Building Thua Thien Hue into a smart, friendly city

Vice chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Phuong chairs the online dialogue

Thua Thien Hue is building urban areas with regard to "heritage, culture, ecology, landscapes and friendly environment." The mission of conserving, preserving and restoring the cultural and architectural heritageswith outstanding valuesof Hue is very important. The planning building, management and construction order in the province are concerned by departments and sectors.

The province had approved many planning projects (general and detailed planning projects of urban and residential areas in the province) and issued many documents on the management of planning, construction as well as reviewing of the planning projects to make appropriate adjustments. The Prime Minister had also approved the adjustment of the general planning of Hue city by 2030 and the vision by 2050.

However, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Phuong frankly admitted that the management of planning and construction order in the province still had shortcomings. Many urban areas lacked detailed planning, urban designs, planning management regulations, urban architecture. Inadequacyin construction order, constructionswithout a permit, not strictly observing the permit, violation of construction boundaries, ... still occurred.

In nearly 3 hours of the dialogue, with more than 40 questions related to the issues: planningdirection, planningimplementation; handling suspended planning projects as well as ensuring urban order in some urban areas, and residential areas were exchanged frankly and openly by leadersof the province and departments.

In order to accelerate the investment in construction of urban technical infrastructure, create a breakthrough in urban development, the Provincial People's Committee would concentrate on investing in the construction of urban technical infrastructure in accordance with the planning and compliance with the provisions of current law, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Phuong said. Besides, urban planning must ensure quality, vision and take a step ahead in the direction of sustainable urbanization such as green urbanization, ecologicalurbanization.

Provincial People's Committee had focused on reviewing, amending, supplementing and promulgating legal documents of the province in this field in the direction of reforming administrative procedures and increasing the attractiveness of the investment environment so as to mobilize socialization of investment resources in urban infrastructureconstruction. The priority should be given to the synchronous investment in technical infrastructure in urban Hue, urban Thuan An, the towns of Huong Thuy, Huong Tra, Sia and National Highway 1A. It is also important to take full advantage of, manage well and efficiently use ODA capital sources for investment projects for embellishment and development of key urban centers. It is also urgent to completeimportant constructions in the fields of transportation; water supply system; collection and treatment system of solid waste and urban wastewater.

Strengthening urban order

In the online exchange, many opinions around the issues of urban management, granting construction permits and urban order were also exchanged by the people. In particular, the project of water environment improvement, which wereexecutedslowly and causeddifficulties for people, attracted the concern of many people.

Vice Chairman of Hue People's Committee Vo Le Nhat said: “The project ispreferentiallyfunded byJapanese government with the total of JPY 24,008 million (including the loan of JPY 20,883 million). Hue Urban Environment and Public WorksCo. Ltd. (HEPCO) is the investor of this project.The project started in June 2016 and was implemented in 11 southern wards of the city. However, as the excavation wastoo deep, the licensing procedure of the technical infrastructure management units was prolonged; the actual ability of the contractors has not met the criteria of the winning bids, the construction progress is still slow.”

According to the inspection, the process of construction implementation, the contractors hadnot seriously complied with the provisions on the deployment of construction. In order to overcome this situation, Hue People's Committee had assigned the Urban Management Office as the main responsible unitand the city police, related units to set up inspection teams totimely handle traffic issues, ensure the environmental sanitation, quality of adjacent constructions... According to the plan, the project will be finished by August 2018.

Mr. Truong Diem living on Tran Hung Dao street asked: "With the speed of investment, infrastructure construction in the localities in the province is quite fast, the situation of construction order management is also complicated. Illegal constructions,constructions without permits, encroachment on pavements, road-beds, traffic corridors.… are common. What solutions does the province have to deal with them?”

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Phuong said that management agencies, especially local authorities had not paid attention, lacked initiative in dealing with violations. Low awareness of people was the main reason for those situations. The Provincial People's Committee had made many directives to rectify the situation of breaking urban order, and the work of ensuring construction order had been basically changed.

By Hoang Loan