Five suburban hubs planned - The Nation

Five suburban hubs planned

CHULARAT SAENGPASSA,
PONGPHON SARNSAMAK
THE NATION November 13, 2012 1:00 am

Mass-transit lines, high-rise building projects to be constructed, BMA says.


People living in the outskirts of Bangkok would no longer have to take hours to travel to work or conduct their business downtown, thanks to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's new city plan that would decentralise the growth of urban areas by designating five locations around the capital as commercial suburban areas.

The five areas are Bang Na, Bang Khen, Ram-Indra, Min Buri and Taling Chan, Preecha Ronnarong of the of Public Works and Town and Country Planning's Department's city planning committee said yesterday.

"These areas are ready to be developed as new sub-centres because mass-transit rapid transportation will be installed in the areas," he said.



Under the new city plan, which has been approved by the department and is expected to be announced and implemented by May 15 next year, these areas would be commercial areas due to their population density and increasing urban infrastructure.

Until now, some parts of the five areas have been designated as low-and medium-density areas.

"Most of the new sub-centre areas will be located in the eastern part of Bangkok," he added.

To promote land use along mass-transit transportation routes, the new plan would allow for condominium developers to construct high-rise buildings within a radius of 500 metres of Skytrain lines and underground rail junctions.

"This exception would be implemented only in areas where the Skytrain or underground rail system already exists," Preecha said.

The current city plan only allows developers to build high-rises on main roads. They cannot build on land in a sub-road or soi.

The construction of condominiums would also still be controlled by other regulations such as the Building Control Act, which limit the setback distance of a building, he said.

Preecha suggested that Bangkok and the nearby provinces of Nonthaburi, Nakhon Pathom, Pathum Thani, Samut Sakhon and Samut Prakran should help each other in creating the "Greater Bangkok", which would merge and designate the utilisation of land in each province, instead of using different city plans to designate land use.

Currently, the city plans of these six provinces are not harmonised with each other, which results in directionless urban development growth within greater Bangkok, the planner said.

"We found that some areas [in these provinces] close to industrial zones were designated as residential areas instead of as commercial areas," he said.

The Greater Bangkok city plan would designate the direction of urban development in a more sustainable way, he added.