Infrastructure projects in Ho Chi Minh City are about to stop waiting for land.

With the regulation on compensation prices for site clearance approaching market prices in the 2024 Land Law, compensation costs will increase, but projects will no longer have to wait for land for years.

Capital increased but site clearance was faster

Immediately after the new Land Law took effect, Ho Chi Minh City reviewed and applied a new regulation that the compensation price for site clearance was close to the market price, but the cost of this work at many projects increased by thousands of billions of dong.

For example, in the Xuyen Tam Canal Infrastructure Construction Dredging and Improvement Project (from Nhieu Loc - Thi Nghe Canal to Vam Thuat River), the estimated cost of compensation and site clearance will increase by VND 7,600 billion, to VND 12,978 billion. The Doi Canal Infrastructure Construction and Environment Improvement Project (District 8) will increase by VND 2,400 billion in site clearance costs, to VND 5,100 billion.

A representative of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City said that when applying the compensation policy according to the new regulations of the 2024 Land Law and Decree 88/2024/ND-CP, people whose land is recovered will benefit from both compensation and resettlement policies. In particular, people whose agricultural land is recovered have the right to choose many forms of compensation, such as receiving agricultural land, receiving money, receiving housing, or land with a different purpose than the type of land recovered (Clause 1, Article 96, Land Law 2024).

The form of "compensation by land with a different purpose than the type of land recovered" is also applied when the State recovers residential land and non-agricultural land (Clause 1, Article 98 and Clause 1, Article 99, Land Law 2024).

With the new Land Law, resettlement policies are also regulated more liberally. Previously, with residential land, only people whose land was recovered were resettled, while agricultural land and other types of land were not included in the resettlement scope. But the new Land Law stipulates that people whose land was recovered, whether or not they are eligible for compensation for residential land, will be resettled.

Therefore, the cost of site clearance at the projects increased to thousands of billions of VND. However, this is too difficult a problem for Ho Chi Minh City, because in 2024, the City allocated 32,674 billion VND for this work. As of the end of July, the City still had 30,234 billion VND of site clearance capital that had not been disbursed.

In the program "People ask - Government answers" recently held, related to the issue of site clearance when applying the Land Law 2024, a representative of the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City said that through reviewing a number of projects, the cost of site clearance compensation has increased but is still within the project's contingency cost, so there is no need to adjust the investment policy.

To balance the additional capital for compensation for site clearance for projects, the Department of Planning and Investment will prioritize capital allocation for site clearance by transferring capital from projects with low disbursement progress, or with problems with related procedures that cannot be implemented immediately. Therefore, capital for site clearance at projects is always guaranteed with the goal of ensuring the plan set out in the projects and speeding up the disbursement progress of public investment.

Project progress will be faster

In Ho Chi Minh City, many transport infrastructure projects have been behind schedule for years due to slow site clearance, such as Long Kieng Bridge (Nha Be District); expansion of Nguyen Thi Dinh Street; expansion of Hanoi Highway (Thu Duc City), closure of Ring Road 2... One of the main reasons is that compensation prices are too low, not keeping up with the market, leading to disagreement among the people.

Dr. Vo Kim Cuong, former Deputy Chief Architect of Ho Chi Minh City, said that the consequence of land clearance problems is that many transport infrastructure projects in Ho Chi Minh City have stalled. Even in ODA-funded projects such as Metro Line 1 and Metro Line 2, the slow site clearance has caused the project to increase in cost, and contractors have demanded compensation. "When the 2024 Land Law comes into effect, good compensation policies from the beginning will create favorable conditions for transport projects to be implemented faster," said Mr. Cuong.

From the perspective of the project investor, Mr. Luong Minh Phuc, Director of the HCM City Traffic Construction Investment Project Management Board, said that at the HCM City Ring Road 3 Project, although there is a special mechanism, the most important issue is that the approved compensation price is reasonable, close to the market price, so people agree to relocate to make way for the Project.

According to Mr. Phuc, key infrastructure projects can apply a similar mechanism to the Ring Road 3 Project. For example, separating site clearance into an independent project for parallel implementation and being able to do some contents in advance during the project preparation phase, sometimes even before the pre-feasibility report, will help reduce investment preparation time, bringing high efficiency.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/du-an-ha-tang-tai-tphcm-sap-het-canh-nam-cho-mat-bang-d223036.html