HCM CITY  —  Requiring people who want to register for permanent residency in HCM City to rent a floor area of at least 20sq.m is too high, a conference held by the Vietnamese Fatherland Front to discuss the issue has heard.

The current requirement is just 5sq.m, some delegates pointed out at the meeting on Tuesday, saying the increase was too steep.

According to the city Department of Construction, the regulations on minimum area were issued in 2014 and have been amended several times.

Between January 2014 and June 30 last year, 23,544 households with 134,277 members registered for permanent residence status at their rented accommodation.

They included 11,009 households with 43,225 members coming from elsewhere in the country.

Nguyễn Văn Hậu, deputy chairman of the HCM City Bar Association, said the requirement of 20sq.m. per person was too high considering migrants’ living standards. Many of them with families of three or four lived in rented accommodation of less than 20sq.m, he said.

Trương Thị Hoà of the association suggested fixing it at 16sq.m, saying it was the mean of the national housing target (12sq.m per person) and the target (19.8sq.m by 2020) set in a resolution by the 10^th HCM City Party Congress.   

Trần Trọng Tuấn, director of the city Department of Construction, said the increase to 20sq.m has become necessary since a situation where many households live in and register for permanent residency status in one house does not only make living conditions uncomfortable but also affects infrastructure in the area.

In March this year the department had first recommended increasing the requirement to 20sq.m based on regulations in Hà Nội, Cần Thơ and Ðà Nẵng.

Online newspaper Vietnamnet quoted the city People’s Committee as saying people moving to the city for work from other provinces create pressure on infrastructure.

The population increase has led to traffic jams and crowding at hospitals and schools, affecting the quality of local people’s lìe.

A number of apartment projects have been allowed in other areas to ease the population density in the city centre. — VNS