The West Lake new urban area project, which is believed to create the biggest and most modern urban area in Hanoi, may resume its implementation soon, after the six-year interruption.

The golden land has been left fallowed

Buffalos are grazing on the golden land area

Under the project, in the future, Hanoi will have a modern new urban area located in the west of Ho Tay (West Lake), belonging to the Tay Ho, Cau Giay and Tu Liem districts. However, at this moment, the land area, where a new modern urban area will  arise, remains a fallowed land. On the path linking Pham Van Dong Road to the land area, one can see wild grass growing everywhere and cattle grazing.

Vuong Thi Hoa, who lives in Xuan Dinh commune in the Tu Liem District, said that local residents were asked to stop agriculture production in 2008, to give land to the project developer. However, the land area still has been left idle since 2008. “As the land has been left untouched, I have been trying to grow rau muong (a kind of vegetable in Vietnam) to earn some more money to support my children’s studies,” Hoa said.

Local residents in Xuan Dinh Commune said that the project implementation has been going very slowly, thus, having been badly affecting their lives. Though the local residents were asked to stop cultivating the land in 2008, they only got compensation money for clearing the site three years later.

According to the Xuan Dinh Commune People’s Committee, over 100 hectares of land in the commune have been seized to make room for the project. To date, the procedures on compensating for site clearance have not been completed for nearly 100 local households. The same situation is being faced by local residents in Co Nhue commune.

According to the Hanoi Land Fund Development Center, there are many reasons behind the slow site clearance process. The project’s investor himself has been slow in making payment for infrastructure to the city’s authorities. Besides, disputes have been raised between local residents and the project’s management board about the compensation levels for site clearance.

Under the initial plan, the site clearance process would be completed by 2009, while infrastructure works and multistory buildings would be completed by 2011. However, the plan has failed completely. Especially, the project’s investors even could not kick off the project on the occasion of the 1000^th anniversary of Thang Long-Ha noi.

Will Daewoo become the only investor?

According to Tran Duc Vu, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Planning and Investment Department, though the project has been late for six years in implementation, South Korean investors still show their determination to implement the project, and they have asked for an adjustment of the investment licenses.

Initially, the project was registered by five big groups from the Republic of Korea, including Daewoo, which planned to set up a joint stock company to develop the project. However, in the latest news, the other four investors would sell their capital contributions and their interests to Daewoo Group to withdraw from the project.

If the scenario occurs, the West Lake urban area project will only have one owner instead of five as previously planned.

“Under the previous investment mode, there would be a common operation office. However, any decision would be released only after getting the approval from all the five investors. This really caused difficulties to the project implementation,” Vu said.

Besides, the investor has been slow in fulfilling his financial duties to make contributions to the building of the four routes to the new urban area.

After the city’s authorities urged many times, the expenses for the building of the route No 4 has been transferred to Hanoi. Meanwhile, the construction of the four routes to the new urban areas is under the construction.

“The land area for the West Lake urban area is rare golden land area left in Hanoi. It would be better to restructure the project,” said the representative from the Hanoi Planning and Investment Department.

Also according to the department, Hanoi’s authorities and the investors will have to negotiate some issues, because many big changes have occurred over the last six years.

Source: Tien phong