Residents seek to legitimise homes on farm land
The southern metropolis’ breakneck urbanisation has turned much its surrounding agricultural land into urban space, both officially and unofficially. Residential houses have been built on top of former farmland parcels for decades now, however, existing law has not provided legitimacy for this practice, leading to years-long problems for the residents and headaches for local authorities, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported. A former two-hectare orchard – located in Alley 148, Nguyen Binh Street, Phu Xuan Commune of Nha Be – is now concreted over and tightly packed with houses, forming an ‘unplanned’ residential area, one that appears not in the government’s official planning, but inevitably out of people’s necessity and today’s trend. The result is a motley of agricultural and residential land. The construction of a number of new houses has been halted midway since construction permits cannot be obtained, due to the type of land they are situated on.
