Pom Mahakan community to be evicted



BANGKOK: -- Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will go ahead with its plan to evict Pom Mahakan community and turn it into a public park despite protest by residents.

Eviction sign will be put up soon at the community ordering the residents to leave the area by end of April.

The BMA says it wants to improve the residential community at the Pom Mahakan fortress and turns it into a public park under its plan to conserve and make the place an ecotourism spot.

But the BMA’s is expected to draw opposition from the community people.

Community leader Tawatchai Woramahakun said they will not leave the place they have lived for several decades.

He said the people do not object to the BMA’s plan but would like to have part in managing and conserving the area as an ecotourism spot.

He said community residents will cooperate with the BMA to ensure safety at the place by setting up their own guards to provide safety for tourists, and take care of cleaning.

He said the community residents wished to make their community a model where the BMA and community could live together in harmony which means the BMA will earn revenues from rents and residents will help to conserve this site for ecotourism.

A Silpakorn University architect Vice Professor Chatree Prakitnontakan supported the community residents’ proposal saying it could do so by seeking cabinet approval to revise the land expropriation law to allow community residents to have participation in developing the area as a conservation or community museum.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/157110


-- Thai PBS 2016-03-28

If these people are squatters, I think their time is up...decades of claiming public land for their own use is enough generosity from the government and public...sorry...but good riddance...

Give them the punt if there illegal.

kdkane and monkeyrobot, maybe better get some information before commenting, like from The Nation or others.

Ecotourism!!!!!!!!!

Give them the punt if there illegal.

Hey hey, not so fast. Give them a chance to defend their position. One month to find new digs is very unfair.

They have been there for several decades - that means the whole lives of a large percentage of the community.

And, while the authorities are about it, how about a little reflection on how these people were allowed there in the first place, and find and penalise the people who have been milking the situation ever since.

kdkane and monkeyrobot, maybe better get some information before commenting, like from The Nation or others.

reread the comment...i said "if"...