The department's director, Nguyen Dinh Hung, said the main objective was to use space more efficiently while still ensuring that the city underground technical infrastructural system would develop stably and in tune with natutral conditions and meet the city's socio-economic development needs, Hung said.
The DPA will co-operate with other agencies to collect and update planning design and information related to existing technical infrastructure, he said
"Luckily, most industries that undertake urban technical infrastructure work have their own planning designs," Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper quoted him as saying.
He pointed to the sewage and water supply services as an example: The drainage agency had a water drainage master plan ratified by the Government in 2002 while the water supply agency has submitted a plan for the next two decades for approval, he said.
The power utility has also drafted a master plan, as have the post and telecom agencies.
Though many of their plans are broad and lack details, they provide the planning department the basic information required for underground-space master plan, he said.
"Because HCMC has a complex geological structure, the People's Committee has ordered the Department of Science and Technology and other agencies to make geological and hydrographical maps.
"These maps will be very important documents based on which we can come up with proposals to ensure underground space is used effectively."
Like many other cities around the world, the city's underground space will be used to develop urban services like transport, technical infrastructure systems, public space, shopping malls, and amusement areas.
However, priority will be given to technical infrastructure, underground networks, tunnels, and parking sites.
The department will also study the location of buildings to create underground transport systems to complement surface systems.
But Hung admitted that making an underground master plan was a difficult job since the city's infrastructure was completed in many phases starting many decades ago during the French colonial times onwards.
The wars destroyed some of the infrastructure and documents relating to them, he explained.
To carry out proper planning, great support will be needed from industries and the Science and Technology Department with its geological and hydrographical maps, he said.
The lack of technical capability and funds were other major hurdles for the department to overcome, he said. —VNS
