Hanoi authorities say they are determined to wipe out a total 550deformed and super-slim houses in the city this year.

Deputy Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Phi Thai Binh hasasked districts to prepare plans to do this and submit them to cityauthorities for approval before April 30.

"Withstrong instructions from the committee, the city will have no moresuper-slim houses by October or not later than the end of this year,"said Deputy Director of the Hanoi Construction Department Nguyen KhacTho.

The decision to tackle the issue does notconcern the tens of thousands of thin houses that have become a featureof Vietnamese architecture in recent years. While strange andunappealing to foreign eyes, these buildings have grown from three tofour metre wide village houses.

The Law onConstruction, which became effective in 2004, stipulated that land plotssmaller than 15sq.m should not be built. But many small houses werebuilt in preceding years, some of them so skinny it is hard to believepeople live in them.

To promote the law, the cityissued Decision 26 in 2005 on guidelines to eliminate deformed and superskinny houses - and pay compensation for those destroyed.

The decision permitted district People's Committees to withdraw landplots of under 20sq.m or plots above 20sq.m with odd or deformed shapes.It had the power to integrate them into a bigger block for public use.

However, the decision was not strictly executed. Tomake matters worse, the number of super-slim and deformed houses hasrisen to 553, of which 186 were built after Decision 26 was issued.

"The actual figure could be higher," said Tho. "This proves that district authorities haven't done their duty."

The weakness of local construction inspectors and authorities have been given as reasons for the problem. /.