Five years after the entire project was halted, Aqua City finally has an answer to a question that sounds procedural but determines whether buyers can sign contracts: does the developer owe additional land-use fees after its zoning plans were adjusted?
On September 28 and 29, the Chairman of the Dong Nai City People's Committee issued eight decisions approving specific land prices. These prices serve as the basis for calculating land-use fees and land rent following local adjustments to the detailed zoning plans of Novaland's Aqua City urban cluster. According to the financial obligation results reported by the press on September 30, seven of the eight zones will not have to pay any additional land-use fees.Báo Chính phủ CafeF
For people who have already paid for homes at Aqua City, and for NVL shareholders, the headline "good news" framing is not the point. The more useful questions are where this step sits on a legal road that began in 2021, which knot it unties, and which ones remain tied.
From a full stop to a patched-up zoning plan
Aqua City covers nearly 1,000 hectares east of Ho Chi Minh City, on the riverbank in Long Hung ward, Dong Nai. From 2021, the whole project was suspended because adjustments to its zoning plans had not been approved and there was no agreement on land set aside for social housing. In November 2022, more than 750 villas lost their certification as eligible for sale even though construction was finished.VnExpress
The first turning point came in late June 2023, when the project restarted after a government task force stepped in. A restart did not address the root cause, though. The project's plans still did not match the higher-level zoning.
That root cause was tackled from the top down. On November 19, 2024, the Dong Nai Provincial People's Committee issued Decision 3479/QĐ-UBND, making a local adjustment to Bien Hoa's 1:10,000 master plan with a focus on sub-zone C4, where Aqua City sits.CafeLand On June 16, 2025, Aqua Riverside City received a local adjustment to its 1:500 detailed plan under Decision 3786/QĐ-UBND.CafeLand
Patching the zoning is precisely what raised the money question. When the land-use mix changes, for example when residential, commercial or public-facility land grows or shrinks, the developer's land-use fee obligation has to be recalculated. That recalculation requires a specific land price approved by the competent authority. Each of the September 28-29 decisions therefore specifies the land area, the land-use mix before and after the adjustment, the valuation date and the corresponding price.Markettimes Until these decisions existed, any additional payment was an unknown nobody could fill in.
Cleared for sale is not the same as cleared to sign
While the zoning was being fixed, the Dong Nai Department of Construction cleared one batch of homes after another for sale. Novaland's investor newsletter of July 23 said the first Aqua City buyers had received their land-use right certificates. In August, more than 1,000 units in Aqua Marina City and Aqua Waterfront City were confirmed as eligible for sale.Markettimes In early September, the department announced that nearly 3,800 units across three sub-zones of Phuoc Hung islet met the conditions for sale, including 1,568 units in Novaland's sub-zone 2.Người Quan Sát
One detail in these documents is easy to miss. "Eligible for sale" does not mean a sale contract can be signed right away. For the batch of nearly 3,800 units, the department noted that some of the related land-use right certificates are pledged at MB Bank, so the units tied to those certificates are not yet eligible for contract signing.
The September 17 letter leads straight to the land price decisions
The clearest illustration of why the land price decisions matter is Letter 6436/SXD-QLN&TTBĐS dated September 17, 2026, which the Dong Nai Department of Construction posted on its website.Sở Xây dựng Đồng Nai The letter confirms that 764 low-rise homes at Aqua Riverside City are eligible for sale. Its conclusion, however, states that these units are not yet eligible for sale or lease-purchase contracts.
The department set two conditions before signing. The first is releasing the pledged land-use rights, since developer Long Hung Phat has mortgaged 30 of the 31 relevant certificates at MB Bank. The second is fully settling any financial obligation arising from the local zoning adjustment.CafeLand
The second condition is exactly what the eight decisions of September 28 and 29 address. Aqua Riverside City is on the list of areas that received approved land prices, alongside the Aqua City project itself, Aqua Waterfront City and the sub-zones of Phuoc Hung islet.CafeF For any zone that owes nothing extra, the question of whether a financial obligation arises now has an answer: it does not. Put differently, the land price decisions resolve one of the two knots. The mortgage release is a separate matter between the developer and its bank.
What is settled and what remains open
What is settled is that a potential expense has been crossed off across most of the project. The outcome eases the capital-raising burden for Aqua City, and the company no longer needs to budget additional land-use fees for seven zones.Báo Chính phủ For a company that is raising equity to repay debt, removing an unknown cost from its largest project is a real change.
What remains open is larger than the September 30 coverage suggests:
- The name of the eighth zone and how much it owes. Sources published through September 30 do not say which zone must pay more, or how much. This is the biggest gap, because buyers in that zone need a concrete figure to gauge how much longer their paperwork will take.
- The list of the seven zones that owe nothing extra. Without it, no one can say for certain that the 764 units at Aqua Riverside City have cleared the second condition.
- Progress on releasing the certificates pledged at MB Bank. This condition is independent of the land price decisions. A zone that owes no additional fees but still has its certificates under mortgage cannot sign contracts yet.
The press also did not explain why seven zones incurred no extra obligation. One possibility is that the adjustments did not raise the value of the land-use rights, for instance if the added area went to social housing or public facilities. Until the full text of the decisions is published, however, this remains an inference and should not be treated as a confirmed reason.
From paperwork to revenue
In early August, Duong Van Bac, CEO of No Va Land Investment Group Corporation (Novaland), said the company's 2026 revenue plan relies mainly on handing over units sold earlier. According to Mr. Bac, clearing the legal hurdles at Aqua City and NovaWorld Phan Thiet is key for the company's financial measures to take effect.Markettimes
The gap to close is still wide. In the first half, Novaland booked consolidated net revenue of VND 5,096 billion, just 22% of its full-year plan, while profit after tax already equaled 96% of the annual target.Markettimes That VND 1,772 billion profit came mainly from transfers of land-use rights, home handovers across several projects and the divestment of a subsidiary.Dân trí The missing revenue therefore has to land in the second half, and Aqua City is where most of the units awaiting handover are concentrated.
The land price decisions remove a cost risk, but they do not generate revenue on their own. Revenue is recognized only when homes are handed over, and homes can be handed over only after construction and infrastructure are completed on the approved schedule, as the Department of Construction required in its early-September documents.
On the exchange, September 30 was also the ex-rights date for the company's rights offering to existing shareholders. NVL closed at VND 10,200 with more than 95.5 million shares matched. The session's price reflected both the offering and the Aqua City news at once, so the market's reaction to the land price decisions cannot be isolated.
Signals to watch in the coming weeks
After September 28 and 29, the picture is fairly clear. Across most of Aqua City, the land-use fee unknown has been removed. The unknown about how quickly paperwork turns into handed-over homes, and then into revenue, is fully intact. The bottleneck is shifting from zoning and land valuation to the bank and the construction site.
How fast the next stage moves will show up in the documents ahead. First is information on the identity and financial obligation of the eighth zone. Next is any notice from the Department of Construction or the developer showing that the certificates at MB Bank have been released and contracts can be signed. Last is Novaland's third-quarter financial statement, expected in October. If handover revenue in the quarter rises clearly above the first-half pace, the legal milestones are turning into cash. If revenue stays low, the bottleneck has moved squarely to mortgage releases and construction.
For buyers still waiting on their homes, the most practical question to put to the developer right now has two parts: is their zone among those that owe nothing extra, and have the land-use right certificates for that zone been released from mortgage?