The Impact of Property Rights on Urban Land Use Transformation - District 1st, Ho Chi Minh Case Study

Land belongs to the entire people with the State as the representative owner. This study explores the relationship between urban land use transformation and property rights over 15 years by studying in detail the spatial and property history of a particular area, and tracing transformations in urban spatial to the major factors influencing property owners who caused or permitted these changes to occur. This case study will be conducted in the Central Business Area of the district 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, where zoning systems controlled, and continue to control, the kinds of land uses and therefore, the private construction appearance to answer the question whether the property rights in Hochiminh City have characteristics that are similar to property rights in general. Methods used to study the pattern of land cover change and property boundary changes over time are aerial photo interpretation and geographic system analysis (GIS). Processes driving urban spatial transform through the agency of property owners and tenants were studies using project development process and urban censuses for the area, content analysis of 26 questionnaires and local newspapers, interviews, and property title searches. The detailed study drew on the legal and regulatory context for development of property rights in land and spatial, and on the history of construction and of planning in the central area. Outcomes are obtainable in a series of maps of land and property change in 15 years. Housing changed from first storey house to fourth storey house up to complex commercial-residential, and property holdings shifted from small to very large parcels. The pitch is trying to explore the real estate properties as a pattern on the landscape and a set of dynamic human relationships, repeated negotiation, dispute resolution, and uncertainties. Freehold other than simple ownership is shown to be important in urban spatial change. Multiple factors, which include property rights, gentrification, are shown to work together and to cause urban spatial transformation. The recent study concludes that the regular negotiations about property rights in real estate property, both formal and informal, make a major contribution to how people assume about property and what kinds of property uses to make of it. The study suggests that examining planning as a property process and recognizing it as part of a larger negotiation process with respected to property rights, will improve the success of planning implementation.