Drive south along Truong Sa road and you'll pass plenty of resort construction. Then there's the stretch where the construction stopped two decades ago.

The Hoa Trung coastal tourism area was supposed to be an international-standard beach resort on about 170,000 square meters, roughly 17 hectares, in what is now Ngu Hanh Son ward. According to Tuoi Tre, the project launched in 2006, its investor received an investment certificate in 2007, its budget was 1,376 billion dong, and it was due to open by the end of 2018.

Today Tuoi Tre describes overgrown land, two buildings with rough frames whose walls are crumbling around rusting steel, a structure covered in graffiti and broken sidewalks. The investor is Hon Ngoc A Chau JSC. Bao Dau Thau reported on October 1 that more than 20 years after the certificate, no part of the project has been completed, and its timeline keeps slipping because investment-procedure problems remain unresolved. That report says the budget was later raised to 1,551 billion dong for a planned hotel of about 200 rooms, about 95 villas and about 150 high-end apartments.

What the inspectors found

The most useful part of Tuoi Tre's report is a finding from the Da Nang Inspectorate, and it doesn't put all the blame on the investor:

  • The project's detailed 1/500 plan has been revised many times, and the latest revision is stuck over how to allocate permanent-resident population figures.
  • The city recovered part of the land for public works in June 2021, but compensation and support still haven't been finished.
  • The land lease was never adjusted after that recovery, so the investor was still paying annual rent on more than 5 hectares the state had already taken back. Inspectors called that inappropriate.

Bao Dau Thau adds that the inspectorate found the city's Investment Promotion Center had appraised and submitted the original certificate improperly, and that a city order to recover 24,486 square meters for a public park still hasn't been carried out. Chief Inspector To Van Hung asked the investor to cooperate and supply documents so the remaining procedures can be resolved.

The inspectorate asked the city chairman to have the Department of Home Affairs review and discipline the organizations and individuals responsible. It also asked the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the city tax office and the Ngu Hanh Son ward People's Committee to clarify their responsibility. Tuoi Tre's report named no individuals, and Bao Dau Thau describes the inspectorate as placing the delays mainly on management agencies rather than the investor.

Why it matters

Prime beachfront sitting idle for 20 years is a public cost: no park, no jobs, no tax base, just weeds and graffiti. Tuoi Tre notes that the city has recently dealt with eight vacant properties left unused for more than a year, including two lots idle for 18 to 21 years. It didn't say whether Hoa Trung is next.

Bao Dau Thau's headline frames the delays as mostly "objective" causes. The inspectors' findings suggest the city's own bureaucracy is part of that. Either way, the question for residents is the same: what happens to this land, and when?

Sources

This story was compiled by the Da Nang Voice news desk from the published sources listed above. Facts, figures and quotes are attributed to those sources; Da Nang Voice did not conduct interviews for it unless the text says so. Corrections are dated and noted at the top of the story. Read our corrections policy. Spotted an error? Tell us.