At the recent socio-economic meeting of Ho Chi Minh City, Chairman of the City People's Committee Nguyen Van Duoc said that the city will not grant construction permits in areas with detailed planning at a scale of 1/500 but only need to announce the start of construction.
In particular, even in places that do not have detailed planning but have clearly identified roadbeds, recesses, land boundaries, etc., people do not need to ask for permission but only need to register for construction.
This can be said to be a bold but necessary step in urban administrative reform of Ho Chi Minh City. Instead of forcing people to "ask - wait - pay" to build houses on legal land, the city is moving towards a "registry - supervision - post-inspection" model.
That is not only a reduction in procedures, but a big test of the ability to transform to a technology-based, transparent and trust-based urban management system of Ho Chi Minh City.
We all know that in a big city like Ho Chi Minh City, if each administrative procedure is cumbersome and complicated, it will lead to a lot of social costs.
The exemption of construction permits in areas with detailed planning is completely reasonable, because important factors such as roadbeds, backwards, construction boundaries, technical infrastructure systems, etc. have been clearly defined. Management agencies do not necessarily have to re- approve what has been approved in the plan.
Of course, as Lao Dong Newspaper has mentioned many times, removing procedures does not mean lax management. Because the nature of this reform is not that people do not need to ask for a license when building, but in shifting the mechanism from pre-inspection to post-inspection, from administrative documents to digital data. That is a fundamental change in state management thinking.
This requires wards and communes - which will be delegated the authority to issue licenses, to also be given sufficient capacity, tools and supervision responsibilities.
From now on, grassroots officials not only "receive notices" from the people but also have to know how to use cadastral data, read planning drawings, detect violations early, and regularly update the current construction status into the city's general digital system.
On a more positive side, this reform also shows the government's confidence in the self-awareness of the people. Of course, trust must go hand in hand with a strong data management system, a strong enough post-inspection institution and a clean and honest enough local apparatus to properly perform the new role.
Ho Chi Minh City is taking the lead in transforming the urban management model from heavy administration to flexible technology, from overlapping control to delegation of responsibility.
People building houses only need to notify the government instead of asking for a license as they have been doing for a long time, but when done well, this will be the premise for a civilized urban government, which can soon expand to many other cities across the country.
