Businesses complain of difficulties
In Ho Chi Minh City, there are still many controversies related to whether high-rise apartment projects with commercial service functions (such as shophouses, officetels, condotels...) are required to take architectural design competitions, especially when the housing area accounts for a larger proportion than the commercial service area.Answering this issue, the Department of Planning and Architecture said that based on the 2019 architecture Law, Decree 06/2021/ND-CP and Circular 06/2021/TT-BXD to determine that buildings with mixed functions (such as apartments combined with offices, hotels) belong to the type of public works.
Accordingly, if mixed-use apartment projects are of special or level 1 scale, they are subject to architectural design competitions according to the provisions of Clause 2, Article 17 of the architecture Law.If understood in the above way, almost all apartment projects in Ho Chi Minh City with integrated commerce and services must organize architectural design competitions.
However, many experts believe that this understanding is not in line with the spirit of the 2019 Architecture Law, because the provisions in Article 17 of the law clearly state that only public works of special or level 1 scale are required to participate in architectural design competitions.
These two conditions must be met simultaneously.
Meanwhile, commercial housing projects, even with commercial - service functions arranged, "are still civil works or mixed works, not synonymous with public works".
Representatives of some real estate and construction businesses in Ho Chi Minh City said that expanding the understanding of the 2019 architecture Law as above leads to many procedures, forcing businesses to complete procedures, causing additional time and costs when implementing projects.
Not to mention this also increases intermediate procedures, prolonging investment preparation time by 3-6 months. Along with that is the occurrence of exam procedures and exam organization costs, increasing capital costs, affecting project financial efficiency.
Need a unified regulation.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper reporters, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) said that currently the application of regulations related to architectural design competitions for mixed-use apartment buildings is generating many different understandings, causing confusion for localities and businesses in the project implementation process.The key is that current regulations lack consistency between legal documents related to the concept of "mixed-use apartment buildings".Specifically, the regulations in Decree 06/2021/ND-CP, the Housing Law and the National Technical Regulations on apartment buildings currently do not clearly define the floor area ratio between residential functions and other functions in mixed-use buildings to serve as a basis for project classification.
This leads to difficulties in determining whether the project is subject to organizing architectural design competitions according to the provisions of the 2019 Architecture Law or not.
Recently, the Department of Economics - Investment Management and Construction has issued a document responding to a real estate business in Ho Chi Minh City, in which it stated that apartment buildings with a part of the commercial service area are still identified as residential buildings with mixed purposes, not public works.However, this is only a document responding separately to the business, so there is not enough basis to apply uniformly nationwide.
Meanwhile, according to information from HoREA, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee is currently studying adjusting the Ho Chi Minh City Architectural Management Regulations.In which, it is expected to propose the definition of "apartment building with mixed purposes" as a residential function occupying 50% or more of the total floor area.
Conversely, if the area for commerce, services, offices or hotels exceeds 50%, the project will be identified as a mixed-use project belonging to the group of public works.
It can be seen that the lack of unified guidance is causing many projects to take more time to complete procedures, incur costs and affect investment progress.
Therefore, HoREA proposes that the Ministry of Construction soon issue a general guidance document to localities to unify and apply synchronously nationwide, instead of just stopping at individual response documents.
"Removing this obstacle will contribute to simplifying administrative procedures, reducing investment preparation time and creating conditions to promote housing supply in the context that the real estate market needs more momentum for recovery," Mr. Le Hoang Chau stated his opinion.
