The Met Condominium’s residents and other people in the upscale Sathorn neighborhood, are deeply concerned after PMT Property’s 125 Sathorn Project obtained EIA approval. Suspicions arose because the approval was granted after a strong and detailed 260-page objection report was submitted by The Met to the Expert Review Committee in March 2021, leading to the project being rejected in April. However, four months later the project surprisingly obtained EIA approval.
Miss Chidchanok Lertampornpaisarn, Manager of The Met CJP, expressed her concern and surprise. “It is necessary to make sure that any new construction complies with the applicable building control regulations and that the environmental impact on The Met is seriously taken into consideration,” said Miss Chidchanok.
The Met continues to express its objections to the 125 Sathorn Project, which is a 143-metre-high twin tower condominium project that will house 756 units, located on a 3-rai land plot directly in front of The Met. The Met’s co-owners were very surprised that the EIA approval was granted in August, despite the fact that the project was originally rejected in April 2021, especially as the Expert Review Committee raised so many issues in their original rejection, including the notorious traffic jams on Sathorn Road.
The developer conducted public hearings as part of the environmental impact assessment process. However, The Met was subsequently not satisfied with the explanations received from the 125 Sathorn Project about how they will address the wind, sunlight, toxic dust, noise and vibration issues. This leaves a question as to how the authority weighed the information presented by the developer against the vocal community concerns before granting the project’s EIA approval.
This leads to doubts about the transparency of the EIA approval process for a large building project, especially what happened at the meeting where the actual decision was made, which was closed to the public. It is possible that the Expert Review Committee may have given the reports and documents regarding the environmental impacts of the 125 Sathorn project a cursory examination. However, the question remains whether that was balanced with the negative impact on the quality of life and lifestyle of the existing community, including The Met and the Embassy of Singapore (which are both directly adjacent to the project plot) and the people in the neighbourhood. According to a community survey conducted with 400 participants, the percentage of people objecting to the 125 Sathorn project is over 60%.
This is not the first time that the transparency of the EIA approval process has been questioned. In August 2021, the Central Administrative Court revoked the Building Construction Permit issued for the Ashton Asoke in Sukhumvit Soi 19, Yaek 2, Khet Wattana, Bangkok, following a lawsuit filed by the community against the Director of Khet Wattana Office, the Director of the Public Works Department, the Bangkok Governor, the Governor of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and the Expert Review Committee examining this particular EIA. The Court ruled that the defendants jointly did not carry out their duties as prescribed by law.
The BMA was also requested to suspend the Building Construction Permit for Quintara Sync Yenakat Condominium. Mr. Korn Chatikavanij, the leader of the KLA Party, as a representative of the people who would be affected by the proposed project, expressed his objection to the EIA approval and that the BMA did not give due importance to people’s quality of life. Furthermore, the EIA approval was granted, despite the claim that the project’s front road is narrower than the permitted width.
Stricter regulations governing EIA approvals for large-scale vertical property projects were recently proposed, including the worrying issue of new projects blocking the wind and sunlight levels of existing communities. However, in a public hearing held in May 2021, these regulations received strong pushback from commercial property developers. Faced with such strong commercial criticism, the ONEP buckled and subsequently declared that the proposed regulations were actually merely guidelines and would not become mandatory, as had been previously announced. This clearly shows that the public’s voice is still not being sufficiently heard or taken into consideration in the EIA approval process.
The EIA approval for the 125 Sathorn project is yet another case where the concerns of the interested persons and neighbouring communities were given only superficial consideration and were eventually ignored. This leads to the question of transparency in the EIA approval process. Can this decision-making process be examined by the public and stakeholders? How can the authority create a balance between the rights of the developer and the rights of the existing community? How does the ONEP protect our existing communities from new projects that build too close and thus affect our quality of life and lifestyle?
