Ho Chi Minh City will decentralize urban and rural planning to wards and communes.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction has just reported to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee on the establishment, appraisal and approval of urban and rural planning in the city when implementing the two-level urban government model.

According to the plan, from July 1, 2025, Ho Chi Minh City will officially implement a two-level urban government model, at which time the district and county levels will be abolished.

According to the Law on Urban and Rural Planning 2024 and Decree No. 145/2025/ND-CP, Decree No. 150/2025/ND-CP, after abolishing the district level, the work of preparing, appraising and approving urban and rural planning will be carried out by the commune and ward levels instead of the previous district level.

Ho Chi Minh City will decentralize to new wards after planning arrangement in the area - Le Toan

However, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction believes that transferring the work of establishing, appraising and approving urban and rural planning to the commune and ward levels will face many difficulties.

Because of the work of adjusting the overall zoning plan, many districts have been approved by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee for adjustment, and are implementing the budget preparation and selecting consulting units.

However, some localities have not yet completed the review and submitted the adjustment plan. From July 1, 2025, due to changes in administrative boundaries, some zoning plans will involve two or more wards and communes, leading to problems in the organization, implementation, management and monitoring of the plan.

Regarding the organization of urban and rural planning, the authority to establish is the City People's Committee and the Department of Construction for city-level planning; the commune level will be the unit to organize the establishment of planning within the commune's administrative boundaries.

However, the People's Committee at the commune level currently does not have a project management board, leading to a lack of capacity to organize planning.

Therefore, the Department of Construction proposed to establish Regional Investment Project Management Boards under the Department (similar to the model of regional administrative units of the tax and court sectors), on the basis of restructuring and reorganizing Regional Project Management Boards under the People's Committees of districts, towns, and Thu Duc City to support communes and wards and undertake the work of organizing urban and rural planning.

Regarding decentralization, authorization of appraisal and approval of general planning for communes and wards, according to Clause 2, Article 6, Decree No. 145/2025/ND-BXD, the City allows the decentralization and authorization of authority to communes and wards if they meet capacity. However, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction assessed that the wards and communes after the rearrangement currently do not have enough specialized personnel, so it proposed to temporarily not authorize in the first phase.

Regarding the planning review, after administrative arrangement, communes will be responsible for reviewing projects within their management area. If the project involves two or more communes, the commune with the largest area will be the focal point to synthesize the report and send it to the City for consideration of overall or partial adjustments to the planning projects.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/tphcm-se-phan-cap-cho-phuong-xa-lap-quy-hoach-do-thi-va-nong-thon-d315363.html