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(VietNamNet Bridge)-The HCM City inter-ministerial inspection delegation has found a series of real estate projects which have turned the land areas reserved for parks and verdure into the land for housing, office buildings and car parking lots.

The projects for public interests have turned into housing projects for commercial purpose. Especially, the inspectors found a project where the land area for verdure has been developed into a big swimming pond for profit.

Cheating, cutting investment money

The inspectors, after examining the 55 projects in four districts of 7, 9, 12 and Binh Chanh, discovered the violations of the regulations on required minimum verdure areas in nearly 50 percent of projects. The verdure areas were cut down in 15 projects. Meanwhile, the green parts of projects have not been implemented in 17 projects, and the other 16 projects have been left unimplemented.

The 15 projects included the Him Lam residential quarter in district 7 developed by Him Lam Company. The investor has been granted the license to develop the project on an area of 583,291 square meters, including 47,000 square meters for verdure and sports areas. However, the designed park areas in the project have been developed into workers’ houses, showroom, parking lots and management building.

As for the Tin Phong apartment bloc project in district 12 of HCM City, the reserved greenery area has been replaced by a swimming pool and a reinforced concrete row of houses. Meanwhile, under the approved project, the investor has to reserve 1100 square meters for greenery area.

The Quoc Cuong housing development Company has been discovered as cutting down the greenery area for the Quoc Cuong apartment project in district 7. The designed greenery area behind the apartment bloc has turned into the motorbike keeping park, water pumping station, and transformer station.

Hoang Anh Investment and Development Company spontaneously built a 160 square meter swimming pool on the area reserved for verdure.

Saigon tiep thi has quoted the inspectors found out that the investors of 17 projects finished the construction, but “forgot” to develop the verdure area. These included the Ngoc Lan residential quarter, Huynh Tan Phat residential quarter, BMC high end apartment and villa projects.

The investors either did not have financial capability to complete the items for the greenery areas, met difficulties during the site clearance, or intended to seek the permission from competent agencies on the adjustment of the projects’ items.

The reasons that made investors “forget” to develop green areas are clear. They only focus on the items which can bring profits, while the items for the public interests would be delayed for indefinite time.

Investors have to return the greenery area to the city

The Thao & Van Hoa has commented that the “urbanization whirlwind” has been gradually swallowing up the green parts of the city. One day, the city may lose the fresh atmosphere and greenery, while urbanites would have to live in suffocated reinforced concrete buildings.

The newspaper has also commented that the living environment in HCM City is getting worse: while more and more concrete buildings have been arising, the area reserved for greenery has been narrowed.

The city strives to have 10-15 square meters of greenery land per capita by 2020. However, it would have to spend 80 trillion dong to obtain that goal. This is really a huge sum of money which would be unaffordable by the city’s budget. At present, the ratio is just 2 square meters per capita, a very low level if compared with other modern cities in the world.