Displaced community wants to reserve land along canal
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CIty planners to wIden lat phrao canal by 38 metres, buIld embankment to aId draInage
COMMUNITIES SET to be affected by the impending widening of the Lat Phrao Canal have called for a 12-metre-wide strip of land to be reserved for them along the canal.
The Bangkok Drainage and Sewerage Department has announced a plan to widen the canal to 38 metres and build an embankment along the 22-kilometre canal shore.
The purpose of the project is to enhance the drainage ability of the canal.
According to the Drainage and Sewerage Department, 3,023 houses and 13,900 people will have to be moved.
Bunyarat Thammathada, secretary of Institute of New Model Communities Lands Administration (INCA), said: “Most of the locals earn a living selling food on food trailers. If they are forced to move out and live in National Housing Authority flats, they will have to find a new job as there is no space for food trailers in the flats.
“We’re not being stubborn. The people whose houses encroach on the canal are prepared to move but we want clarity from the Drainage and Sewerage Department as they haven’t declared the new shoreline yet.”
Bunyarat said that INCA had contacted the Treasury Department, the owner of the land, and it had agreed to INCA’s proposal to allow the communities to rent the land if it were spared for them, provided the Drainage and Sewerage Department accept the proposal too.
She also revealed that INCA had sent a letter to related authorities including the Drainage and Sewerage Department, but had not received a reply from the department.
“Ninety per cent of the community members have agreed to share the living space within the spared land. But the Drainage and Sewerage Department still haven’t surveyed the area or talked directly to the people yet,” she said.
Bangkok Metropolitan Administration deputy permanent secretary Adisak Khantee recently revealed that clearing the structures that encroach on public canals was a priority job that the government had ordered it to undertake and Lat Phrao Canal would be tackled first because it was Bangkok’s main flood drainage system.
According to the BMA, three possible options are available to relocate the affected communities: move them to a neighbouring zone; relocate them to another zone within a 5km radius of their current location; or move them to entirely different parts of the capital.
Adisak said the BMA was looking for a contractor to carry out the work, which could commence within the next two months.
Lang Talad Supaphan is one of the communities affected by the project. There are several houses along the canal, most of which have a balcony above the canal.
The head of the community, Plearnpit Surasit, said that the residents felt very concerned about the project as they had not been officially briefed on it.
“If the canal will be widened to 38m, all the communities will have to go. Our members understand the necessity of the project and do not resist the plan, but please at least let us live here,” Plearnpit said.
Lang Talad Supaphan resident Somjit Pannak, 63, has lived there her entire life. “I don’t know if I have to relocate where I shall go. I opened a shop here. This is the only way for my family to earn money,” she said.
