At the recent discussion session on the draft Law on Construction (amended), delegate Dinh Ngoc Minh - concurrent member of the Economic and Financial Committee - said that the regulation on exemption of construction permits for individual houses with less than 7 floors only applied in rural areas as drafted has not met practical requirements.
He proposed expanding the licensing for this type of construction in urban areas, assigning the Ministry of Construction to issue specific regulations and standards and to hold consulting units responsible before the law, thereby helping people reduce costs and time.
Commenting on this issue, Lawyer Pham Thanh Tuan - Hanoi Bar Association, real estate legal expert - commented that the content of the construction permit issuance in the Draft Law on Construction submitted by the Government to the National Assembly is considered a strong reform step, promising to bring clear benefits to businesses, people and management agencies.
Regarding the proposal to exempt the construction permit for houses under 7 floors in urban areas, lawyer Pham Thanh Tuan said that currently, the granting of construction permits is applied to two main groups of subjects including enterprises when investing in project construction and people building individual works.
Basically, construction investment projects will no longer be subject to a construction permit (because they are subject to a feasibility study report because according to Point (e), Clause 2, Article 43 of the draft Law). For individual houses of the people, level IV construction works and individual houses with a scale of less than 7 floors invested in construction in rural areas are also exempted from construction permits according to Point (g), Clause 2, Article 43 of the draft Law. Thus, according to the above regulations, there are not many project subjects that need to apply for construction permits, including individual houses of people in urban areas.
The lawyer commented that the proposal to exempt construction permits for houses under 7 floors in urban areas, if applied immediately, could encounter many problems. Accordingly, in large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, detailed planning 1/500 and urban design are not yet covered. Therefore, the regulation on licensing will be difficult to be effective in areas without these types of planning.
In addition, in densely populated urban areas, land plots are often small and not synchronous in size and shape. If people are allowed to build by themselves based only on planning information without going through the appraisal step as the current licensing process, the risk of violations is very high. Not everyone is able to determine their height, construction density, reversal range or architectural requirements.
When violations occur, especially for works in deep alleys, inspection, handling and repair will be extremely complicated. These are significant obstacles for both management agencies and people when implementing.
"Therefore, I think that the "pre-inspection" of the issuance of construction permits for individual houses under 7 floors in urban areas still needs to be further considered" - lawyer Pham Thanh Tuan shared.
The lawyer proposed a solution to make it easier to apply for a construction permit if a house under 7 floors still has to ask for permission. Accordingly, instead of completely abolishing construction permits, the focus of reform should be on applying technology and expanding the form of submitting documents online to simplify the process for people.
First of all, it is necessary to promote the digitalization of procedures through the online application portal, while integrating planning and land data to make it easier for people to look up and prepare complete documents. technologies that support drawing inspection, comparison of planning indicators and transparent licensing need to be widely applied. The quality control stage can gradually shift from "pre-inspection" to "smart post-inspection", with a focused and key inspection method. The team of documents processing officers must be trained in depth, have clear responsibility and a transparent and public processing deadline.
Finally, it is necessary to build an online monitoring system to monitor the progress of file processing, timely rate, as well as post-inspection results. People and businesses can easily access this information to self-assess the transparency and efficiency of the management agency. If implemented synchronously, the above solutions will help shorten time, reduce costs for people, while improving management efficiency and ensuring that the project is built safely and in accordance with standards.
