The Hanoi world is flat
Print 
As makers roll out slim versions of Playstation, smart phones, TVs and everything state-of-the-art, Hanoi catches the trend and similarly boasts many slim houses just less than 2m wide but towering sky-high.
The world is indeed getting flatter these days.
Dubbed nha mong (flat houses), they are just two or even less meters in frontage width but could be five stories high. Such buildings can be systematically found in Nga Tu So (So Intersection), Kiem Lien-O Cho Dua area, or on Van Cao, Dao Tan, and Giang Van Minh streets.
Looking at them, one cannot help laughing and comparing them to a comedian walking on stilts, never knowing when he can trip and fall.
Thanh Xuan, Hai Ba Trung, Cau Giay, Ba Dinh, Tay Ho, Dong Da and Tu Liem districts are also no stranger to such buildings.
But slimmer versions can even be spotted - of course with training and straining eyes - on the junction of Khuat Duy Tien and Le Van Luong streets or on Nguyen Trai Street.
In total, the capital boasts 179 houses and land lots with unsuitable or even impossible shapes, said Nguyen Khac Tho, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Construction.
Ba Dinh district alone, Hanoi’s political center, is home to 44 super-thin houses.
Though house constructions are banned on too narrow land strips from 2005, 95 super-slim houses defy the law and have since been mindlessly built, informed Tho.
Slim houses come into being after their original full-sized versions were partially demolished to make way for road expansion projects. Their remains were then renovated and in some cases when space was lacking, expanded upwards.
The flat buildings can also arise from the fact that they were built on strangely-shaped land lots that have been narrowed or distorted from too much urban zoning.
Such plots should have been sold to neighbors but due to land prices rising by the minute, their owners are understandably reluctant and constructed temporary, slender houses just as a means to watch over the land or simply to assert their ownership status.
Tough crackdown
During a meeting last week to address the situation, the Hanoi city’s deputy mayor Phi Thai Binh confirmed determination to wipe out such buildings or land plots and a definite no to similar constructions in the future.
Hard measures were proposed including seizing queer-shaped plots or houses to pave way for building kiosks to sell newspapers, bus tickets or to plant trees.
Lam Anh Tuan, vice chairman of Hai Ba Trung District People’s Committee even suggested confiscating such lands.
Deputy mayor Binh assured he would order a report on such cases to be submitted to him by February 15. Solutions would be based on a case-by-case basis.
Accordingly, owners of flat buildings built prior to 2005 - the year when thin houses were outlawed - are encouraged to dismantle them in return for government compensation at market prices.
However, houses built after that year must be cleared.
Meanwhile, an urban master plan for Hanoi is set to be ratified in the first quarter of 2011, making way for gradually eradicating super-thin, super-slim and super-flat houses in the city.
| According to the Law on Construction effective as of February 28, 2005, construction of a house is not allowed if it covers less than 15m2 , has the width of less than 3m and is less than 3m from the roadside marker. No more than two stories can be built if the base covers from 15m2 to less than 40m2 and is less than 3m in width. |
