The city government passed a VND50 billion (US$2.8 million) project to repaint offices and residential houses on 75 main streets in order to clean up the city before its 1,000th anniversary in October.
According to the project, 29 district People's Committees in the city and one housing company will carry out the repainting project. Each committee will receive VND450 million ($25,000) in funds to repair government office buildings. They will also receive VND100 million ($5,600) in funds for advertisements and will conduct an awareness campaign about the city's beauty. The project will begin in April and is slated to finish in June.
Besides repainting doors and walls of houses and offices, the Department of Construction is asking district authorities to remove, replace and repair dilapidated balconies, roofs and advertising banners. Funds from the city's budget will be used to repair local government offices. For residential houses, the local government will need to persuade people to repaint their own houses.
"To make the city architecture consistent and match the surrounding environment, buildings and houses need to be painted in certain colours," said Nguyen Quoc Tuan, deputy head of the construction department.
Nguyen Quoc Hoa, deputy head of Hoan Kiem People's Committee, one of the main districts of the city that has 13 streets on the list to be repainted, said the most difficult thing was to persuade people to spend their own money to repaint their homes.
The total budget that we need to repair all the government offices in the district is VND30 billion, so it is very difficult to manage this project with the city's funding," Hoa added.
Deputy head of Hai Ba Trung People's Committee, another district in the city, Lam Anh Tuan said, "It is challenging to persuade people to use colours that have been suggested for housing like light yellow or light blue. Some people wanted to use red or dark colours for their houses. With residents who do not have expendable funds, we try to support them financially."
"Another difficult situation is houses that are in ownership dispute. We can't decide who has to pay for the repainting fee," Tuan added.
Many citizens are, however, wondering if repainting houses will actually help make the city look nicer, when there is no overall design for the houses.
Repainted
Only the front wall and door of our houses are to be repainted, but not the inside so I think it could make the city even more messy," said Le Van Vinh, a resident on Trang Tien Street in Hoan Kiem District.
Tuan, from the construction department, said there would be a group of officials to check how the project is being carried out in the districts.
"The funding from the city is not large, but the local government should call for more funding from enterprises or individuals in their districts. It is also responsible to ensure that district authorities make people aware of the need to paint their own houses in order to make the city look better," Tuan said.
Meanwhile, in many streets of the city, pavements are under construction. Hai Ba Trung People's Committee deputy head Tuan said that the city was putting the electric and telephone wires underground so many pavements would have to be dug up.
"The construction companies are usually required to make the pavement as clean as it was before construction started, but many of them did not do that and left the pavement unclean and messy," said Tuan.
Thach Nhu Sy, chief of the inspection office of the transport department, said that in the first three months of 2010 his office has checked and fined several construction companies for their irresponsibility while working on pavements.
