Hanoi (VNA) - The national housing development strategy targets having12.5 million square metres of social and affordable housing by 2020.

However, the current space for these two types of housing stands at a meagre3.5 million sq.m, meaning in the next three years, about 3 million sq.m has tobe made available, something that is not feasible, many people say.

Social housing is meant for social welfare beneficiaries like poor households,seniors without families, orphans and people with meritorious records; whileaffordable housing is built for low income earners including State employeesand workers.

They say it is high time that policy makers and other stakeholders accept thereality that the number as well as the quality of social housing projects palesin comparison to actual demand.

Meanwhile, several problems have surfaced in some affordable housing projects,built on a commercial basis.

While it was being built, the Kim Van-Kim Lu urban centre (invested in by theState-owned Vinaconex and Muong Thanh Corp) generated a lot of expectationsfrom its future residents. However, expectations have turned into growingresentment. Every morning, dozens of residents have to wait in line, sometimesfor up to 30 minutes, to get into an elevator.

Nguyen Tuan Phong, a resident of the CT12B apartment building in Hanoi for thelast two years, said the building has seven elevators, but two are alwaysbroken down, causing congestion, especially during the morning rush hour at7-8am. In addition, several of the elevators’ sensors do not functioncorrectly, leading to numerous incidents of elderly people or children gettinginjured when the doors close unexpectedly.

The garbage chute is also poorly designed with its openings located in the mainhall of each floor, forcing residents to install “anti-smell doors,” Phongadded.

Mai My Hanh, a resident of neighbouring tower CT12A, complained that the firealarm system malfunctions all the time, leading to numerous false alarms,greatly inconveniencing residents.

She said poor construction quality causes leaks and has hollowed out concretesections that are filled with rags in the toilets of many apartments.

Residents are outraged. The monthly service fee that project investors receive,at 160,000 VND (7 USD) times 4,200 apartments, is 4 billion VND (176,300 USD),but the service is pitiful.

Another apartment project, also owned by Muong Thanh Corp in the Linh Dam urbanarea south of Hanoi, is in serious disrepair with frequent cuts in watersupply, poor-quality elevators and pavement violations.

The situation is the same at some affordable housing products in HCM City, withresidents livid about construction quality and services.

Just a few months after moving into the Easter City apartment complex on Pham Hungstreet in Binh Chanh district, residents began seeing cracks in the walls,leakages and frequent breaking down of elevators.

Faced with complaints from buyers about tardy construction, investors of theHQC Plaza complex, also in Binh Chanh district, decided to allow people beginliving in unfinished apartments. Residents recently got the scare of theirlives when a fire accident was caused by electrical faults.

Even worse, some projects have had to be halted after city authorities deemedthe contractors ‘incapable,’ following buyers’ reports about very poor constructionquality, as in the case of the high-rise 584 in Tan Phu district.

Tran Ngoc Chanh, Chairman of the Vietnam Urban Planning and DevelopmentAssociation (VUPDA), said due to lax oversight by authorities, most affordableapartment buildings have committed various violations of constructionregulations.

Construction density, land use coefficient, building height, or populationdensity – all have exceeded the allowed limit, leading to a decrease in qualityof residents’ life, he said.

Chanh added that project investors often don’t follow plans approved byauthorities. The “profit-oriented mentality” leads to attempts to maximiseliving space by cutting back on green space and other components.”

‘Affordable housing’ is still a loosely defined term. While it is generallyperceived as targeting low-income people, there are no set standards forbuildings that house the majority of the population, even though a policy onclassification of apartment buildings is in place, said Tran Ngoc Quang, Chairmanof the Vietnam Real Estate Association, said.

“But we have to say that the ‘affordable housing’ term cannot be an excuse forslum-like, shoddy apartment buildings that cause constant headaches for theresidents,” he added.

In developed countries, Quang said, affordable housing is understood as thosebuilt for the general public, in contrast to resorts or luxury real estatedevelopments. This distinction will help customers have a clear understandingof each type of real estate with attached standards and criteria.

Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the HCM City Real Estate Association, said that inorder to successfully implement an affordable housing project, the investormust meet several criteria.

First off, a ‘clean’ (where land clearance is easy) land area is needed, thebuilding must have easy access to major traffic routes and be located not farfrom the city centre, guaranteed construction quality and add-on services likeschools, shopping malls, and other public spaces. Second, “the price must bewithin the ‘affordable’ range of target customers,” with flexible paymentoptions.

However, he admitted that meeting all these criteria is difficult, given thehigh land prices at the moment.

“If current situation persists, we are going to see faith waning in social housingprojects, and an ‘exodus’ of current residents from affordable housingprojects, causing a significant waste,” he said.

Tran Ngoc Hung, Chairman of the Vietnam Construction Association, said housingmust largely be decided by market mechanisms. Social housing for welfarebeneficiaries (elders without family, poor households, orphans, etc.) should behandled by the Government, while other types of housing projects, includingaffording housing, should be subject to demand and supply, he said.

Hung suggested that at least 10-20 percent of urban land be reserved foraffordable housing projects.

Administrative procedures related to affordable housing projects should also bestreamlined to facilitate progress, real estate companies have said.

One company in HCM City’s Thu Duc district said prolonged wait leads to costsoverrun and slow progress. “The original aim is affordable apartments, however,because of unexpected costs,” the prices have to go up, the company’s directorsaid.

Other enterprises also want the Government to collect taxes on a yearly basisor other time-periods, not the lump-sum that is collected even before theproject has started.

Renting out affordable housing apartments is one of the options that developersare considering, but very few companies, have done it. Two of them are Thu Thiemand Viglacera.

The Ministry of Construction has said it is developing a housing reserve fundto deal with capital shortages for social or affordable housing projects. Ithas also said it will consolidate construction, technical and preferentialpricing standards. It will also work on ways to prevent unscrupulous projectinvestors from cheating people into buying low-quality apartments.-VNA