Almost all villagers unpleased with the village status

The meeting was presided over by Pham Hung Son, head of Duong Lam village management board. Nguyen Van Dien, Vice Chairman of Son Tay Township People’s Committee and Truong Minh Tien, Deputy Director of Hanoi municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism attended the meeting.

“The meeting was held to gather ideas from local residents before working out a detailed solution,” Son said.

Even though invitation was just sent to 23 households that signed in a collective petition to ask for a removal of the village’s heritage title, nearly 100 villagers participated in the meeting.

Ha Ke Toan, a local man from Duong Lam Commune, said, “The heritage management board provides tourism services in the village but we don’t benefit from it. It would be better to select a contractor to provide the service like in some localities. They would pay a certain amount of money annually and be responsible for their business.”

Ha Ke Toan said villagers have not benefited from local tourism services

Giang Tu Oanh, a local woman, said her family had tried to build a steel roof but was forced to halt work. She also didn’t know why her family had experienced electricity and water supply cuts for nearly three months since then.
“We can’t afford a tile roof as we get no support to maintain our house. We have seen no benefits but instead have suffered since the village was recognised as a national heritage site,” she complained.

Giang Tu Oanh angry with electricity and water supply cuts after her house was improved

Ha Thi Khanh, owner of a house that had an extension demolished said the neighbourhood has been seriously affected since the village had received the title due to disputes in the unequal granting of building permits.

“When we sought for approval for the construction, we received no reply from local authorities. We couldn’t wait and decided to upgrade our house but it was then demolished,” Khanh said.

The second floor of Ha Thi Khanh’s house was demolished after upgrading

Phan Van Loi, another villager, proposed that only houses that were recognised as old should be preserved while others should be allowed to rebuild so as to improve local living conditions.

Ha Van Bieu, a local man, emphasised the necessity to immediately ease the population in the village.

In response to people’s complaints, Pham Hung Son said they have tried to make transparent the account of revenues from tourism services in the village.

Truong Minh Tien said, “I was greatly proud when the village received the recognition. The management of the village is in accordance with the Cultural Heritage Law, so it’s not easy to remove the village’s title as proposed by villagers.”

Nguyen Lam Dien agreed, saying that there were a lot of difficulties during the village’s preservation as it affected local people.

Local authorities listening to complaints

On May 14, Hanoi municipal government also held a meeting to discuss the preservation and management of the old village.

Hanoi’s Chairman Nguyen The Thao urged the municipal Department of Architecture Planning to quickly appraise and submit the planning for Duong Lam Commune to the city’s government for consideration.

The department must appraise the project to ease the population in the old village while the city’s Department of Construction is responsible for issuing a regulation that guides authorities in Son Tay Township to allow local residents to sign agreements on their house construction or upgrades.

According to a report by Chairman of Son Tay Township People’s Committee Dang Vu Nhat Thang, over the past five years, 179 families in the locality have constructed or upgraded their houses. Local authorities have forced 94 households to halt construction on improvements or extensions to their houses or forcibly removed the new building work.