HCMC – The Dak Nong Department of Natural Resources and Environment is weighing a project that seeks to develop residential areas on a hill belonging to a firm, which had earlier leveled the hill, a representative of the department said on June 29.
Despite not having a license for the project, Nguyen Ngoc Bac, owner of Bac Sang Company, leveled a hill and divided it into small lots of land for sale, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
Bac said he bought the land covering an area of eight hectares in Dak Song District from many residents and spent some VND9 billion on land conversion.
Bac has repeatedly had to pay administrative fines of tens of millions of Vietnamese dong for damaging road traffic systems and illegal construction.
Moreover, the Dak Nong government recently imposed a fine of VND105 million on him for destroying land and asked Bac to restore the status of the land.
As the land area is huge and the lives of residents could be put at risk during the process of restoring the land status, the province asked Bac to adopt suitable technical and construction measures to ensure the area is safe.
The provincial government also asked the Department of Planning and Investment to instruct Bac on how to apply for a license for investment in housing projects after the land is ensured safe.
Meanwhile, the government of Dak Song District was tasked with cooperating with other competent agencies to closely monitor the land use and the construction on the leveled hill owned by Bac.
Bac had paid fines and fixed his shortcomings related to protecting the safe corridor for road traffic, according to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment. The investor also hired experts to assess the safety of the construction as instructed by the Dak Nong Department of Construction.
However, the leader of the Department of Construction said it is hard to assess the safety and nature of the original land, as Bac does not have any documents of surveys and designs before leveling the surface of the hill.
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Natural forest destroyed for construction of resettlement area Thousands of plants in a natural forest on Con Dao Island off Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province have been cut to make room for a resettlement project. In early June, the surrounding area of the forest was destroyed and steel fences were put up. After being notified of the destruction of the forest, the forest ranger agency of the Con Dao Natural Park quickly ordered a stop to the cutting down of the trees. In late 2019, the government of Con Dao District announced it would recall over 16,500 square meters of the forest on Nguyen Van Linh Street under the management of the district for the development of the project. In March, the Con Dao government wrote to the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Department of Agriculture and Rural Development allowing the conversion of forest area to execute the resettlement project in the district. On June 23, Do Thanh Phuong, deputy director of the Con Dao Management Board for Construction Investment Projects, as a representative of the investor, admitted that the decision on the conversion of the forest land was yet to be made. Le Van Phong, chairman of Con Dao District, told Tuoi Tre Online that the government of the district will check the situation, adding that the protective forest of Con Dao was removed from the list of protective forests by the prime ministry in 2011 to contribute to the district’s economic growth. Do Thanh Phuong also said that the forest area had been added to a list comprising Con Dao’s land use plans. |
