The municipal People’s Committee yesterday organized a seminar “ Solutions for housing to meet aggressive population growth in the period 2021-2035” with the participation of Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong and leaders of agencies.
Speaking at the seminar, Chairman Phong said this year, the city reportedly has 9 million residents but in fact, more than 13 million people are living and studying here.
The city has experienced aggressive population growth with average annual increase of 200,000 people resulting in pressure to build enough rental housing to meet the increasing demand,”
From June, the average living area per capita in the city is 19.9 square meter and it is expected to be 20.3 square meter by 2020. However, according to the city leader, a number of immigrants and low-income earners are living in unhygienic houses and even affordable housing or affordable rental homes is out of their reach.
Therefore, building affordable houses or social apartments to meet the increasing demand of these people is the city’s top priority.
As a result, Mr. Phong said that city authorities have added housing building standard into the city’s socioeconomic standards to 2020 with the vision to 2025.
In addition to building new houses, the city ought to improve old houses in available residential quarters.
According to the city’s Department of Construction, more and more people moved from inner districts to outer suburbs. As rental fees in inner districts are so high that it leads to population growth in the outer suburbs where land prices are cheaper.
Chairman Phong (1st, L) is talking with seminar participants (Photo: SGGP)
Inviting guests of the seminar from developed countries shared experience in building houses for vulnerable people who are unable to buy a house.
Thai expert Yap Kioe Sheng highlighted various kinds of affordable houses for minimum wage workers as well as the government’s role. The government should have encouraging policies to attract investors to build social apartments.
Agreeing with Thai expert Yap Kioe Sheng Chung’s opinion, director of Compass Housing Service Professor Dave Adamson affirmed that the government ought to subsidize social housing construction because government of all countries in the world continued subsidizing construction of social houses for average- and low-income earners.
