Town-planning law to be amended

Move to protect urban areas in future; proposal to be submitted to Veerapong.

The town-planning law will be amended to protect urban areas from flooding in the future, a senator said yesterday.

"Flood zones must be clearly identified," said Trungjai Buranasomphop, chairman of the Senate ad hoc committee on settlements and town planning.

The proposal will be submitted to Veerapong Ramangkul, chairman of the Strategic Committee for Reconstruction and Future Development.

"We will also suggest that three subcommittees be set up to work on this," Trungjai said.

These subcommittees would study problems at settlements in restricted and risky areas; policies, laws and the structure of agencies responsible for settlements and town planning; and policies for water management and town planning.

The raging flood has submerged many towns as well as seven industrial estates.

"It's necessary to have clear-cut and strict city planning," said Senator Decha Boomkhum, deputy chairman of the committee on settlements and town planning.

Bangkok is now facing its worst flood in decades because authorities failed to enforce town-planning laws strictly, he said.

"Housing estates have gone up and blocked flood ways," he said. "There's encroachment on canals, too."

A US consulting firm, Litchfield and Associates, was hired in 1960 to develop a master plan for Bangkok, he said. Although the team produced the Greater Bangkok Plan (1960-90), it was not heeded.

"The plan addressed flood-prevention mechanisms like express flood-ways both in western and eastern Bangkok," he said.

Suphot Tovichakchaikul, deputy permanent secretary of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and chief of the ministry's Flood Relief Operations Center, said a flood solution to be urgently proposed was city planning. 

This was critical for Bangkok, whose natural water-retaining areas on the eastern and western sides were full of large housing estates, roads and infrastructure projects.

Even Suvarnabhumi Airport in Lat Krabang could be regarded as blocking eastern Bangkok's natural waterways, but it was impossible to demolish the structure now, he said.

The Department of Public works and Town and Country Planning has designed a city plan for the country until 2600 or in 46 years.

It includes land use, residential zoning, green areas and reservoirs - but most things did not go according to the plan.

The major flood disaster this year forced people to see the plan's necessity. If city planning was not taken seriously, such disasters would reoccur because Bangkok stood in the path of run-offs.

A helicopter inspection found that canals in eastern and western Bangkok were squeezed by roads and residences. 

Western Bangkok's Thawee Watthana Canal was narrow - 30 meters at its head and 5 meters at its tail - so drainage into the Tha Chin and Chao Phraya rivers was slow and depended largely on pumps.

Since 6 billion cubic meters of flood water remained in Bangkok, mostly on its western flank, it would take one month to get rid of the last vestige, Suphot said.