HCM CITY — HCM City needs stronger public intervention to provide affordable housing for low-income residents, as market forces alone cannot meet their needs, experts told an international conference on October 15.

The event, titled “Housing for All: Affordability, Inclusivity, and Sustainability”, brought together scholars, policymakers, and senior industry executives.

Professor Hans Joachim Linke of the Technical University of Darmstadt said government intervention and municipal housing bodies are essential to keeping housing affordable.

Leaving housing provision to market forces and private investors has failed to deliver affordable homes for people on lower incomes, even with subsidies, he said.

“Local authorities must be provided with suitable tools to enable them to provide social and affordable housing for households on lower incomes, and municipally-owned housing associations can hugely improve both the housing market and local infrastructure.”

Discussing equitable access to housing, Nguyễn Quang, former UN-Habitat programme manager in Việt Nam, said: “Solving city-wide housing issues requires strong political will and integrated approaches that go beyond quantitative targets.

“Housing policies must accommodate informal settlements, loosen rigid regulatory bottlenecks, and build genuine partnerships between governments, private entities, and urban communities to ensure sustainable housing for all.”

The city’s construction department estimated demand at one million apartments in 2026-30.

The city aims to build 181,257 social housing units in the period.

Its plans included approximately 67,000 units on land held by businesses, 30,000 on state-managed land, 50,000 rental units, 25,000 units for the armed forces, and 10,000 funded by public investment.

To meet these targets, the city is offering incentives to support developers.

“HCM City is actively streamlining administrative procedures through a 'green channel' mechanism to cut project processing times by at least 50 per cent,” the department said.

It offers interest subsidies on loans of up to VNĐ200 billion (US$7.7 million) per project over seven years, with plans to raise the ceiling to VNĐ300 billion ($11.6 million) for rental housing developments.

It also offers to cover technical infrastructure costs up to VNĐ10 billion ($386,000) per project.

Fourteen projects with 11,600 social housing and rental units are under construction, while dozens more are awaiting investment approval.

Other measures included completing land-use planning, prioritising public investment for resettlement housing, converting surplus resettlement units into social housing, and strengthening the city’s Housing Development Fund.

Hà Thúc Viên, vice president of the Vietnamese-German University, said addressing the urban housing shortage requires an integrated approach that goes beyond just building more homes.

“Housing for all is not only a question of supply: it concerns prices and finance, who is able to live in the city, and how neighbourhoods are planned, designed, built and managed so that they stay inclusive, liveable and environmentally responsible over time.”

Access to decent, affordable housing remains one of the most pressing challenges for rapidly urbanising cities everywhere, including HCM City, he added.

The conference focused on three themes: housing policy, housing markets and finance, and housing design and neighbourhood planning.

Eight parallel academic sessions and a special expert panel explored practical responses to the city’s rapid urbanisation, ways to improve climate resilience, and development centred on public transport.

The 12th International Conference on Sustainable Urban Development was sponsored by the Vietnamese-German University, Vietcombank Bình Dương, and Becamex Tokyu, with academic publishing and media partnerships supported by Springer Nature and Ashui.com. — VNS