Khlong Toei residents to be pushed on eviction options

Residents of Bangkok’s sprawling Khlong Toei community. Photo: Coconuts

By Teirra Kamolvattanavith

Sep 3, 2019 | 9:50am Bangkok time

Faced with growing resistance to plans to evict tens of thousands from Bangkok’s Khlong Toei community, the Port Authority has hired a university to ask residents which of three options they will take.

The Port Authority, which owns the riverside land generations of indigent Thais have called home, said it contracted Mahidol University to conduct a “comprehensive” survey this month to assess the residents’ wishes before they are forced out to make way for a new mall.

Months after unveiling sample housing to be built for some of the residents with great fanfare, a port official reneged on a reporter’s pre-arranged tour Friday, saying growing pushback from the residents has caused them to go quiet.

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“It’s going to be a huge project, basically like relocating an entire city,” said Monchai Joonhoon of the authority’s asset management division. “Many members of the community have expressed that they don’t want to move and are not interested in apartments in the ‘Smart Community’ project.”

Still, he added, they don’t really have a choice as “it’s not their land, it is the Port Authority’s.”

Notions of land ownership were different seven decades ago when Thais were invited to homestead on land in the developing capital and help bolster its workforce.

Today, there are about 26 communities living both legally and illegally on 80 hectares owned by the Port Authority, which operates the adjacent Bangkok Port that, in its heyday, was the nation’s main port.

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While the authority estimates there are about 13,000 families or up to 60,000 people to be evicted from the land, charitable organizations working there put the number upward of 100,000.

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A port official who refused to identify herself Friday said that Mahidol University will survey the residents to collect their national ID numbers and home registrations. Though she refused to say the cost of the survey, the port’s asset management chief, Samarn Seetiboonyuen, threw out the mind-boggling number of THB15 million (US$490,000).

The main purpose though will be determining which of three options each family facing eviction will take. Those three proposed solutions, she said, are final. Demands for any other consideration will not be heard.

A model for thousands of 33sqm rooms that will be built a few kilometers away was unveiled in January. Photo: Coconuts

The first option is to move into one of 6,144 identical, 33sqm units to be built in projects on former tanning factory land. The second option is moving to far-flung districts on the outskirts: Min Buri and Nong Chok. There, the government has promised 2,140 plots of undeveloped land, about 80sqm each, where people would need to construct homes at their own expense. The third option is to take a cash handout of similar value that has yet to be determined.

Although Monchai, who was to lead Friday’s aborted tour, seemed eager to discuss the plans, he said he was too concerned about the repercussions of doing so. He admitted to being a little disappointed the authority isn’t gifting employees such as himself a room in the so-called “Smart Community” being built down the road. Employees such as himself who’ve worked so hard for so long should be offered the same help, he said.

That sentiment isn’t shared by most residents in Khlong Toei, many of whom were born there and are second- or third-generation residents. Though most live hand to mouth and were promised they could live rent-free in the housing, those we spoke to recently said they feared being unable to pay monthly maintenance fees and utility bills, not to mention fitting large, extended families into the small rooms.

No definite plans have been announced for the land beyond plans to transform it into an IconSiam-like complex of shops, hotels, stores and more announced in May.