The Thailand Consumers Council (TCC) and Bangkok community representatives have called on the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to stop a public hearing on its new city planning blueprint or they will ask the Administrative Court to rule against it.
TCC secretary-general Saree Aungsomwang and more than 100 representatives of 28 communities in Bangkok on Friday gathered at City Hall and handed a letter to governor Chadchart Sittipunt opposing the new city planning blueprint.
Ms Saree claimed the city planning blueprint and public hearings on it violate the City Planning Act.
The law stipulates that any public hearings on city planning must take into account the potential impact on residents and that people must be provided with sufficient information regarding measures to ease such ill effects.
They also violate Section 72 of the constitution, which stipulates any town planning should meet the needs of people in the area, she said.
She claimed the planned blueprint focusses on densely packed urban areas while ignoring problems related to traffic, flooding and PM2.5 pollution.
It also lacks measures to improve resident's quality of life, particularly low-income earners, Ms Saree said.
She said a previous blueprint drawn up in 2019 has been used for public hearings on the new version. Such hearings have been held since 2017, but they lack the level of legally mandated public participation.
Only about 20,000 people have taken part in these over the past seven years, she said, adding that participants were given little time to express their opinions or ask questions.
Residents are expected to be affected by a lack of clear information regarding the plan to expand several roads in Bangkok under the new blueprint, she said.
"The BMA must stop its ongoing public hearing process and begin a new and more comprehensive one. If the BMA fails to stop the hearings within 30 days, the TCC and its networks will take the matter to the Administrative Court," Ms Saree said.
Thaiwut Khankaew, director of the BMA's City Planning and Urban Development Department, said public hearings on the city planning blueprint were already held in 42 districts in Bangkok, and hearings in the remaining eight districts must be completed by next month.
Feedback will be used to help draw up the new city planning blueprint by November for submission to the city planning committee for consideration, he said.