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Hanoinews
Jul 19, 2017 / 16:02

Hanoi to deal with unmatched housing development and infrastructure building

Ngoc Thuy

The Hanoi People’s Committee has requested relevant agencies to determine the population size in any urban planning. The move is deemed to be late but still it is expected to contain the housing boom in downtown districts which is exerting pressure on transport infrastructure and creating other unwanted consequences.

After receiving many complaints  about the frequent traffic congestions in new urban areas including Linh Dam, Le Van Luong, Tran Duy Hung, the move is a necessary step to end the planning on hundreds of housing projects in  one road.
 
Ten to fifteen years ago, the Hanoians had high hopes for new urban areas including Linh Dam, Trung Hoa – Nhan Chinh as they are developed by HUD, Vinaconex; Vietnamese big names in housing development.  As a result, residents expect that new projects will partially change the face of the capital in the direction of modernity, convenience and friendliness as promised by the developers.
 
Unfortunately, after receiving the construction permits, the developers  only fulfill half of their premises. High rise apartment complexes sprouted up, bringing with it the rapid increase in population. Realtors, sensing the tremendous profits, race for bank loans and raise people’s money to build apartments. The connectivity between housing development and infrastructure construction was completely bypassed. Hundreds of housing  projects along  one road  adding hundreds of thousands of new city dwellers to Hanoi. Meanwhile, the transportation infrastructure and other areas have not been developed to match the population growth, leading to prolonged congestion on streets which had been empty ten years ago.
 
Illustrative image
Illustrative image
The high density of high rise buildings in Trung Hoa – Nhan Chinh, Xa La, Van Quan, Van Phu has led to the concentration  of thousands of residents, and the equal number  of cars and motorbikes. Roads leading to city’s downtown are often crowded with commuters.  Linh Dam urban area, once an architecture pride of Hanoi,  is now in disorder as many high rise buildings were erected in detrimental of the initial planning, heavily overloading Hanoi southern transport system. Congestion in the junction of Linh Dam and Giai Phong street is the consequence of failure to follow planning and the unmatched   the population growth  with   infrastructure development in this area.
 
The Director of Architecture of the Hanoi Planning Department has acknowledged that for many years, after the issuance of construction permits in urban districts, the City has not required realtors to build social infrastructure. Instead the City allows them to comfortably develop housing projects for sale without  caring  about the duties to develop the infrastructure. This is deemed to be  a major loophole in the management of urban planning.
 
As a result, the Hanoi People’s Committee requests responsible agencies, before examining and approving investment and construction projects, have to calculate carefully and predict the scale of citizens moving in . This step is necessary to  to prevent enterprises from making benefits from selling houses while the government bear the burden of infrastructure and public incurred by those overpopulated housing projects. 

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