Creating a "green channel" for social housing projects

Supply has been opened but people still have difficulty accessing it

At the conference held directly at the Government headquarters, online with 17 provinces and cities with great demand for social housing held on October 24, reports showed: In recent times, the Government and the Prime Minister have resolutely directed and implemented many tasks to develop social housing; issued 22 Resolutions, 12 Directives, Decisions, and telegrams; organized many national conferences to implement social housing development...

The Government has issued a Resolution on the Project to build at least 1 million social housing units for low-income people, science and technology workers in the period of 2021-2030 and local housing development programs and plans. In particular, the whole country strives to complete over 100,000 social housing units in 2025.

To date, the whole country has 696 social housing projects that have been and are being implemented with a scale of more than 637,000 apartments. In the first 9 months of 2025 alone, the whole country has completed over 50,000 units, reaching 50.5%, it is expected that by the end of 2025, more than 89,000 units will be completed, reaching 89% of the annual plan.

The supply has expanded with many projects in Da Nang, Can Tho, Hanoi... being implemented and opened for sale. However, reality shows that people in need still have a hard time accessing social housing.

In Hanoi, according to Lao Dong, in late October, the Ministry of National Defense's 319 Corporation - the investor of the Uy No social housing project (Ui No commune, Dong Anh district, Hanoi) - has begun to receive applications to buy a house. With a location not too far from the center, the project quickly attracted the attention and sought after of many people.

As of October 24, although it has been more than three days since the investor started receiving the application, since 7am, long lines of people have been lining up waiting to submit the application. Many people said they arrived at 3am to reserve their seats.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tu (Hung Yen province), a mechanical worker currently renting a room in the Co Nhue area, shared: "I have known about this project for many months and have only waited until the date of receiving documents to submit." By the end of the morning, there were still dozens of people waiting patiently until the afternoon to submit documents.

With a favorable location and suitable price, the Uy No project is becoming the focus of attention for many middle- and low-income workers living and working in the capital.

According to the plan, in 2025, Hanoi City plans to complete about 4,730 social housing units, exceeding the assigned target by about 60 units.

Green water for social housing

The National Assembly and the Government have issued many Resolutions and Directives on social housing such as the Resolution on piloting mechanisms and specific policies for the development of social housing, and the Housing Law. However, according to experts, there are still many bottlenecks that make social housing not really a breakthrough.

Recently, the Lang Son Department of Justice has proposed a provision on social housing that is unreasonable and unfeasible. According to this proposal, the regulation that subjects specified in Clauses 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, Article 76 of the Housing Law 2023 "must not enjoy housing support policies in any form in provinces and centrally run cities where there are social housing construction investment projects" is unclear, has many different understandings and is unreasonable, not feasible, causing difficulties in applying and implementing the law.

The Ministry of Construction said it will accept the reflection of the proposal of the Department of Justice of Lang Son province in the process of reviewing and amending regulations of the law on housing.

In addition, capital for social housing projects is also a big challenge. These projects often do not attract the participation of businesses due to large investment costs and prolonged financial risks. This causes many obstacles in the development of social housing projects, while the demand for social housing is increasing.

The Prime Minister requested: It is necessary to cut at least 50% of administrative procedures, include social housing projects in the "green channel" and "priority channel" groups to complete procedures quickly and promptly; create a clean land fund for social housing development in a flexible manner; diversify capital sources for social housing development, including credit capital, State capital through the Social Policy Bank, Housing Development Fund, bond issuance...

From the perspective of capital creation, Governor of the State Bank Nguyen Thi Hong said: Many projects take 10 - 15 years to complete procedures. This causes businesses to bear prolonged interest costs, reducing investment efficiency. Banks that raise capital from people still have to pay interest periodically, unable to "wait" for the project to be completed".

Therefore, according to the leader of the SBV, if the procedures are shortened to 2-3 years, bank capital will circulate faster, helping many projects qualify to access credit. For subjects eligible for loans to buy or rent social housing, the Governor of the State Bank recommends completing the confirmation process, avoiding overlap and prolonging the approval time.

To solve the capital problem, there needs to be solutions to diversify capital sources. One of the solutions being considered is to issue corporate bonds to raise capital for social housing projects with a mechanism of guaranteeing the issuance of bonds by the State or local authorities. If the locality clearly sees the social benefits of the project, it can guarantee the company to issue bonds, thereby creating trust for buyers and helping the company mobilize medium and long-term capital, not completely dependent on bank credit.

The representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association also expressed the view that cutting 50% of administrative procedures for social housing projects is an important solution to create more favorable conditions for investors and shorten project implementation time. However, to achieve this goal, it is necessary to analyze and determine which procedures need to be cut or simplified while still ensuring legality, publicity and transparency.

The "green channel" for social housing projects needs to focus on key solutions such as: Shortening construction permit procedures by reducing requirements for documents and papers, shortening the time for appraisal of documents to improve the appraisal process, reducing unnecessary inspection and approval steps and automating and digitizing procedures to help reduce manual intervention by State agencies and increase transparency.

In addition, it is necessary to create a mechanism to shorten site clearance and land transfer procedures, speed up compensation and site clearance, prioritize land areas with available planning for social housing to minimize waiting time and not have to go through complicated land procedures, create a flexible land auction mechanism: For land areas without investors, a flexible land auction mechanism can be applied to reduce waiting time and put land into use quickly.

The new Resolution of the Government is also expected to cut procedures related to determining beneficiaries of social housing policies, using a digital database to determine beneficiaries of social housing purchase in a faster, more transparent and accurate manner and simplify approval criteria.

For investors, they expect to improve the approval and capital allocation process, the Government and localities can give investors autonomy when implementing social housing projects, thereby reducing the intervention of state agencies. At the same time, it cuts down on procedures for inspection and supervision after completing the project through supervision through the digital system, simplifying the process of checking house handover documents.