The Office of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has just announced the conclusion of Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Bui Xuan Cuong at a meeting on the work of issuing construction permits in the city.
HCMC leaders assigned the Department of Construction to preside over and coordinate with the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the Department of Planning and Architecture and related units to organize an online meeting in May 2026 with leaders of 168 ward, commune and special zone People's Committees to review and remove difficulties and obstacles in construction permit issuance.
This is to guide localities to unify regulations, avoiding the situation where each place applies differently, causing difficulties for people when carrying out housing construction procedures.
Ho Chi Minh City also requested the Department of Construction to continue to urgently research and propose simplifying construction permit procedures, exempting individual house construction permits in the city based on the specific characteristics of Ho Chi Minh City to advise and propose to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to direct implementation in the coming time. The Department of Construction must report to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee in May 2026.
This is to create favorable conditions for people when carrying out housing construction procedures; and at the same time support and guide ward, commune, and special zone People's Committees not to receive paper dossiers, only to receive and process construction permit dossiers on the electronic environment, connecting the network system with the Department of Construction and the Ministry of Construction to serve the process of inspecting and supervising construction permit work in the city.
In addition, before June 15, 2026, the Department of Construction must issue a handbook guiding the components of dossiers, procedures for receiving and resolving individual house construction permits, including issuing construction permits, adjusting the content of the issued construction permits, detailed procedures for receiving information, inspection, and acceptance after issuing construction permits.
This is to help the People's Committees of wards, communes, special zones and subjects granted construction permits to implement uniformly throughout the city.
Regarding the adjustment and replacement of Decision 56/2021/QD-UBND on the Ho Chi Minh City Architectural Management Regulations, the City People's Committee assigned the Department of Planning and Architecture to complete the draft and collect opinions from departments, branches and localities before May 30, 2026.
After that, the dossier will be sent to the Department of Justice for appraisal and submitted to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee for promulgation before June 15, 2026 to remove obstacles in issuing construction permits for individual houses.
Previously, through review, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said that many localities are still based on general plans, zoning plans and old architectural management regulations that have expired to issue construction permits.
Meanwhile, some wards and communes have to temporarily suspend the receipt of dossiers due to the lack of detailed planning or the failure to issue new architectural management regulations, leading to a lack of legal basis to resolve dossiers according to regulations.
According to the Department of Construction, the situation of blockage of applications for construction permits for individual houses mainly occurs in areas where there is no approved 1/2000 scale zoning plan; areas that have planning and architectural management regulations but expire after December 31, 2021; or places where there are zoning plans but new architectural management regulations have not been issued.
