Hanoi Proposes Double Compensation and Resettlement-First Rules for Red River Boulevard

Hanoi is revising the relocation framework for its proposed Red River Scenic Boulevard around a resettlement-first principle: higher payments for eligible land rights, expanded support for households losing farmland, and replacement housing with infrastructure completed before residents are required to move. The approach is intended to make land clearance more workable for a project of unusual social and physical scale, but the details remain a proposal whose success will depend on delivery. 13

What the revised compensation package proposes

The city’s draft would set monetary compensation for qualifying residential, agricultural and non-agricultural land at twice the rate otherwise prescribed by law. The policy applies to land that meets the relevant legal conditions for compensation. 135

For households that lose agricultural land, the proposal also provides job-training and career-transition support equal to five times the agricultural-land price. That distinction matters: a land payment addresses the acquired property, while transition support is designed to help households adjust after losing a source of work or income. 3

Replacement homes are meant to come before relocation

The most consequential proposed change is the sequence of resettlement. Residents required to relocate outside the floodplain would move only after their new urban housing, along with integrated supporting infrastructure, has been completed. 3

Hanoi’s plan also prioritizes resettlement in the same ward or commune where possible, or in places compatible with residents’ work, business activity and children’s schooling. 57 This is a practical attempt to limit the disruption that can follow a move even when compensation is available.

Six resettlement projects have been identified. The plan calls for sufficient land, housing and public infrastructure to receive displaced communities rather than treating housing as a later construction phase. 3

Graves and heritage sites are part of the clearance plan

Land clearance would involve more than homes and businesses. The proposal includes cemetery capacity and organized grave relocation, with reports estimating that about 109,000 graves could be affected. 37

It also calls for surveys and preservation measures for 123 historical and cultural sites in the project corridor. These places are to be handled through heritage-protection measures rather than ordinary clearance procedures. 7

Why the scale raises the stakes

The Red River Scenic Boulevard project covers about 11,418 hectares across 16 wards and communes. Its components include two riverside boulevards with a combined length of more than 80 km, riverside parks, embankment and channel-regulation works, urban redevelopment and resettlement areas, and standalone land-clearance projects. 15

Estimates of the affected population vary across reporting and planning documents. The latest compensation draft describes around 280,000 people living in the affected area, while earlier local-authority data counted about 247,431 residents in roughly 70,474 households. 111 The difference underscores why final household inventories, eligibility decisions and site-specific plans will be central to implementation.

Construction is scheduled to run from 2026 to 2038. 8 For a redevelopment of this duration, the resettlement pledge is not simply a compensation issue: it is a sequencing commitment. Authorities will need replacement housing, schools, utilities, transport access, livelihood assistance and burial sites to be ready before clearance proceeds.

What affected communities can scrutinize

The public consultation on the compensation, support and resettlement plan runs from September 7 through September 27, 2026. 1 The process gives residents and localities a window to examine issues that can determine whether the policy works in practice:

• whether a plot qualifies for the doubled compensation rate;
• how valuations and eligibility will be documented and resolved;
• whether a proposed resettlement location preserves access to jobs, schooling and services;
• what infrastructure must be finished before a household moves;
• how agricultural livelihood support will be administered; and
• how cemetery relocation and heritage preservation will be carried out.

The proposal’s central promise is clear: residents should not be asked to leave for an unfinished alternative. Whether that principle holds will be measured by completed homes and services—not by the compensation formula alone. 35