A new urban zoning plan in traffic-overloaded Ho Chi Minh City looks to establish four new socio-commercial hubs and six new districts alongside significant infrastructure development.

The plan, designed for development through 2025, mapped out six new urban districts in addition to the city’s current 13.

The new main hub will extend to a radius of 15 kilometers, including the current downtown, officially recognized as districts 1, 3 and parts of 4 and Binh Thanh.

Industrial development will be concentrated in the six new districts as well as in Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh and Nha Be districts.

Tourism and eco-zones will be extended along the banks of the Saigon, Nha Be and Dong Nai rivers and in the Can Gio District mangrove forests.

Certain parts of Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh and Can Gio will remain rural residential areas, according to the plan.

Increasing population

Urban planners reported in the plan that the city’s population was estimated to increase from 7.1 million as of the 2009 census to around 10 million in 2025.

The figures do not include the estimated 2.5 million temporary city residents who live in the southern hub six or fewer months per year.

The population in the city’s urban area is expected to increase to between 7 and 7.4 million people through 2025.

The new plan aims to put the average residential space per capita at 31.6 square meters in current urban areas, 104 square meters in new urban areas and 110 square meters in the suburbs.

Between 90,000 and 100,000 hectares of newly-constructed buildings would be erected by 2025, according to the plan, which sees half of the building taking place in urban areas and half in the suburbs.

Improving infrastructure

The plan also looks to create several beltways, railways, tramways and monorails to ease traffic congestion in the current downtown while also connecting the mega-city’s new focal points to each other and to surrounding provinces.

Three beltways will connect the city with current highways reaching the provinces of Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh and the Mekong Delta provinces.

The current railway connecting HCMC to central and northern provinces will be upgraded, while 226 kilometers of new railways will be constructed to connect to the city’s Thu Thiem New Urban Area and Nha Be District as well as Dong Nai’s Bien Hoa Town and Binh Phuoc’s Loc Ninh District.

Some 35 kilometers of inner-city tramways and monorails will be constructed to help ease road transportation in urban areas.

The plan also aims to relocate several river ports that are too near the city center, including Tan Cang, Ba Son, Nha Rong, Khanh Hoi, Tan Thuan Dong, Ben Nghe and a vegetables and fruits port.

Tan Son Nhat International Airport will be upgraded to a capacity of 20 million passengers a year while the new Long Thanh International Airport will be constructed in Dong Nai Province with a capacity of 100 million passengers a year.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff