The authorities should not be easy going when dealing with illegal constructions on public land, even if they’re built by famous artists, said former minister of natural resources and environment Dang Hung Vo.
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| Singer My Linh's luxury house in Soc Son District |
He also shared some measures to deal with the problem in which singer My Linh and artist Thanh Chuong encroached protective forest land in Hanoi’s Soc Son District to build luxury houses.
When you still worked at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, did you know about Thanh Chuong’s construction?
I knew but it seems like people encouraged the construction because they care more about its cultural side than the forested land. Even though it's illegal, Soc Son is still one of the districts that continues to have many houses encroached on forested land.
Inspectors from the local Department of Natural Resources and Environment concluded in their reports that it's 'residential area located in forest land', so can we take it as residential area or forested land?
There is no residential area in forested land. Our laws stated that people can only set up tents, shacks in the forested land, not a huge building.
What does the law say about converting forested land into residential land?
The project must be included as part of urban planning and be approved by the district authorities. But authorities rarely give permission to convert protective forest land. This land is allowed to be converted only when an investment project can’t be placed elsewhere.
How will the authorities deal with this problem when hundreds hectares of protective forest land have been breached for many years?
Actually, the communal authorities are trying to protect the house owners, who built house without proper permits. They allowed people to carry out the construction while their job is to protect the land.
A corner of Viet palace built by artist Thanh Chuong
What is the best option to deal with this case in your opinion?
Hanoi City authorities are the one who have the authorisation. But if we do not strictly punish the violators, others will start to ignore the laws and breach the forest too.
Another solution is to punish the district and communal authorities because these cases happened long ago.
