Planning for 4 inner districts of Hanoi: Will increasing buildings cause congestion?

The Urban Subdivision Planning Project (historic inner city) in 4 districts (Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung) allows the construction of many high-rise buildings along the main roads and around the houses. Do urban railway stations cause additional traffic pressure?

A series of old apartments in Ba Dinh district (Hanoi) will be planned in the direction of increasing height. Photo: PV Reduce population density Hanoi City has just announced 6 urban subdivision planning projects: H1-1A, H1-1B, H1-1C, H1-2, H1-3, H1-4, the rate of 1 / 2,000 in Hoan districts. Kiem, Ba Dinh, Dong Da and Hai Ba Trung; The main requirement is to control population in 4 counties. The projects aim to reduce the population from 1.2 million people (2009) to 672,000 people. Notably, in the urban subdivision planning project H1-2 in the administrative boundary of Ba Dinh district, the renovation of old apartment buildings and apartments will reduce the construction density, increase the height, and to prioritize the addition of urban infrastructure systems, public works, green spaces, and improve the environment. Urban space is established mainly as low-rise buildings. High-rise buildings in accordance with architectural management regulations along belt roads, radial roads, urban reconstruction areas, urban highlight areas such as: around Giang Vo lake, digital land 29 Lieu Giai, 148 Giang Vo, the areas around the urban railway station … Architect Dao Ngoc Nghiem – Vice Chairman of Vietnam Urban Planning Association said, in the zoning plans and management regulations has identified existence and change. If we had stretched people in the past to only solve the housing problem, this time there was improvement in space. Specifically, in the past, Hanoi was just a city with one central pole, now Hanoi is a cluster of cities, including satellite towns. Currently, the city only focuses on Hoa Lac urban development. If the remaining urban areas are developed further, the land potential will be solved. When there is an ecological and favorable environment for people, they will naturally become attached to a new place. Mr. Nguyen Do Dung (General Director of EnCity Consulting Company – the unit that won the first prize for the planning idea of ​​Thu Duc City) commented: “One bright spot of the project is clearly defining development priorities. In spite of the general policy of population control and restriction of tall buildings, the project does not “take it easy” but encourages high-density development along major roads and near urban railway stations. . This is very reasonable because we still need to renovate the urban area and effectively exploit the newly invested transport infrastructure ”. It is necessary to realize and manage well the plan Mr. Nguyen Do Dung said that high-rise buildings are not synonymous with high population density because they depend on construction density and the distribution of land use functions. The advantage of high-rise buildings is that it is easy to arrange green spaces and community facilities because the construction density is not more than 50% of the land fund. Meanwhile, the tube house model often occupies 80% – 100% of the land fund, so there is no room for green space. “Limiting high-rise buildings is only a situational solution when we do not have an effective mechanism to convert a huge number of low-rise houses into high-rise buildings,” Dung said. Commenting on the population relaxation progress, Mr. Nguyen Do Dung proposed, the city should have a more complete tax regime for real estate like in developed countries. The city can benefit from the rise in real estate prices due to public investment (opening roads, building parks) and having the resources to accelerate the acquisition of land for infrastructure construction. For public offices and facilities, many of which are under the management of central agencies, have to be relocated outside of the historic inner city, there is a need for regulations to allow partial conversion of land funds to do public works for the city instead of converting the entire land bank for other purposes such as commercial or residential, leading to population growth and continued pressure on infrastructure. Architect Tran Huy Anh (Hanoi Architects Association) emphasizes the element of resources to realize the project. The same planning is the completion of a system of regulations from management, ownership to technical regulations for this type of work. That is the basic resource for synchronous development, avoiding the situation of planning hanging. Another concern is that the local planning adjustment is quite arbitrary. Originally planned 20 floors, but after a few adjustments to “create a highlight”, it can be up to 30, even 40-50 floors. So does increasing a building increase the already painful traffic pressure? Architect Anh said that this not only depends on the quality of the initial planning, but also greatly depends on the ability to realize the plan and manage the plan. In fact, in Hanoi, there have been many high-rise projects that have sprung up causing traffic congestion, but it is still described as “fully meeting the planning targets”. The reason is that a series of roads and infrastructure are drawn beautifully, but mostly on paper. Meanwhile, the high-rise projects continue to be approved by the city in the direction of “appropriate planning”.