Resettlement apartment blocks in the outlying district of Binh Chanh, HCMC. (Photo: Le Anh)
These apartments, despite being built five years ago, have yet to find owners. Prior to clearing land for construction, grassroots officials repeatedly offered these apartments to households, but they did not accept, stating that the locations of these residential blocks are inconvenient for commuting to work. In addition, these homes have shown signs of deteriorating as they have been left unoccupied for a long time.
The problem is severe for the city government, as there are not enough resettlement apartments near the current projects to provide affected residents. As such, the government has had to allocate homes in other districts to them, causing inconvenience for these residents.
Apart from this, residents were reluctant to accept the resettlement apartments as these homes had failed to meet their standards due to the shortage of amenities or harmony with the surrounding environment.
Statistics from the department show that as of the end of 2018, 71% of all 41,000 State-owned resettlement apartments and land lots had been occupied, while the remaining 29%, or 12,000 apartments and land lots, have yet to find owners.
In the 2006-2010 period, most households agreed to live in resettlement apartments, according to the municipal Department of Construction. However, since 2011, residents have preferred to accept monetary compensation instead and find their own accommodation.
Earlier, at end-2017, the HCMC government had auctioned thousands of resettlement apartments in Binh Khanh Ward, District 2, while other auction took place in November 2018. However, both auctions were unsuccessful.
The failure of these auctions was attributed to the high selling prices set by the municipal government.
