Chadchart floats idea of building ‘ideal city’ on Bangkok’s outskirts
The Bangkok administration is considering a plan to build an “ideal city” in a suburban area with its own infrastructure and facilities to reduce its dependence on the capital, Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt revealed on Thursday.
“Its layouts should be designed to be a complete city by itself, to help reduce travels to the big city. This is not an easy issue. It’s an idea that can be used for large plots of land,” Chadchart said.
He was speaking after a meeting at City Hall with executives of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and senior officials from the BMA’s Department of City Planning.
An initial plan calls for the new city to be built somewhere in Bangkok’s border areas of Lat Krabang, Romklao or Bang Khunthien on vast tracts of land belonging to state agencies such as the National Housing Authority, according to the governor.
He said that such a new city should not only have residential communities but also offices, school, park, hospital and transit system.
Chadchart said he has assigned the BMA’s Department of City Planning to design the proposed city’s layout so that it is self-reliant and a complete city by itself.
The Bangkok governor also said that the BMA’s database on land and building taxes needed to be updated urgently for a fairer system of tax collection. According to him, the BMA has no updated data on more than 1.1 million land plots in the city, accounting for more than half of the total.
He suggested that about 60 regulations regarding Bangkok’s city planning, mostly in use since 1959, should be revised, reviewed or even rescinded to ensure maximum benefit for the people.