The HCM City People's Council elected deputy secretary of the city's Party Committee Le Hoang Quan as their chairman yesterday.

Nguyen Huu Canh Street in HCM City.

A native of Binh Duong Province, Quan, 53, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, was the secretary of the Dong Nai Party Committee before moving to HCM City.

Quan will replace his predecessor Le Thanh Hai, Politburo member, who has been appointed secretary of the HCM City Party Committee.

Urban planning

During the three-day meeting beginning Tuesday, delegates of the HCM City People's Council also discussed urban management, stalled infrastructure projects, and difficulties in compensation payments and resettlement.

Poor urban planning is contributing to the delay of construction of roads, water and electricity supply systems, officials said during Tuesday and Wednesday sessions.

Nguyen Minh Hoang, head of the council's economics and budget department, blamed the delays on the lack of detailed zoning maps for new urban areas and haphazard infrastructure planning.

The chairman of HCM City's Fatherland Front, Tran Thanh Long, agreed, saying that infrastructure projects and urban land planning had been poorly managed and supervised.

As a result, new slums in the city have arisen, such as the area in Vinh Loc A and Binh Hung communes in Binh Chanh District where the homeless have set up makeshift housing.

Resettling residents affected by infrastructure projects is another problem the city continues to face, particularly because there is so little land available for new apartments.

Delegate Nguyen Van Minh of the Council's Social and Cultural Affairs said no land remained for residents who need to move to make way for infrastructure projects.

Many residents have been waiting for up to 10 years to resettle in apartments that were to be built in new residential areas.

The city has spent VND181bil (US$11.5mil) over the last 10 years or so to house these residents displaced by infrastructure projects.

"It's a big waste of money," Minh said.

Delegate Nguyen Van Quang from HCM City Economics Institute cited poor urban planning as the cause.

In the past, developers of infrastructure projects were not required to find land for affected residents, he said.

Many of the these residents have been resettled but nearly 6,000 are still waiting for new housing, he said.

Council Deputy Chair, Nguyen Van Dua, said in his report delivered at Tuesday's session of the meeting that poor management had also discouraged foreign investors.

The Municipal People's Council, during its seventh session on July 11 to 13, also passed a resolution on socio-economic tasks for the last six months of this year, and asked the People's Committee to focus on a number of tasks including boosting economic restructuring, developing effective planning policies, continuing administrative reforms, and improving the level of training and ethical standards among Party cadres and public employees.

The council also passed resolutions on the city's urban planning proposals, land use plan, policy for post-treatment recovering drug addicts, and establishing district-level healthcare centres.

(Source: Viet Nam News)