A plan to zone underground space in HCM City has been proceeding at snail's pace, creating major hurdles for several infrastructure construction projects like sewage and drainage systems.
The Government issued Decree 41 on urban development three years ago, mentioning the need for planning underground spaces, especially in the big cities like Ha Noi and HCM City.
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| Work starts at the Le Van Tam Park underground parking lot in HCM City. The parking lot will accommodate more than 1,900 vehichles and cost US$110 million to build. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hai |
This April, it issued Decree No 39 on underground space management, but besides a team was set up specifically for this purpose, nothing of note has happened.
Hoang Minh Tri, head of the HCM City Planning and Construction Institute, said current underground infrastructure was too complicated to make zoning plans. It would be a very expensive proposition to investigate current underground structures for zoning purposes, he added.
Records of past underground constructions or even recently built projects are insufficient to act on, and this lack of information has been blamed for the tardiness of several major projects.
Contractors had to work hard to investigate already existing underground works before they began implementing their own constructions. The time consuming work has badly delayed projects and even led to some cancellations, costing both the city and the contractors a lot of money.
The contractors have also said that the erection of "green fences" on city streets for a long time is also due to many "unexpected" underground structures.
Vuong Hoang Thanh, deputy director of the East-West Highway project's management board, said before starting the project, contractors had researched current underground constructions that would need to be relocated.
But it has happened several times that when workers ran into electricity supplying wires or a network of telecom cables, the contractors were unable to find their owners and negotiate their removal.
There have also been instances where companies have been unaware of their own underground works. It is only when contractors removed them after failing to get a response to media advertisements about such works that the companies have become aware, because of problems with their sewage, drainage or electricity cable lines.
The East-West Highway project is not the only one facing the underground mess. Other contractors working on similar projects have also had the same problem.
Tri said this was a consequence of history, with many underground constructions built by the French administration, the Sai Gon regime, and by the Government after 1975.
Materials about the structures were mislaid during the long years of war and this made it difficult to update information and initiate underground space planning, he said.
The underground conundrum has affected major infrastructure projects like the subway as well as underground parking lots.
Recently, the city began work on the subway and an underground parking lot under Le Van Tam Park.
However, even before two of the city's seven metro lines and the Le Van Tam Park underground parking lot broke ground, several buildings had begun construction with underground structures that could come in the way of these major projects.
