Infrastructure system planning for affordable housing for workers in Hanoi, Vietnam

Established industrial zones have contributed to the development of economy, the creation of jobs, and an increase in the income for workers. However, their living condition has yet been recognized with full attention. Affordable housing projects for laborers have been built in some areas, but the infrastructure system has not been carried out for a long time, leading to negative impacts on the lives of workers. Therefore, it is necessary to study the planning process of infrastructure system for social housing. The research reveals a few methods to establish infrastructure system consistently, such as planning solutions, investing process, and policy innovation. Besides, the study proposes the solution for assessment of infrastructure quality in affordable housing for workers. The research applied the assessing system to evaluate two social housing areas in Hanoi, Vietnam. Results of this study may become a reference for planning infrastructure system for workers’ housing. Ensuring the lives of employees is the foundation of social security that helps improve the efficiency of labor and develop national economy.


Introduction
Based on the Vietnamese Construction Law in 2014, infrastructure system includes 'technical infrastructure' and 'social infrastructure'. The term 'technical infrastructure' means public transport, power supply, water supply, drainage system, telecommunications, and waste collection. The term 'social infrastructure' relates to cultural and educational institutions, health facilities, sport centers, financial or retail areas, parks, playgrounds, and other public areas [1]. Practice shows that the establishment of the affordable housing for workers and infrastructure system related to the fill rate of industrial parks. Although infrastructure planning regulations are mentioned in Vietnamese law, it is not specific enough to apply for different residential areas. Studies have shown that infrastructure investment reveals some difficulties such as large capital outlays, low profit and long payback period. It leads to the lack of essential infrastructure projects for the lives of employees. The objectives of the current study are finding out real needs of people living in affordable housing areas and proposing methods to enhance efficiency in developing the infrastructure system in workers' housing projects. services, other recreational facilities to increase life quality and to meet the increasing demands of laborers.

Thailand
Since 1986, Thailand has had outstanding economic growth. It helped transform this country from an agricultural country into an industrial one [10]. Some private companies built workers' housing for their labors. The projects are near their factories in order to ensure workers can arrive on time [5].
Workers' housing does not belong to urban areas from the view of administration. As the result, at that time affordable housing for workers lack essential infrastructure [10]. In 1982, National Housing Authority (NHA) built 4 blocks with 756 rental units in the Navanakorn Industrial Estate. Nearly 30 factories in this industrial zone rent 400 units from the NHA for their labors [5]. There are not any infrastructure facilities were mentioned.

In Vietnam
In Vietnam, a workers' housing study mentioned that there are about 2.6 million workers working in industrial zones, but only 20% of them have stable housing, the rest has to rent house with poor living conditions [11]. Labor in the industrial sector in Vietnam now has a high proportion of young people and the percentage of single workers accounts for 60-70%. The survey by the Institute of Labor shows that the average salary of workers now is nearly VND 4,000,000/person/month (around USD 176).
Although it has improved about 10% compared to the year 2014, this salary has only met 78-83% of the basic expenditure needs of workers. The price of renting is from VND 300,000 to VND 400,000/person/month (about USD13 to USD 18/person/month). Meanwhile, most of the apartments are very narrow and there are no social infrastructure facilities such as kindergartens, schools, clinics, recreation centers, sports facilities, libraries [12].
According to the National strategy on Housing development through 2020 with a vision toward 2030, there are about 70% of workers in industrial zones wishing to rent or buy houses [13]. Up to August 2015, 83 workers' housing projects were built with 28,000 apartments and total capital is VND 6.6 billion (approximately USD 291,100) [11].
Some affordable housing projects have the social infrastructure system with schools, cultural and sport centers. However, in general, their quantity is not enough to meet the needs of workers. A few buildings were constructed for laborers, yet the service price is too expensive to use for most of them.
A survey from Vietnam general confederation of labor illustrated that there were more than 150 local cultural centers all over the country. The lack of kindergartens and primary schools for children of employees in the industrial parks is one of the most important issues. Many employees have small children, yet the number of kindergartens has not been enough. The regulations of planning affordable housing projects have provisions in terms of the educational institutes [14]. However, it is the fact that requirement of construction license is rather complicated and it takes a lot of time to have them. Another reason is the lack of capital for social infrastructure investment.
Some studies in terms of social housing and workers' housing have been carried out in Vietnam. However, there are not any specific studies with regards to infrastructure system in housing for workersan important issue that directly affects the worker's life. This research fills the gap in this subject with social condition in Vietnam. To evaluate the quality of infrastructure system in affordable housing projects, this research used a few procedures to measure housing quality by assessing indicators [15,16].

Case studies
The research was carried out in Hanoithe capital and the country's second largest city by population. According to a statistic from Hanoi Department of Construction, there are 10 industrial parks in operation with a total area of 1,700 hectares, creating more than 114,000 jobs for workers. However, until now we just have 04 affordable housing projects, including North Thang Long IP affordable housing, Phu Nghia IP affordable housing, affordable housing for workers of Meiko Electronics Vietnam Company and Young Fast Otoelectronics Company (Thach That -Quoc Oai IP). In these projects, only the affordable housing in North Thang Long IP has fully-equipped social infrastructure system with kindergartens, supermarkets, and clinics, cultural and sport centers. The rest lacks essential social infrastructure. For instance, in Phu Nghia affordable housing, distance from the project location to the nearest market is more than 2 kilometers. Two

Method of evaluating the quality of infrastructure system in affordable housing projects
Step 1: Proposing a system of indicators to measure infrastructure quality with component factors. There should be a system of indicators for evaluating the quality of infrastructure system. It will help both investors and laborers determine the real value of infrastructure quality in affordable housing projects. Each indicator should have some component factors. They will help evaluate more clearly the quality of criterion.
Step 2: Determine weighting values and evaluated points of indicators The survey was carried out on 150 workers living in affordable housing areas of North Thang Long IP and Phu Nghia IP. The questionnaire has two main parts. The first one is assessing the importance of each indicator in general (in 03 levels: Very important, Important, and Not important). By using the percentage of evaluation report, the weighting values of indicators are established. The second part of the questionnaire is to determine the evaluated points of criterion in their affordable housing areas based on the features of components factors (evaluated points are from 0 to 100 points). Step

Developing infrastructure system in affordable housing projects closely related to the formation and development of industrial parks
Based on the formation of industrial parks, it is proposed to divide the formation and development period of infrastructure system in affordable housing projects into 3 stages (See Figure 2): -Stage I: Planning: the process concerned with the design, the development and use of land; -Stage II: Forming: this is the first stage of industrial park development and affordable housing projects for workers, corresponding to the formation period of IP is below 10 years and the fill rate of IP is under 40%; -Stage III: Developing: corresponding to the formation period of IP is from 10 years and above, the fill rate of IP is higher than 40%; Accordingly, North Thang Long IP affordable housing is in Stage III and Phu Nghia IP is in Stage II.
Each stage should have specific regulations with regard to quality and quantity of the minimum infrastructure system, such as educational institution health facility, retail areas. Especially, it is crucial to have the provisions related to the small-scale retail areas to serve the daily lives of laborers.

Small-scale retail areas should be added into the planning regulation of infrastructure system in affordable housing projects
There is a fact that small-scale retail areas such as food stores, groceries, laundries are essential for laborers to meet their basic needs. However, the planning law does not have any regulation for them. In reality, many local people use the vacant and uncontrolled spaces for their private purpose, leads to lots of complicated social problems. As a result, it could be better for the government to issue regulations and standards in terms of using land for smallscale retail areas in affordable housing projects.
Small-scale retail areas are proposed to divide into 4 groups: Food and beverage stores; Groceries (household cleaning products, personal care); Entertainment stores (book store, internet shop, coffee shop); and other services (laundries, clothes shop, furniture shop). Based on the stage of developing affordable housing project, quantity and distance to each group will be determined in detail.

Establishing a system of indicators to measure infrastructure quality and evaluating case studies
Step 1: Proposing a system of indicators to measure infrastructure quality with component factors To determine the quality of infrastructure system specifically, this paper proposes component factors. The table below shows the criterion of infrastructure system in the left column and each indicator has its component factors in the right column (See Table 1). Step 2: Determine weighting values and evaluated points of indicators The survey was carried out on workers living in Thang Long IP affordable housing and Phu Nghia IP affordable housing. The importance of indicators was calculated and the result of processing data is weighting values (See Figure 3). Table 1).

Fig. 3. Weighting values of indicators (Indicator legend: See
While affordable housing project in North Thang Long IP was funded by the government, the investment budget of the affordable housing project in Phu Nghia IP is fully from enterprise's capital. As a result, the project in North Thang Long IP has fully-equipped social infrastructure system and the project in Phu Nghia IP has some public areas such as a restaurant, a playground and a local garden (See Figure 4). Based on the survey, the evaluated points of indicators in the two affordable housing areas are represented below (See Figure 5). Step 3: Assessing quality of infrastructure system based on weighting values By using formulas (01) and (02), the total point of infrastructure system in Thang Long IP affordable housing is 79.9 and in Phu Nghia IP affordable housing is 49.5.
Step 4: Determine level of infrastructure system quality Based on formation time of affordable housing areas, infrastructure system quality is divided into 4 levels: Fail, Pass, Fair and Good (See Table 2). The two surveyed projects have final scores and levels of infrastructure system quality as table below (See Table 3). Thus, the final scores above reflected the reality in infrastructure system of the two projects. Infrastructure items in North Thang Long affordable housing project are more complete than in Phu Nghia project. However, the quality and services in North Thang Long project have decreased over the time. In Phu Nghia project, though people moved to this apartment 9 years ago, it has still lacked many essential facilities such as educational institution and health care center. If there is no plan to have more items, Phu Nghia project will cannot pass the lowest quality level in next few years.

Discussion
Construction of workers' housing projects is often stagnant. Most of industrial park developers and enterprises are not interested in developing this field. Some causes of this problem are difficulties in legal procedures, in accessing to land, in site clearance process and a lack of fund. While investment income is limited, the government has not had any incentive yet. Moreover, there are not any regulations in terms of construction schedule for infrastructure system in affordable housing projects. It leads to the lack of essential infrastructure items though people have moved to their apartments a few years ago.
The infrastructure system in workers' housing has not been paid enough attention. Although there are provisions in affordable housing planning and most of them are easier than in commercial residential planning, there are no specific regulations on the quantity and quality of necessary infrastructure items related to the developing stage of housing areas as well as industrial zones.
It is necessary to have some policy innovations. Based on the experience from developed countries, it cannot be denied that developing infrastructure system require large investment, but a long payback time. As the result, the government should play a leading role in the development of this field. It is crucial to have regulations and standards for the construction of workers' housing. Furthermore, the government should provide policies to encourage investment, such as simplifying construction procedures, create preferential loans, supporting enterprises in income tax, interest rate, and lending time for workers' housing projects.
In addition, the government should have some solutions in terms of investing. It is essential to establish the Workers' Housing Development Fund. Since then, employees and employers will contribute a part of their income or their regular profit to develop this fund. Besides, the resources can come from the government budget, non-governmental organizations, and donors. The fund should be managed by a state agency and that agency is responsible for raising capital, supporting companies in legal procedure, and researching strategies to develop workers' housing projects effectively. Moreover, the agency could be an operator or an investor of affordable housing projects for workers with full infrastructure system.
Another solution of increasing affordable housing is Build-Operate-Transfer method (BOT). Investors develop housing for laborers and they are permitted to invest in other projects outside IPs, for instance, commercial projects in city center. It could be an effective solution in the context of limited investment in affordable housing for workers.

Conclusion
Theoretically, the research shows that infrastructure system plays an important role in affordable housing planning for workers to ensure the quality of their lives. Housing for laborers has some different features from residential areas in cities because it depends on the formation period and fill rate of IPs, so that the regulations of affordable housing planning should be adapted to real situation of each IP, especially in social infrastructure system. In reality, it seems impossible for the government to invest all infrastructure system and affordable housing for employees. However, the government should issue regulations to encourage investment from private businesses. With current policies, this is an investment field with low economic efficiency and risk. Hence, it is crucial for the government to cooperate private enterprises. Developing the infrastructure system in affordable housing projects should be divided into a number of stages and each stage should have the minimum requirement in terms of quality and quantity for each category. In this research, the number of respondents is limited and the survey is carried out just in Hanoi. As a result, the quality assessment method should have distinct characteristics to adapt to different areas and should be updated periodically.