VietNamNet Bridge – Housing for low-income people should be built in suburban areas rather than within cities to keep costs low, property industry executives have said.

A tenement house for low-income earners is near completion in HCM City’s Binh Chanh suburban district.

Speaking at a seminar on housing for the poor, workers and students held by the HCM City Real Estate Association last Friday, Nguyen Van Duc, deputy director of Dat Lanh Real Estate Company, said land costs were much higher in cities where it was also hard to find large land lots.

"It is easier to carry out projects of 10 to 100 ha with all necessary infrastructure outside the city," he said.

He called for removing the six-floor cap and allowing public housing blocks to be up to 16 floors high since low-rise buildings generally lack professional managers after they are built and quickly deteriorate as a result.

Duc also called on developers to pay special attention to the building foundations. "Selecting the right foundation will reduce both construction time and costs while ensuring quality," he said.

He also suggested scrapping the 45sq.m minimum requirement for apartments and allowing a range of sizes to satisfy varying demands.

He called for setting up a national commission on housing development to study demand for public housing and draft plans to address the issue.

To attract developers, Nguyen Phung Thieu, chairman of the Sai Gon Gia Dinh Real Estate Joint Stock Company, said procedures for licensing and getting soft loans should be simplified.

"Providing land-use rights certificates for portions of land already acquired will help developers get bank loans," he said. There are projects unable to get the certificate though just 5-10 per cent of the total land remains uncleared, preventing developers from getting loans for up to five years.

Truong Thi Hoa, a lawyer, said information on the land fund, procedures for getting financial support, and housing demand among poor people, industrial-park workers and students should be transparent and easily available to developers so that they could make investment decisions.

She agreed that the six-storey limit should be scrapped, adding the number of floors should be contingent on the architectural plans for the area where the building is located.

"A simplification of procedures will be of great help to developers," she said.

Nguyen Trong Ninh, deputy head of the Ministry of Construction’s House and Real Estate Market Management Department, said the Government had allocated VND3.5 trillion (US$200 million) raised through bond issues for building student dormitories this year, with HCM City getting VND800 billion. Developers would be able to get loans at 6.9 per cent interest, he added.

Viet Nam has over 2 million students, but only 20 per cent of them have access to university dormitories.

The Government has set a target that 60 per cent of students and 50 per cent of industrial-park workers should have accommodation by 2015.

There are 197 industrial parks around the country, with most of their workers not having proper accommodation.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

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