Socio Economic Profile 2008 - Navotas City

incremental changes as well as major building projects affect the quality of life of the local community of Navotas
as well as its peripheral communities.
2. Land Area
The total land area of Navotas is 1069 hectares representing 1.69% of the total land area of Metro Manila.
The city is composed of 14 barangays.
3. Existing Land Use
The majority of land in the city of Navotas is used as residential and industrial. This is without considering
the enormous area currently occupied by the unused and unproductive fishponds.
The Land Use of the City circa 2002
Land Use Area (has) Total %
Residential 403.23 37.72%
Commercial 22.29 2.09%
Institutional 11.42 1.07%
Industrial 149.60 13.99%
Parks and Open Spaces 6.25 0.58%
Fishponds 476.21 44.55%
Total 1069 100%
Technically, fishponds are the largest land users in Navotas. However, these fishponds are not currently in
use and have not been productive for some time now and have been left as water-filled open areas. The fishponds,
concentrated in Barangay Tanza, are located in the northern portion of the city and comprise almost half of the land
area of Navotas at 44.55% equivalent to 476.21 hectares. In the past, these areas were productively serving the
locality as an economic base sustaining the livelihood of the locality and providing the metropolis with water-based
resources since Navotas is a coastal city and has traditionally in its history functioned as the fishing center of the
metropolis. However, over the time these fishponds slowly lost their intended function mainly perhaps as a result
and effect of the presence of the Navotas Fishport Complex. The complex may initially have a positive impact in
sustaining the fishponds but gradually it negatively impacted them due to the large scale trading in fish and seabased
resources that emerged in the continued progress and expansion of the fishport complex. In light of this, it
can be viewed that the largest land use activity in the locality is residential at 37.72% comprising 403.23 hectares
of the town’s 1069 hectares. Residential land use dominates the entire city and is widespread mostly in the central
portion of the elongated profile of Navotas.
The second largest land using activity is industrial at 13.99% with 149.60 hectares. This industrial belt is
mostly found in the southern portion surrounding the Navotas Fishport Complex and effectively serviced by the
major transport infrastructures like C-3 and North Bay Boulevard. Industrial land using activities seem to thrive in
the locality mainly due to the presence of the fishport complex which influenced the emergence of support
industries and the presence of affordable labor since Navotas was mainly a residential city and for a period of its
history a spill area of Malabon.
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