Inadequacies in management and licensing of private housing construction

(Baonghean) -Although Thai Hoa Town was established more than 5 years ago, currently, the management and licensing of private housing construction still has many shortcomings, affecting urban aesthetics, planning and safety of constructions.

Quang Tien is one of the four central wards of Thai Hoa Town. According to regulations on order management and urban planning, after being recognized as a town, the construction of private housing is required to have a Construction Permit. However, due to limited awareness, many households violate and do not carry out construction permit procedures. If there are documents, the procedures are still sketchy and perfunctory (such as applications for construction permits, incomplete and incorrect content, lack of design documents or sketchy design, lack of construction site plan). Statistics in the first 6 months of 2013 alone, there were 15 households in the ward building houses but all of them did not register for construction permits with the ward. The ward People's Committee has established inspection teams to handle violations but still cannot control them.

Explaining the reasons for violations in the field of granting construction permits for private housing, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh - Chairman of the People's Committee of Quang Tien Ward, Thai Hoa Town said: "People's awareness of granting construction permits for private housing is still limited, even knowing it is wrong but still doing it. The ward does not have a specialized urban regulations team, part-time staff, and limited qualifications in the field of construction permits, so it is very difficult to control all the work".

A corner of Thai Hoa Town

It can be said that although Thai Hoa Town has been established and operated for 5 years, meaning that the work of restoring urban order and managing construction permits has been around for the same amount of time... However, up to now, this work has not been strictly managed and put into order, violations in the field of granting construction permits for private housing are still common in wards and communes. For example, although private housing still occurs every day, the number of households is very large, the number of permits granted is not much, especially in rural areas, almost no construction permits have been granted. In 2012, the town only granted permits to 13 cases and in the first 6 months of 2013, there were 16 cases. The results of the review of unlicensed family housing since 2010 in some wards and communes such as: Tay Hieu Commune 103 cases; Dong Hieu Commune 101 cases...

To overcome the shortcomings and strengthen the management of urban order in the field of construction licensing, the Town Urban Management Department has advised the Town People's Committee to direct the issuance of construction licenses and coordinate with the tax authority to strictly manage the collection of construction taxes. Every year, the town organizes training for wards and communes from the chairmen of the People's Committees of wards and communes to the officials working on construction licensing so that they can promptly grasp the documents and procedures on construction licensing.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuan - Head of the Urban Management Department of Thai Hoa Town said: "Currently, the Town People's Committee is reviewing and rectifying illegal construction works throughout the area. However, the Town has not yet established a Town-level Urban Inspection Team and Ward-level Urban Regulation Teams (only Hoa Hieu Ward has established it). Regarding this issue, Thai Hoa Town has developed a project to establish a Regulation Team in wards and communes to strengthen the specialized team to manage urban order, but there are still problems with mechanisms and policies, and there are no legal documents or procedures guiding the implementation."

Thai Hoa town is aiming to become the Northwest Center of the province. However, reality shows that in the process of "from village to city", people have not yet adapted to urban life, and do not understand the obligations of citizens in the new administrative unit. Meanwhile, one of the tools to manage urban order in Thai Hoa town is the issuance of construction permits, but it is still loose and not strictly managed, causing budget losses, leading to limited management of urban infrastructure order. In addition, the inspection and handling of violations is not resolute, not creating a deterrent for violations.

This situation not only negatively affects the urban beauty, but the problem here is that the management of urban order in the town still has many difficulties and shortcomings that need to be resolved. To overcome the above situation, the town needs to have synchronous measures to strictly manage this work, especially promoting propaganda to raise people's understanding and responsibility to contribute to building the town in a civilized and modern direction.

Article and photos: Le Thanh