Over the past few days, around 60 families living in Alley 142D Co Giang have been tearing down walls and demolishing fences to push their property lines backwards about a meter and expand the road's width to 4-5 m.
Local authorities have persuaded the residents to donate land and money to help expand the narrow, sunken alley, and better help traffic flows connect with the main roads on either end.
Home owners have hired construction workers to bring down existing walls and rebuild new ones as well, as to reset some foundations.
A representative of the Ward 2 People's Committee said families have donated a combined total of around 160 m2 of land to widen the alley. Authorities have also spent around VND5 billion ($196,471) renovating roads, sewers and wiring in the ward. The project is expected to be completed this year.
After removing walls around their property lines, many families are also removing old fences to replace them with new ones.
Authorities are coordinating reconstruction efforts in line with a master design to ensure the road expansion is flush and effective.
Nguyen Le Phu, 58, stands before a house that had its walls removed and its property line pushed back a meter.
"Expanding the road will push up property values," said Phu. "It will also help lessen traffic and ease flooding, so I'm comfortable with it."
He added that the ward provided his family with VND25 million to fix the house, although the total cost will be more.
Located next to Phu's house, 75-year-old Le Thi Chau gave up 4 m2 of her land for the road expansion.
"I've been here for over 30 years. Donating land will make my house smaller, but when I heard the news of the alley expansion, I was happy and wanted to participate immediately because I want the front of the house to be more spacious," she said.
About a kilometer away from the site, three other alleys off Phu Nhuan’s Phan Tay Ho, Nguyen Kiem and Hoang Hoa Tham streets are also undergoing widening efforts.
At Alley 76/47 off Phan Tay Ho, families have broken down walls and fences. There is still groundwork to be done so the road can be expanded to 4.5 m in width. The alley is currently only wide enough for two motorbikes to barely squeeze past each other.
Tran Quang Sang, vice chairman of the Phu Nhuan District People's Committee, said around 173 families live in four alleys under expansion. And 146 families have so far agreed to donate 670 m2 of land, worth VN84 billion (US$3.3 million) in total, for the expansion.
At one alley, 60-year-old Van Vinh’s family has donated the most amount of land in the area. He gave up one-fourth of his home’s total area, spanning 70 m2, for the road expansion. Vinh said his donation could be worth over VND1 billion.
Sang said persuading residents to donate land took many years and was fraught with difficulties because many families wanted more compensation. The budget for land clearance was also limited, and land prices in the area were high and rising, he added.
"The district still has around 2,000 alleys and even smaller [footpath-like] branches that do not satisfy urban aesthetic standards," he said. “We will make calculations to update compensation values for future road expansion.”
Following the road expansion at Alley 694 Nguyen Kiem, authorities have installed a sewer system to prevent flooding for over 50 families.
This work all comes as part of a larger Ho Chi Minh City road expansion land donation initiative first launched in 2000. Over the last 24 years, over 168,000 families in the southern metropolis have donated around 5.3 million m2 of land worth over VND10 trillion to expand 5,230 roads and alleys.
