Adapting to informality: multistory housing driven by a co-productive process and the People’s Plans in Metro Manila, Philippines [original]

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This article has been peer-reviewed, accepted and published in:

Galuszka, J. (2020). Adapting to informality: multistory housing driven by a co-productive process and

the People’s Plans in Metro Manila, Philippines. International Development Planning Review, 1–29.

https://doi.org/10.3828/idpr.2020.8

Jakub Galuszka

Adapting to informality: multistory

housing driven by a co-productive process

and the People’s Plans in Metro Manila,

Philippines

Accepted manuscript (Postprint)Journal article |

Adapting!to!informality:!multi-storey!housing!driven!by!a!co-productive!process!and!the!

People’s!Plans!in!Metro!Manila,!Philippines!

Abstract! Faced! with! an! ever-increasing! demand! for! land! in! Metro! Manila,! as! well! as!

with!the!domination!of!standardised!low-income!housing!models,!the!local!civil!society!

and! the! urban! poor! sector! embarked! on! the! development! of! an! alternative! shelter!

approach:!in-city!multi-storey!housing!delivered!through!the!People’s!Plans.!The!article!

documents!the!emergence!of!the!approach,!interrogates!its!main!assumptions!and!takes!

a!closer!look!at!the!implementation!process!through!two!case!studies,!in!Pasig!and!San!

Jose! Del! Monte.! The! article! analyses! the! modality! as! an! attempt! to! create! a! hybrid!

approach! between! formal! and! informal! delivery! systems! within! the! built! form!

conventionally! associated! with! the! imaginaries! of! the! ‘formal’! city.! The! findings!

underscore! the! role! of! co-! production! in! enabling! the! urban! poor! sector! to! leverage!

their! approach,! while! documenting! the! need! to! move! beyond! a! formal-informal!

dichotomy!in!both!theory!and!urban!development!practice.!

Keywords!Co-production,!formal-informal!binary,!multi-storey!housing,!People’s!Plans,!

Metro!Manila,!resettlement,!public!sector,!civil!society,!climate!change!

Introduction

With the growing pressure on land and housing in rapidly urbanising Asian cities, multi-

storey housing has become one of the key alternatives for accommodating the increasing low-

income urban population. Considering the costs as well as complicated construction and

management issues, most developments of this type have been facilitated in a top-down

manner by public sector agencies. As in similar mass housing schemes across the globe, this

has typically led to limited input from the beneficiaries during the planning process and has

resulted in issues such as peripheral locations or inappropriate design (Lin, 2018) as well as

the dismantling of tight social networks and the spatial formations of informal settlements

that enabled a mix of living and working spaces (Hasan et al., 2010). Consequently, although

the availability of decent shelter is a key determinant of people’s welfare, these types of mass

housing projects have reportedly had limited positive socio-economic impacts on their

beneficiaries (Buckley et al, 2015; Huchzermayer & Misselwitz, 2016). In the South-East

Asia context, which is the focus of this article, co-productive or self-help approaches have

been reserved mainly for slum upgrading or site and service interventions, which were

heavily promoted by international development agencies from the 1970s onwards (Giles,

2003). Currently, in contexts where civil society is active and land prices are sky-rocketing,

multi-storey housing driven by people’s organisations emerges as an important, yet

underexplored, alternative for the housing delivery system. Apart from its obvious relevance

in addressing low-income housing backlog, this approach emerges as an embodiment of the

reciprocal relationship between the formal and informal nature of contemporary cities

(Dovey, 2012) within a spatial form conventionally labelled a ‘formal’ type of housing. This

article concentrates on the creative process of this approach, which represents an alternative

to the conventional logic of informal spatial structures being consolidated and ‘incorporated’

into the city. It illustrates a solution in which the development of a spatial structure

conventionally associated with the imaginaries of a formal city is driven by people rather

than exclusively by the public sector. The approach rejects the assumption that the creation of

this type of built form requires that the formal process be rigidly followed and that

constructive input of communities into housing development can happen solely in the context

of incremental upgrading of low-rise settlements. In other words, through the application of

People’s Plans based on a co-production principle housing development becomes infused

with solutions originating from the urban poor sector.

The People’s Plan is defined as ‘a resettlement option and community development

plan formulated by People’s Organisations, with or without the support of NGOs, Local

Government Units and National Government Agencies’ (National Technical Working Group,

2014). The process assumes that urban poor communities can take on a key role in all aspects

of multi-storey housing development including: community organisation and profiling; land

acquisition; creation of developmental, architectural, engineering, site development,

financing plans; co-management of construction works and input into those works as well as

creation of community development plan including livelihood and estate management

components (Asia Foundation, unknown). The analysis presented in the article documents

this process and reviews the ways in which people's solutions attempt to reverse the

conventional logic of multi-storey housing development. In theoretical terms the article

contributes to the pivotal debate on the positioning of informality in contemporary cities (Roy

and AlSayyad, 2004) and the need to transcend ‘the othering of informality for the benefit of

a more inclusive urban theory contribution’ (Acuto et al., 2019). It does so by reflecting on

the three spheres conventionally identified in the academic debate as forming the dichotomy

between formal and informal: spatial categorisation, organisational form and governmental

form (McFarlane and Waibel, 2012). The research points out the importance of framing of

informality and formality as a practices rather than spatial category (McFarlane, 2012a:105)

and illustrates that the formulation of spatial form conventionally seen as formal may be

driven by highly hybrid forms of organisation and governance. Simultaneously it reflects on

the positioning of co-production as one of the approaches that may be structuring planning

practice in the South (Watson, 2014) and providing an opening which allows for the

leveraging of solutions developed within the spectrum of informal urbanisation (Galuszka,

2019a).

The article is structured as follows: firstly, approaches incorporating an informal

housing process within the formal context are presented and juxtaposed with the top-down

multi-storey housing delivery system seen in the South-East Asian context. This is followed

by a debate on co-production as an approach which enables the integration of different

planning perspectives in the housing development process. Sections 4 and 5 introduce the

specifics of housing in Metro Manila and a recent governance shift while briefly discussing

the openings it has provided for the mainstreaming of people’s solutions. Section 6 examines

the assumptions of the People’s Plans through the review of main phases of the housing

development process, the role different stakeholders take in it and the ways formal and

informal approaches interact with each other. In the final part of the article, the ability to

execute the principles of People’s Plans in practice is illustrated through two case studies

demonstrating the implementation of people-led multi-storey housing in Metro Manila,

Philippines. This is followed by a debate on the relevance of the approach in crossing the

formal-informal binary and the challenges it encounters at project level.

The analysis is conducted in the context of the Oplan LIKAS programme which was

realised in the Philippines between 2011 and 2016 with the aim of resettling around 120,000

informal settler families from flood-prone danger zones in Metro Manila. Due to the big

impact of the local urban poor sector and civil society on the design of the programme, one of

the multi-storey housing modalities integrated the approach of co-production through

People’s Plans created by the community organisations involved. The debate in this article is

based on fieldwork data collected between November 2017 and March 2018 through 37

interviews with civil society and public sector actors engaged in the development and

implementation of the Oplan LIKAS housing modalities as well as the analysis of secondary

data sourced from key shelter agencies, the Department of Interior and Local Government

(DILG) and civil society. This part of the research contributes to the discussion of the

governance context and the assumptions of the People’s Plans as a hybrid formal-informal

housing process. The analysis of two case studies testing these assumptions is based on 8

interviews (3 in a group setting) with community leaders, involved NGO intermediaries,

public sector agencies in charge of the housing modalities under discussion as well as

transect walks on the sites and an analysis of secondary data related to the relevant housing.

Although the case studies are not representative of all multi-storey projects realised within

Oplan LIKAS, they allow for a demonstration of the ways in which people’s approaches were

infused into the formal process, and help identify the challenges and successes encountered in

the process.

Low-income housing in Asian and South-East Asian contexts: ‘adapting informality’

Along with the rapid population growth in Asian cities, the issue of a housing backlog has

been experienced by the majority of states on the continent, with 61% of its population living

in informal settlements and slum-like conditions (Bredenoord et. al, 2014). With limited

resources and encouraged by major international agencies such as the World Bank and the

UN (Arku, 2006), many low-income housing solutions from the 1970s in South and South-

East Asia were framed in line with the enabling approach (Giles, 2003) aiming at the

development of housing markets. In parallel, aided self-help strategies, which concentrated

on the bottom up activities in housing development, gained wide recognition. This orientation

stemmed from the revolutionary works of Turner and Fitcher (1972), who recognised that

people are a driving force in the creation of contemporary cities and that their approaches

may serve as a backbone for housing programmes. In the context of informal settlements, this

meant involving communities and the private sector in the process of developing housing and

promoting solutions such as aided self-help, slum upgrading or incremental development. In

other words in those cases governments tactically accepted elements of informal

development, while imposing their hierarchies and rules of implementation (Pieterse, 2013).

Among the most successful programmes were the Million Houses Program in Sri Lanka

(1983-1994) (Joshi & Khan, 2010), the Kampung Improvement Programme in Indonesia

(1969-1993) (Salas, 1992). During the 1970s and 1980s, these approaches spread through the

continent and, when coupled with stable economic growth, supported many informal dwellers

(Yap, 2016), either with decent housing or access to services.

Turner’s holistic approach, however, did not translate into a general recognition of

informal urbanisation as a natural component of contemporary cities. A large number of slum

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