HA NOI (VNS)— Underneath the stairs, Nguyen Que Lam, 53, hastily packs up plastic chairs, a wooden table and cups in fact his whole lemon tea shop, when he sees his building’s management officers on patrol.
He said no-one is allowed to sell products in any public space around the building, including stairs, balconies or playgrounds. However, “we could not earn a living if we obeyed the regulations.”
His family of six used to live in a house at the junction of Vinh Tuy-Minh Khai where he ran a small hamburger outlet, serving passengers using the city’s buses, he said.
His income was adequate for his family to survive on for many years until his land was acquired for a public project in 2005. He was then allocated an apartment on the 6th floor of the Den Lu 2 Resettlement Building, he said.
“Our fishing rod was confiscated.”
Hundreds of other households found themselves in Lam’s shoes when they were shifted to city resettlement buildings such as Trung Hoa- Nhan Chinh, Nam Trung Yen, Den Lu and My Dinh.
There, they take advantage of the public space in these buildings to sell various kinds of vegetables, meat and foodstuffs.
However, this situation is expected to end soon as the Ministry of Construction is about to introduce a regulation that prioritises resettled households so they can rent space for their business activities.
Construction Minister Trinh Dinh Dung said that the new draft regulation on the management of resettlement buildings states that households that are resettled for public projects will be allowed to rent space in their new residential areas at a reasonable price.
The minister explained this was due to many of them having been the former owners of restaurants or shops or even landlords, thanks to the excellent locations of their city centre houses. As a result, they have found it difficult to earn a living after they were moved.
The investors in resettlement buildings will be asked to allocate two thirds of a buildings’ retail business area to rent to resettled households, after auction.
The bids will be held publicly and transparently.
In commercial buildings that includes resettled households and investors must now prioritise them when it comes to renting business space, even if they bid the same price as outsiders.
The ministry has also ruled that when a resettlement building is first set up, it is necessary to ensure that these households have an equal standard of living and the ability to earn just as good a living as they did when in their former homes.
Pham Sy Liem, vice president of the Viet Nam Federation of Civil Engineering Associations, said that there should be a management mechanism to enable residents to make a living.
If not, they have to utilise unused public space to do business. This was also one of the reasons that resettlement buildings quickly deteriorated, he explained.
Lam said that this regulation would help their lives to stabilise and prevent them from breaking public space regulations.
He added that he hoped the rent would be appropriate for them. —VNS
Đăng ký: VietNam News