Abstract


Hanoi Land Information Management Project

Mr. Jacques Besner
urban planner
City of Montreal,International Affairs Bureau,
275, Notre-Dame East street, office 3.112
Montréal (Québec), CANADA H2Y 3Y8,
Tel: 1 (514) 872-7887, Fax: 1 (514) 872-6067,
Email : jacques_besner@ville.montreal.qc.ca

Mr. François Charbonneau
professor
Institut d’urbanisme, Faculté de l’aménagement
Université de Montréal, CP 6128, succ. Centre-ville
Montréal (Québec), CANADA H3C 3J7
Tel: 1 (514) 343-2217, Fax: 1 (514) 343-2338
Email : francois.charbonneau@umontreal.ca


1.0 Project summary
Since 1997, the City of Montreal, with its partner, the University of Montreal, have collaborated on introducing a Land Information System (LISH) to the Land and Housing Administration Department of the City of Hanoi, its sister-city. With Vietnam`s shift to a more market driven economy, urban centres must re-organize management of their scarce land resource, modernizing land mapping and the land registry to recuperate property taxes as well as land transfer and development fees. The critical nature of this work is underlined by National Assembly legislation in 2000 and 2001 for establishment of a private real estate market.

The project has achieved its intended results, establishing a land information system unit in the City of Hanoi’s Land and Housing Administration Department, training technicians in geomatics, and incorporating this technology into municipal land administration and planning for the DongDà district of the city. The Land and Housing Administration Department is now expanding its LISH to other districts of the city.

The project was extended in 2003 for an additional two years (until 2005) to establish Government-on-Line (G-O-L) through a pilot neighborhood Office in the DongDà district, which will put the land information system on a broader base (LISH – NET) by enhancing the public’s access to the new information. This is intended to increase public involvement leading to transparency and increased private sector development. It is likely to add also to opportunities for suppliers of urban management services and information technology.

The completed LISH and the LISH – NET project are particularly noteworthy and valuable for the City of Hanoi and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as the partners (City of Montreal and University of Montreal) have provided wider scope and allowed the project to extend its services over a longer period than envisaged thereby contributing to consolidating and sustaining work with the Land and Housing Administration Department.

2.0 Project description
Following the establishment of a LIS system in the Hanoi Land and Housing Administration Department at the early phase of this original inter-municipal cooperation, the extension of the project (LISH – NET) includes now the Montreal based geomatic firm KHEOPS Technologies, and will introduce the public to accessing the new system on municipal services, land permits, sales and construction permits, as an initiation of Government-on-Line, (GOL). It includes specifically:
  1. a network of computers with a Java (JMAP) based web link with a neighbourhood Office; the JMAP application allows the consultation of various information sources (DGN, DXF, PDF, HTML, etc.) with a uniform graphic presentation output;
  2. a computer terminal allowing the population to follow the approval process of their requests
  3. an intranet within the City of Hanoi allowing the exchange of cartographic and data information between different central municipal Departments
  4. the support of a trainer-team of Vietnamese technicians introducing GIS techniques to other municipal Departments for management of an urban information network; and
  5. the support of the Land and Housing Administration Department's collaboration with ongoing international funded project for urban development as well as the transfer of GIS competence to the national land-survey registry.
3.0 Project results
The project seeks to obtain as outcomes, improvements in the performance of municipal planning and land management, property tax collection, and development control through the issuing and control of building permits. This can be better assessed at the Output level through the operation of a neighborhood Office. It is likely that both the private sector, and the public will respond positively to a better ordered system of land information and the issuance of records concerning transactions and building permits. There has already been positive public response to the provision of preliminary material in an earlier stage of the project. This loosening of constraints on the private sector contributes to the ongoing development of the private real estate market. The Land and Housing Administration Department's GIS expertise gained from the project is also to assist in modernizing Vietnam's national land-survey registry.

In the medium-term, the advantages of geographic information systems will be exploited in other areas of municipal administration such as the installation and maintenance of infrastructure, and demographic analyses for various objectives such as placement of schools and health facilities. And nationally, the project results may provide Hanoi with the means of promoting the benefits of GIS in land administration to other Vietnamese municipalities.

4.0 Economical impact
Over the past fifteen years, Vietnam has steadily reoriented its economy towards a more market-driven model and several government decrees have set down objectives for development of a land market, and improvement of the land tax as a revenue generating tool for the public sector. Burgeoning economic activity has seen the dramatic increase of private sector construction, putting great pressure on municipal authorities to re-organize land-use planning.

Introducing a land information system to a municipal planning department has been a first step in providing a more informed basis for planning decisions, for the granting of development permits, and for the imposition of development fees. The LISH has improve the collection of property taxes, both from the point of view of fairness and efficiency, thus increasing tax revenues. The extension (LISH – NET) now affords the broadening of the land information system and introducing Government-on-Line to both the private sector and the public and increasing its impact on the ordering of information for business decisions and revenue generation for of the market.

5.0 Project benefits
The short-term benefits accruing to Vietnam from this project focus on local administration, and include:
  • A more efficient and fair means of raising public revenues;
  • Improved building permit process;
  • A more efficient deployment of private and public sector investments through sound urban planning;
  • A more informed public and private sector accessing the information through participation in a pilot G-O-L.
Over the longer-term, the benefits accruing to Vietnam of expanding GIS application to urban management on a wider geographic and ultimately national basis, for better planned urban societies, private sector development, and a higher quality of life for urban dwellers in general.