A company’s proposed plans to build 20 square metre studio apartments, as recommended for review by the Ministry of Construction, has been rejected by officials in Ho Chi Minh City.
Dat Lanh Real Estate Company has recently introduced an economical apartment model that has an area of 20 square metres for one person. The room would have a width of 2.8m, length of 7m, and include a kitchen, a toilet, a balcony and a spacious area to arrange a bed, a desk and a dinning table.
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| Single studio rooms could turn the apartment into a slum. |
HCMC’s Department of Construction, however, rejected the proposal because it violates Vietnam’s Housing Laws. According to those laws, a commercial apartment should have a minimum area of 45 square metres, while, social housing a minimum area of 30 square metres.
To have a legal basis, Dat Lanh Real Estate Company requested for permission from the Ministry of Construction to develop this type of studio apartment model for single people.
The ministry then recommended that the HCMC People’s Committee review the above proposal in accordance with the city planning as housing development is under the responsibility of the People’s Committee.
According to the ministry, if the demand for single-living apartments is high, the city can carry out such project on a pilot basis, and after a period, the results will be a foundation for practical amendment and supplement of legal provisions to be considered.
After consulting with the HCMC Department of Construction, the city’s People’s Committee officially rejected this pilot project. Besides the fact that it violates housing laws, the main reason is that it will break sustainable development plans for the city.
According to census figures of housing and population issued by the Central Housing and Population Census Steering Committee on April 1, 2009, the average housing area in HCMC is 25.7 square metres per person. The city is expecting the average housing area to increase up to 26.9 square metres per person in 2015. Thus, the proposed project will go against the target and guidelines of the city.
Furthermore, the Department of Construction is concerned that the development of these small apartments will have an impact on the city’s development in the sense that it would encourage immigrants, increase the size of urban population, put pressure on the traffic and public infrastructure, and affect the city’s social order.
Existing law does not restrict the number of residents in an apartment, which means owners can allow many people to live in the apartment, the Department of Construction stated, noting that regulations set in housing contracts cannot ensure that it will not happen.
Nguyen Tan Ben, the Department of Construction Manager, commented, “The actual number of single people will change over time. They might be single at the time they buy an apartment but a few years later, when they start a family, it’s impossible to disallow their partner to move in with them!”
Many real estate experts praise this type of studio apartment saying when it appears on the market, it could create a fever for many people who are looking for an apartment at the value of VND 500 million (USD 26,000), even if it resides in back alleys or has low infrastructure, and that it would stimulate and bring the real estate market up.
However, they think that the decision made by the HCMC Department of Construction is legitimate. With the current manpower system and management policies, economic housing could easily be turned into slums high above, affecting the city’s future sustainable development.
