On December 23, Vice Chairman of District 8 People's Committee Pham Quang Tu said that the locality is speeding up compensation and site clearance work to implement the dredging project, build infrastructure, and improve the environment of the North bank of Doi Canal.
The project directly affects 1,633 households, of which 1,019 houses must be cleared. Of these, 907 households are eligible for resettlement and 112 households only receive compensation.
Mr. Tang Hung (61 years old) - living in a 28 m² wooden house on Nguyen Duy Street - said that his family has lived here for 36 years. However, this small, makeshift house is increasingly degraded, moldy and rotten.
“The house could collapse at any time, so we are ready to move if the support is enough for the family to have a new, decent place to live,” Mr. Hung shared. He plans to return to Can Giuoc (Long An) to buy a small house to stabilize their old age if they receive reasonable compensation.
In the same situation, Ms. Nguyen Thi Oanh (63 years old) has lived along the Doi Canal since 1974. Her family used to put stakes in the canal bed to expand the area for the kitchen and toilet.
Ms. Oanh expressed her wish to receive enough compensation for resettlement: "My husband and I are old, have no savings, and are raising two orphaned children, so we can only rely on compensation to stabilize our lives."
According to Mr. Pham Quang Tu, the 2024 Land Law allows provincial People's Committees to decide on measures and support levels to ensure that people whose land is recovered have housing and a stable life.
District 8 People's Committee has proposed 22 specific support levels for households affected by the project.
Notably, District 8 proposed support and resettlement for houses bought and sold with hand-written documents from July 1, 2014 to before August 1, 2024, on the condition that there are no disputes and the land status is confirmed by the authorities.
In addition, District 8 also proposed support for residential land without a certificate, now revoked, eligible for a certificate but having to fulfill financial obligations minus land use fees.
District 8 aims to basically complete site clearance by June 2025 and hand it over to the investor to implement the project.
The project to dredge, build infrastructure, and improve the environment of the North bank of Doi Canal was approved by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council at the end of 2023 with a total investment of VND 4,930 billion.
After that, the project's capital was adjusted to increase to more than 7,400 billion VND (mainly for compensation and site clearance when applying new land prices).
The project scale includes: Construction of more than 4.3 km of embankment, dredging part of the canal bed; expansion of two routes Hoai Thanh and Nguyen Duy along the bank, 20 m wide.
The project also includes the construction of a new Nguyen Duy extension (from alley 157 Hung Phu to Chu Y bridge, 16 m wide); construction of Hiep An 2 bridge; construction of a passenger wharf along the canal with drainage, trees and lighting systems.
The renovation of the North bank of the Doi Canal is part of the roadmap for clearing houses on and along canals in Ho Chi Minh City. The city aims to basically complete the relocation and resettlement of about 46,500 houses on and along canals by 2030.
Ho Chi Minh City will develop a compensation and support policy in the direction that houses and land that meet the conditions will be compensated at market prices and make maximum use of support policies to relocate and clear houses and land within the scope.
