Mahakan residents offer alternate plan
The Mahakan Fort community has proposed a land sharing model in which park and people can co-exist, as a substitute for an eviction plan being pushed by the City Hall.
In the latest move, Pornthep Buranaburidet, a deputy community leader, said the community has agreed to use only about 800 sq m, or one-tenth of the almost five-rai plot behind the fort wall, for about 30 to 32 families who have proposed City Hall allow them to continue living at the heritage site. In return, they would help promote and protect it. The rest of the land will be turned into space for public use, also accessible to people outside the community.
After some 20 families, who had earlier agreed to accept compensation money from the BMA, move out of the community this month, a few plots in the community will be vacant, he said. Those spots will be turned into “classrooms”, but the activities to be organised there will have to be useful for the public, he added.
He was speaking yesterday at the Mahakan Model event, organised by the community and a group of volunteers, inside the community. The event featured a documentary film screening, a talk and a tour around the community to show it is open to visitors, amid accusations by the city that its occupancy made it impossible for the public to visit the heritage site.
Under the proposal, the remaining residents will also be given responsibilities, including the roles of security guards and community guides, said Mr Pornthep. This is the community’s third attempt at proposing a plan for co-inhabiting. Its first two proposals failed to satisfy the BMA, which wants residents out.
In the first proposal in 1999, residents proposed demolishing all houses and moving to the southern part of the community. In 2005, they proposed living there as they had been living.
Volunteer Sanon Wangsrangboon, 26, said the BMA’s plan to evict people is a big mistake, saying “people are the first to be recognised in any successful urban development plan around the world”. The latest proposal will show the BMA the site has already become a “living museum” without the state’s authorisation, he said.