Members of the Hanoi People’s Council have expressed their discontent about the decision by the Hanoi People’s Committee on licensing to set up six car parks within the Thong Nhat Park campus.
Commenting about the decision by the people’s committee, they said that this is an “unintelligible decision” and that they could not imagine that Hanoi would have to set up parking lots in the campus of parks, considered as the green lungs of the city.
“The Hanoi People’s Committee has released a decision to take back 800 hectares of unused land. Why doesn’t it think of using the land fund for parking lots?” a member questioned.
“Parks are set up to serve the people’s demand for entertainment and leisure and to create landscapes for the city. Therefore, they should not be the places for anyone to do business or develop projects,” said Nguyen Thi Thuy, a member of the Hanoi People’s Council.
According to Lam Anh Tuan, Deputy Chair of the Hai Ba Trung district People’s Committee, he has been informed about the plan to set up parking lots within the campus of Thong Nhat Park, but the details of the plan have not been made public.
In principle, if parking lots are to be set up in the locality, the investors would have to follow necessary procedures, including the consultation with involved parties.
“We will show our official viewpoint about this after receiving the detailed plan on the construction of the parking lots,” Tuan said.
Tien phong newspaper on August 22 quoted the officials of the Hanoi Urban Development Programing and Architecture as saying, that the department has not received the design plan for the four parking lots for approval from the investor - the Thong Nhat Park Development Company.
“The construction plan drawn up by the investor would have to be submitted to relevant branches and departments. If the plan is approved, it would still need to be put into the city’s urban development program before it is implemented,” said Ngo Quy Tuan, Deputy Director of the department.
Meanwhile, Tien phong newspaper has quoted Le Van Hoat, Deputy Chair of the Hanoi People’s Council, as saying that “the city’s authorities need to be very cautious with any projects to be implemented within the Thong Nhat Park, or any parks in the city.”
“Hanoi should learn the lesson from the project on building SAS Hotel in Thong Nhat Park,” he said, adding that he has requested to reconsider the issue.
Meanwhile, a lot of experts have voiced their concern about the possible bad impacts to the landscapes to be caused by the parking lot project.
“Green – civilized – modern are the main purposes in the urban space development program of the capital city of Hanoi which have been approved by the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the construction of parking lots within parks would come contrary to the viewpoint,” Dr Truong Van Quang, Deputy Head of the Urban and Rural Development Programming and Architecture stated on Tien Phong.
“Our viewpoint is that Hanoi has to preserve parks, at any costs,” he said.
Parks prove be the ideal places for any investors to build parking lots, because there is space needed for parking lots, while investors would not have to spend time and money on site clearance. However, this would bring bad consequences.
Vietnam is a tropical country which needs greenery to make the climate equable. Experts all agree that Hanoi lacks verdure and it needs to take actions to expand the greenery area.
Thong Nhat Park, in the thoughts of Hanoians, is the symbol of peace. In 1960s, the name “Thong Nhat” (unification) was given to the park to express their willing to see the north and south unification.