In September 2023, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council issued Resolution 15/2023/NQ-HDND stipulating the level of temporary fee collection for sidewalk and road use in each area. The toll collection time starts from 0:00 on January 1, 2024.
Cases that are allowed to use part of the roadway, sidewalk and pay fees include: organizing cultural activities (sports, parades, festivals) and car parking points for cultural activities; service business points, buying - selling goods; parking with service fees; transit points for household waste of urban environmental sanitation enterprises...
The fee ranges from 50,000-350,000 VND/m2/month for vehicle parking activities, and from 20,000-100,000 VND/m2/month for other purposes such as service business, goods trading.
According to statistics from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport, after more than a year of implementation, the total revenue from temporary use of sidewalks and roads reached about 7 billion VND.
Of which, the Department of Transport collects about 2.5 billion VND from activities such as organizing cultural events, arranging bicycle stations, and waste transfer stations.
6/22 districts (Districts 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12) have implemented fee collection according to regulations, collecting about 4.5 billion VND from service business activities, trade of goods, and transit of construction materials.
Compared to initial expectations, this number is too low. Previously, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport (now the Department of Transport) when developing the project, calculated that there would be more than 600 roads over 9m wide, if exploited for rent as parking lots, it would bring about 550 billion VND/year.
At the same time, 1,143 roads have sidewalks 3m or more wide, if rented for business purposes, it can earn more than 971 billion VND/year.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport, collecting temporary fees for using sidewalks and roads helps businesses to be able to legally use part of the sidewalk, while maintaining urban order and the city's aesthetics.
However, the toll collection process still has many shortcomings. Some districts and towns have not yet fully implemented because they are still in the review process, leading to inconsistent fee collection.
Many places still allow illegal traffic and parking to occur, causing disorder and creating negative public opinion about the transparency of the policy.
On the other hand, the Department of Transport said that according to Decree 165/2024/ND-CP, some activities previously allowed to use sidewalks under Decision 32/2023/QD-UBND will no longer be valid.
However, in reality, some sidewalk use activities are not mentioned in Decree 165/2024/ND-CP but are suitable for the characteristics of Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh City needs to research and develop a project to exploit assets of road traffic infrastructure to have a more effective management plan.
Recently, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Bui Xuan Cuong directed the Department of Transport to coordinate with the Department of Justice to review and propose the cancellation of Decision 32/2023/QD-UBND according to the simplified procedure.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Public Transport is also assigned to coordinate with the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies to review and propose to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee on the policy, scope, and funding for the development of a project to exploit and use roadways and sidewalks. This needs to be completed before April 10 this year.
