Hanoi, Vietnam – In the Thanh Xuan district of the Vietnamese capital, where the labyrinthine streets teem with residential life and the energy of nearby universities, memories of last year’s deadly apartment fire linger.
Late on the night of September 12, 2023, a fire ripped through a residential building on Khuong Ha Street in Khuong Dinh District, killing 56 people, including four children.
Police determined the fire was caused by a short circuit in the electrical wiring of a scooter parked on the first floor, before quickly spreading to the upper floors of the building – these were added by the building owner to create tiny, compartmentalized apartments, which could accommodate three times as many tenants.
For years, micro-apartments known as “chung cu mini” have been popping up across Vietnam’s major cities, forcing low-income families and students into substandard, fire-prone housing.
“These apartments are like mushrooms, they are everywhere,” Lan Vo, a former resident of a micro-apartment in Thanh Xuan, told Al Jazeera, asking not to be used by a pseudonym to avoid harassment.
In an interview with state media last year, Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, attributed the micro-housing boom since the 2010s to a lack of housing for low-income people.
The September disaster and other fires in micro-apartment blocks have forced Vietnamese authorities to confront the dangers of lax building and fire safety regulations as well as the inadequacies of the country’s social housing infrastructure.
But even as the nation mourns those killed and government inspections sweep across the country, local governments are unable to ban the developments because they are rarely affordable to low-income city residents.
Micro apartment blocks are usually designed in the style of a long, narrow tube. The residential complexes, built on small plots of land in the narrow streets of densely populated districts, are often located in close proximity to universities and accommodate students and low-income families.
Ho Chi Minh City’s construction department estimated that there were more than 60,000 micro-apartment buildings containing about 600,000 apartments in the financial capital as of mid-2022.
Chau, the chairman of the real estate association, said in his interview with state media that the apartments in Ho Chi Minh City alone house about 1.8 million people and about 40 percent of the workforce.
According to the city police, there are currently around 42,200 micro apartments for rent on the market.
Although there is no official data for Hanoi, at least 2,000 micro-apartment buildings are connected to the city’s power grid, according to national utility Vietnam Electricity.
On a recent visit to Khuong Dinh district, the site of the September fire, Al Jazeera observed dozens of apartments crammed into narrow streets.
Other housing groups can be found in university-related districts such as Hoang Mai, Cau Giay, Bac Tu Liem and Nam Tu Liem.
“[Tenants] It’s mostly young workers and a lot of students living together,” said Vo, the former micro-apartment resident.
“Due to high rents, students often live together in groups of three to five people to share rent and utilities.”
The selling price for a micro-apartment can be as low as 600 million Vietnamese dong (US$24,615), making the accommodation the cheapest form of real estate in most Vietnamese cities.
Yet renters – especially students – still struggle to pay rent in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is barely $200 a month.
While Vo was relatively happy with her home, she saw others living in far worse conditions than she did.
“The building I lived in had about eight to 10 rooms, but the building next to me had up to 30 rooms,” Vo said.
“Greedy landlords try to house as many people as possible in order to get more rent. If you think about it, it looks like a can of sardines,” she added.
For residents, the desire to pack as many tenants into buildings as possible endangers not only their comfort but also their safety.
The narrow and crowded streets in which the buildings are located make access for fire engines difficult in many cases. Some apartments lack emergency exits and other fire protection devices.
In the case of the Khuong Ha Street fire in September, fire engines and first responders reportedly had difficulty reaching the apartment as the station’s alleys were narrow.
Vo said tenants in her community occasionally gathered for “fire drills,” but the drills – which consisted mostly of fire safety tips such as not leaving ovens on – were marred by the buildings’ lack of emergency egress ladders.
Thuy Hai, a student at Hanoi University who lives in a micro-apartment, said there are no monthly fire drills in her community in Thanh Xuan.
“Instead, her [the landlord] I just left a fire extinguisher at my front door,” she told Al Jazeera. “They didn’t even teach me how to use it.”
“Tiger cages,” metal grilles around windows and balconies designed to prevent break-ins and falls, were also highlighted as a safety risk.
According to a report by state media, there were five fires of varying severity in Hanoi in September alone.
Colonel Duong Duc Hai, deputy director of the Hanoi Police Department, told the local outlet that electrical short circuits were the main cause of 96 percent of these fires.
Tenants’ scooters are typically parked on the ground floor of apartment buildings, posing potential safety risks including blocked exits and electrical interference.
A witness to the fire in Thanh
The witness said the security guard was paid according to the number of scooters he could park, which provided an incentive for him to take as many as possible.
It was also found that property owners had built additional floors and rooms, violating contractual agreements and regulations.
According to law enforcement sources, Minh, who is currently being prosecuted for alleged violations of fire safety regulations, built at least eight more micro-apartment buildings in several districts of Hanoi.
None of these apartments met fire safety standards and all were found to have unauthorized building extensions, state media reported.
For years, Vietnamese law did not define microapartments or assign them to a specific legal framework. That changed in November when the National Assembly amended the law to give them legal status.
With the changes coming into force on January 1, 2025, developers will continue to be permitted to build micro-apartments on residential properties where they have land use rights.
The changes set conditions for “individual” developers to build and own the buildings.
Under the regulations, individual investors will face greater hurdles when developing micro-apartments compared to established real estate companies, including the requirement to have a minimum amount of investment capital.
Before the law changes, lawmakers debated whether stricter microhousing regulations would be unenforceable or whether they should be legal at all.
Trinh
Other lawmakers stressed that any new regulations would allow renters safe access to a popular housing option.
A recurring factor in the debate is affordability.
In Hanoi, a rapidly growing population has made the city one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.
For many budget-conscious renters, microapartments are the natural choice due to the lack of housing options in the suburbs.
Despite their risks, the cramped housing units are popular among low-income students and workers.
Ex-tenant Vo said the apartments were still a better option than public housing for people like her and that stricter regulation was a better option than a ban.
“Tenants should also have the opportunity to complain directly about serious issues and not have to wait decades for a government response, especially when it concerns their own safety,” she said.