Tens of thousands of residents facing displacement for the Red River Landscape Boulevard Project are flooding government portals with petitions, but the Hà Nội People’s Committee website is failing to display their public appeals.
The Latest: As of 3 p.m. on June 4, the Hà Nội People’s Committee website had not displayed any resident petitions from the past month related to the implementation of the Red River Landscape Boulevard Project.
In the “Reception of Citizens’ Feedback and Petitions” section, the latest petition displayed on the website was dated Jan. 21, 2026. It was submitted by Trương Mạnh Hà and concerned “street naming.”
Furthermore, the website does not display the total number of petitions it has received.
The Details: According to posts on social media, individuals living in areas marked for clearance have for weeks been sending petitions to the Hà Nội People’s Committee through the city’s website.
- On May 14, an account named Hoang Anh Nguyen Van posted in the “Chợ làng Thuý Lĩnh” group to share alternative channels for submitting complaints, including the Government Portal, the Communist Party’s portal, and the National Assembly’s portal.
- On May 22, an account named Sông Hồng urged residents in the Facebook group “Đại Lộ Sông Hồng – Thành Phố Sông Hồng; Hồ Tây – Hội Cư dân Hà Nội” to send petitions to authorities through the iHanoi app and the committee website.
- In the comments, an account named Chi Nguyen stated that they had submitted a petition through the website and would “send [the petition] every day with the same content,” referring to the situation as “the enduring anguish of more than 200,000 affected residents.”
- Instructions on how to send collective petitions have also been widely circulated by the “Cộng đồng ven sông Hồng” project.
- Multiple Facebook groups were also created to share information and to express frustration and opposition to the project. However, the initiative has received pushback from local authorities.
On the afternoon of June 4, a Luật Khoa reporter tested the system by submitting a petition through the city’s website. The system displayed the message: “We have received your information. Thank you!” However, the content of the petition was not updated on the portal.
Legal Requirement: Under the 2016 Law on Access to Information, state agencies are compelled to “proactively disclose information they create or hold” and publish such information on their official electronic portals.
The Background: In early May 2026, Hà Nội authorities announced that they had agreed to gradually relocate and replan all residential areas outside the dike to serve the megaproject.
Affected residents have repeatedly submitted petitions, open letters, heartfelt appeals, emergency pleas, and public posts. They have also hung banners and slogans, calling on authorities not to clear entire communities, to prioritize the preservation of existing villages and residential areas, and to provide fair compensation.
Residents of ancient villages along the Red River have specifically spoken out against full clearance amid concerns over cultural rupture.
These reactions have faced significant pushback from local authorities. On May 27, Bồ Đề Ward leaders threatened to “conduct direct mobilization” if residents did not “remove the banners themselves.”
In the first days of June, several videos circulating on social media showed authorities visiting local communities to demand that residents take down their banners.
The Red River Project: The Red River Landscape Boulevard Project is one of Hà Nội’s strategic megaprojects, designed to redesign the urban space along the river and improve the quality of the capital’s central urban area.
On the morning of May 11, 2026, the Hà Nội People’s Council approved the investment policy with 100 percent of attending delegates voting in favor.
The project—which is expected to affect about 200,000 residents—passes through 16 communes and wards, covers about 11,418 hectares of land, and has a preliminary investment cost of about 736.963 trillion đồng, or $28 billion.
Following recent adjustments, the new investment policy removed three wards—Vĩnh Tuy, Hoàng Mai, and Vĩnh Hưng—from the project area and reduced the total preliminary investment by about 118 trillion đồng, or $4.49 billion.
Despite the sheer scale and socio-economic impact of the clearance, it remains completely unclear why Hà Nội authorities have not publicly disclosed the number of petitions, their contents, or any official responses to the residents’ concerns.
Hoàng Nam wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 4, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.
