Ho Chi Minh City officials have closed the door on a government plan to build small apartments in order to prevent overcrowding and the creation of “elevated slums.”
Investors who had been planning on building commercial apartments under 25 square meters (270 square feet) were informed by the city that they would not be granted permission to continue their projects because of concerns that the surge in population might spiral out of control, as reported by VnExpress.
City officials said in a letter to the Ministry of Construction that small apartments would not be a part of its development plans. The rationale behind this being that small apartments would encourage more people to buy more property in the already overpopulated city, which would then lead to population growth and undue strain on current infrastructure.
The Ministry issued a letter in April to a domestic developer stating that the firm would be permitted to build 25-square-meter apartments as a means of attracting low-income earners before new national standards regulating the sizes of new apartments were set.
In 2015, a construction law in Vietnam abolished a previous requirement setting the minimum area for a newly built apartment at 45 square meters. This law did not specify any new limits. In December of that same year, a government decree on the development of housing for low income earners came into force, setting the minimum area at 25 square meters, although these kinds of decrees often take time and require guidance from related ministries in order to be finalized and implemented.
The decision to stop the building of these small apartments seems to be at least in part a response to Ho Chi Minh City's growing infrastructure problems.
The city is already considering outlawing multi-story buildings on roads that cannot accommodate them. High-rise projects like the ones on Ung Van Khiem and Nguyen Huu Canh in Binh Thanh District, and Ben Van Don in D4, have put tremendous strain on infrastructure in those areas, as reported by local media.
[Photo via VnExpress]
