Aspects of the present disclosure provide various methods and apparatuses configured to reuse, reallocate, reserve, or reassign available control resources in a control region for carrying downlink (DL) payload or user data. The inventive concept and idea may also be applied to reuse control resources for uplink (UL) and/or sidelink user data transmission in both frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) configurations in other embodiments.