Unstarted ring road project still seeing outcries after 20 years

The Ring Road project to facilitate transportation around District 9’s High-Tech Park has not started constructions, although its plans have been approved since 2000 and undergone several amendments. People’s houses had to be dismantled to make way for this unstarted project which caused much uproar.

Transportation infrastructure in Eastern Ho Chi Minh City still faces roadblocks
Transportation infrastructure in Eastern Ho Chi Minh City still faces roadblocks

According to the approved plan, the ring road would be more than 2 km long and 107m wide, starting from Hanoi Highway to Vo Van Ngan Street, with resettlement areas to be built along the road. In 2004, Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee ceased construction of the resettlement areas to expand the road’s width to 120m.

As a result, 307 houses and 1 business facility would have to be disbanded to make way for the project.

However, before the expansion started, HCMC’s Department of Transport requested to keep the original width which is 107m. Therefore, households previously planned to resettle along the Ring Road construction project had to be relocated to Long Binh Ward in District 9.

As per request of HCMC People’s Committee, in July 2000, District 9’s authorities issued Decision 771/QĐ-UB to compensate for damage and clear up site for the project.

At the end of 2001, HCMC People’s Committee issued Decision No. 8419/QD-UB on recovering 226,009m of land and hand over the entire area to the Management board of investment and construction project of civil works and traffic works who are in charge of constructing the Ring road project during phase 1 and resettlement areas.

At the same time, 281 households received compensations from District 9 People’s Committee, and 263 out of 282 households and organizations handed over their ground area to the authorities. 124 households were eligible to receive resettlement land plots, 120 households received their land, and 4 households did not agree to receive the compensation land plot.

In recent seminars with the authorities, people asked the gov’t to return the remaining land area outside the boundary of the project which was cleared out but ended up not being used for the project.

However, since compensations for site clearance were considered completed, District 9 People’s Committee proposes that the clearance area be kept at 107m as previously planned, and to use the remaining area for public facilities instead of returning it to said households.

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