HCM City speeds up low-income housing investment

Social housing is built to accommodate the poor, near-poor, State staff, and people who have been recognised as making a great contribution to the country’s revolutions.

Speaking at a forum held in HCM City on early this week, Tran Trong Tuan, director of the Department of Construction, said a one-stop policy will begin in October to ensure faster granting of licenses to investors.

Investors will only have to apply for licenses at one agency, the Department of Construction.

From 2006 to 2015, the People’s Committee approved 51 social housing (low-income) projects with a total of 48,000 apartments, according to the department.

Of the projects, only 12 projects with 3,800 apartments have been completed.

Slow progress was caused by the lack of preferential policies and shortage of State budget and land funds for social housing projects.

The State supports loans and other preferential treatments for social housing but administrative procedures are complicated. In addition, investors’ profits from such housing cannot exceed 10 percent of investment capital.

Truong Anh Tuan, general director of the Hoang Quan Consulting Trading Service Real Estate Joint-Stock Company, said that his company had spent two years to complete procedures to invest in a social housing project in District 2. He said other provinces required only a few days.

Le Huu Nghia, director of the Le Thanh Company Limited, said many low-income people live in 10-sq.m rooms that have monthly rental of 1.2 - 1.5 million VND (55-68 USD).

He said the city administration should invest in social housing for rent instead of for selling.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the city’s Real Estate Association, agreed, saying that the building of social housing for rent would better meet the city’s situation.

Tuan, director of the Department of Construction, said research on the proposals would be conducted and submitted to the People’s Committee.

About 480,000 families (who are legally registered to live in the city) do not own housing, according to the Department of Construction. This does not count the number of migrants who are not legally registered with an official red book in the city.

“The Department of Construction plans to build an additional 39 social housing projects with 44,700 apartments in the next five years. Of the apartments, 30,000 will be completed by 2020,” Tuan said.

To meet the target, the department has asked district people’s committees to review their land funds and allocate land for construction of social housing.