to by-pass our whole area so there would not be so much traffic, especially the heavy vehicles (mostly buses). They built that road pretty shabby and no one wants to use it. Plus it is much longer to go that way then just staying on the highway. They never insisted that the heavy traffic use that road, so they don't. Just a lot of wasted time and money.
Now, instead of spending less and fixing that road up to standard and putting 6 lanes there, they want to do it here and break apart so many houses. They put up a huge wall in front of a couple of cemeteries here, but I swear those cemeteries were close to the road before the walls went up. I can't be sure on that, just my judgment call.
Some people just recently put up new walls based on the 4 lane survey, now it's 6 lanes. Those new walls will have to come down.
They say that this will not happen until 'next year', but next month is next year, so I don't know what to think about that. Supposedly it will be at least 6 months and maybe up to 1 year. They are slow around here, that's for sure.
There are some 'connected' people that are fighting this whole thing, but I don't know if it will do any good. I wish them good luck though.
So in the meantime, we wait. I hope that, at least, they will pay a fair price for whatever they take.
It's already loud enough around here with the traffic going by. When they move it 2 lanes closer, it's going to be worse. Maybe after they are done, we will put up our own concrete wall to help block out some of the sounds.
The picture below is an older picture. The house with all the green is ours. Do you see the planters on the house? Those will be gone when they take what they want for this highway. They are coming all the way up there. Really close isn't it? There is an overhang there before you get to any entrance to the house, but it's still going to be so much closer.

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Calbayog house from Ciriaco.jpg

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If the road extension crosses the property line, the government buys it for the average going price per square meter, which sucks because you're basically being lowballed. I don't know if that's the same there, but that's the SOP here in Cavite. You're entitled to sell it for that price because the government isn't going to fold just because a property owner is being stubborn about selling low. I do hope you get a fair price for it though.

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