Living in fear but not knowing where to go
Residents of Vinh Hoi apartment building in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City, every day when they leave their house, have to look up at the ceiling to avoid falling pieces of peeling concrete. The entrance to the apartment building is a staircase, many sections are crooked, the walls are old and mossy over time, and electric wires are tangled everywhere.
According to Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Khanh, 65 years old, who has lived here for more than 50 years, over the years, the local government has repeatedly invited residents to discuss relocation plans as well as compensation policies. However, until now, there has been no suitable compensation plan, so the people have no choice but to stay.
"Many times my family spent money to reinforce the house, but over time, rainwater seeped in and mold and the deterioration became more and more serious. We are afraid to stay, but we don't know where to go when we move. Most of the people living in the apartment building are poor workers, so we hope there will be a satisfactory compensation plan," said Ms. Khanh.
In District 4, Vinh Hoi apartment building is one of five D-class apartment buildings at high risk of collapse. In the period 2015-2020, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee issued a resolution requesting the urgent relocation of these five apartment buildings, but District 4 has not been able to complete it.
Vinh Hoi apartment building (District 4) has been degraded for many years, residents live in danger but the relocation of residents has not been completed.
Speaking with Nguoi Dua Tin , Mr. Vo Thanh Dung, Vice Chairman of District 4 People's Committee, acknowledged that one of the reasons for the difficulty in relocation is that the locality lacks temporary housing funds and cannot arrange new accommodation for people.
Specifically, the Ton That Thuyet apartment building recently had its corridor collapsed, and the district had to repair and reinforce it. Therefore, 52 households in block C are ready to relocate, but the People's Committee of District 4 does not have enough housing funds to arrange them. Therefore, the government has not been able to organize a meeting with residents to discuss the relocation plan even though it has planned it.
According to Mr. Dung, based on Decree No. 69/2021/ND-CP (Decree 69) dated July 15, 2021 on renovation and reconstruction of apartment buildings, in case of urgent relocation and the state does not have housing funds to arrange, people will be given an advance payment to move to a new place of residence. After that, the investor who wins the bid to renovate the apartment building will refund this amount to the budget.
However, some apartment buildings in District 4 have not found investors, so the completion time is not yet determined. Meanwhile, if the budget is allocated, there is a risk of prolonged debt, making it difficult to pay off.
The situation of degraded apartments is not only happening in District 4, but Ho Chi Minh City has 474 apartments built before 1975 that are damaged and need to be repaired or rebuilt. Hundreds of old apartments are seriously damaged, threatening the lives of residents but are difficult to relocate due to regulations and lack of investment capital...
Reporting to the monitoring delegation of the National Assembly 's Law Committee on March 29, Mr. Bui Xuan Cuong, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, said that it is necessary to study and amend the law on housing.
In recent times, Ho Chi Minh City has paid great attention to the management, operation, renovation, repair and reconstruction of apartment buildings. On the basis of implementing the Housing Law, besides the positive and favorable factors, there are still many difficulties and obstacles due to the provisions of the housing law that are still inadequate and not consistent with other legal provisions such as the Land Law and the Law on Real Estate Business.
Therefore, it is necessary to continue to study and revise to ensure practical feasibility when applied.
Need to improve policies and laws
At the regular press conference of Ho Chi Minh City on the afternoon of March 30, Nguoi Dua Tin reporter sent questions to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction about the situation of some apartment buildings in District 4 that are seriously degraded, unable to continue to be inhabited, and needing to urgently relocate residents to new places.
Mr. Vu Anh Dung, Deputy Head of the Department of Housing Development and Real Estate Market, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, said that the city has a policy of prioritizing the use of state-owned housing funds to relocate people to temporary residence, in order to ensure the safety of people's property and lives, although this fund is currently very limited.
“In case people do not accept temporary housing, the City also has a policy of being ready to arrange temporary housing payments for people. This is a humane policy that requires consensus from the people and advocacy from all levels of government,” Mr. Dung affirmed.
The representative of the Department of Construction also informed that for District 4, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has approved priority housing funds for people to relocate to the following apartment buildings: 360C Ben Van Don, 1 Ton That Thuyet (District 4); Phu Tho (District 11); Tan My (District 7) and Phan Chu Trinh apartment building (Binh Thanh District).
Regarding the compensation policy mechanism, Mr. Dung said that this is built into the compensation and resettlement support plan, which will be approved if the majority of people agree. For the on-site resettlement plan, it is built on the principle that people receive new, better housing.
This is done according to Decree 69 of 2021 of the Government on the renovation and reconstruction of apartment buildings, resettled owners receive their houses back with a K number from 1-2, depending on the location and apartment project.
From the expert's perspective, Dr. Nguyen Huu Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh City Urban Development Planning Association, assessed that the work of relocating people from class D apartments must be carried out, because the first important issue is the lives of the people.
“The sustainability of an apartment building depends on the overall structure, not on each individual apartment. People cannot be subjective with unpredictable situations such as earthquakes and storms, the consequences will be very serious,” Mr. Nguyen pointed out.
Another important point is to decide whether the new place is temporary or permanent residence for the people. These things must be clear for the people to move. Because people are not afraid of unsafe housing but afraid of disruption to their lives.
In addition, the common mentality of people is to move to temporary housing but worry about when there will be a project to rebuild old apartments. Therefore, when people have been relocated, they should renovate and rebuild old apartments as soon as possible to quickly stabilize their lives. If the relocation is prolonged, the instability will last longer.
Besides, the bottleneck of this is the source of investment capital for projects to build new old apartments. If we only rely on investors, it will take a long time and be difficult to implement because they will not do it if there is no profit or low profit.
Meanwhile, many old apartment buildings are limited in planning criteria, so they are not attractive to investors. Therefore, at this time, the role of the state in sustainable development investment must be promoted, because if we rely on socialization and calling for investors, there will be no change.
Therefore, this expert believes that there needs to be a breakthrough in rebuilding old apartments. The government should invest in rebuilding apartments and selling them to people at reasonable prices. In addition, it is necessary to promote to people the long-term benefits of replacing old apartments soon.
Slow evacuation of dangerous apartment buildings
Statistics from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction show that there are 1,635 apartment buildings in Ho Chi Minh City. Of these, 474 were old apartment buildings built before 1975. To date, 199 apartment buildings have been renovated and repaired at a total cost of VND275.5 billion.
This city has 16 level D apartment buildings (severely damaged, dangerous) with nearly 1,200 households, of which 7 apartment buildings with more than 350 households have been completely relocated; 5 apartment buildings with 316/566 households have been partially relocated and 4 apartment buildings with more than 250 households have not been relocated.
In addition, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee is arranging to inspect, renovate and repair the remaining 246 grade B and C apartment buildings in the 2016-2020 period, with a total estimated investment of VND500 billion.
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