HÀ NỘI — Four 40-45 story apartment buildings in Kim Văn–Kim Lũ New Urban Area in Hoàng Mai District are home to about 16,000 people.

Their basements are said to be too small to handle all the residents’ vehicles. As a result, the small yard that is sandwiched between the buildings is used as a parking lot illegally.

Lieutenant Colonel Trần Văn Dũng, head of Police Station of Đại Kim Ward, Hoàng Mai District, said that police usually cracked down on the parking violations, but they reappear whenever police concluded a round of inspections.

The building management boards seemingly ignore the violations, Dũng said.

Trung Hòa-Nhân Chính New Urban Area in Thanh Xuân District consists of 19 high-rise buildings, but no official markets or parking lots are planned to be built there.

As a result, street markets have appeared, encroaching on roads, pavements and public gardens. People have no place to park their motorbikes but on the road.

Nguyễn Duy Linh, chairman of Nhân Chính Ward People’s Committee, said that local authorities asked the housing investor – Hà Nội Housing Development and Management Ltd Company – to co-operate in curbing street violations and illegal parking.

However, few changes were made, Linh said.

When police arrived, violators, including food stall owners or sellers at the street markets, usually ran away or hid in the first floor of the apartment buildings.

Linh said that the local authorities planned to move the street markets to the public space sandwiched between the N2D and N2E buildings, but local residents opposed the move.

Residents in CT1A1 and CT1A2 apartment building in Tây Nam Linh Đàm New Urban Area have also complained in the last few months that their public spaces between the two buildings were used for parking, the Hà Nội Mới ( New Hà Nội) newspaper reported.

Encroachment on public space, roads and pavements by businesses and parked motorbikes have been reported in cities across the nation.

Measures have been implemented to curb problems, but the issues remain.

Trần Ngọc Chính, chairman of Việt Nam Urban Development and Planning Association, said that public space including playing grounds and gardens in apartment complexes receive little investment by designers and management boards. Often, they’re encroached upon for other purposes.

Chính said that developers often highlighted public space facilities including play grounds or green space to attract home buyers. But the advertisements are frequently false: many house buyers are soon disappointed to see public space used for business and parking, Chính said.

Dr Lý Văn Vinh from the Việt Nam Institute of Architecture told the Xây Dựng (Construction) newspaper that Việt Nam learned and applied apartment building models from Western countries beginning in the 1960s and now they have become very popular in the country.

High rise apartment buildings are developing like mushrooms in big cities in Việt Nam.

Vinh said that many apartment building projects broke rules in planning because developers or designers seemingly care only about maximising profits.

A lack of basement space for parking and little public space are among the common planning errors, Vinh said. — VNS