New Housing Development

[BillaRickaDickay]

Has anyone noticed the new, what I can only describe as, high density 2 story living accommodation being constructed behind Tescos and Gnee Soon. Follow the road between the two stores comes up on the left about 1k.
Just thinking who these units are being built for, social housing, low cost apartments, workers accommodation? What a blight to the area they will be and a poor quality of life for any future residents.
The units occupy several rai and must run into the hundreds. Surely another White Elephant.

[saint]

Has anyone noticed the new, what I can only describe as, high density 2 story living accommodation being constructed behind Tescos and Gnee Soon. Follow the road between the two stores comes up on the left about 1k.
Just thinking who these units are being built for, social housing, low cost apartments, workers accommodation? What a blight to the area they will be and a poor quality of life for any future residents.
The units occupy several rai and must run into the hundreds. Surely another White Elephant.

Low cost housing for the locals to get on the property ladder . Morgages not much more than one room rents , so a lot of people are very grateful for these blights on the landscape .
We have two such developments not far from where we live , both fully occupied ,several to the north of the city , again , no empty houses . So white elephants they are not !!!!

[BillaRickaDickay]

I stand corrected if that's what they are, and good luck to any Thai's who have aspirations to owning their own place, must be some kind of lease purchase, ground rent, maintainance charge etc involved, I'm no snob but NIMBY.
It looks like a ghetto waiting to happen, a horizontal tenement block. You just have to look around some of the mid range priced older estates to see what a mess they have degenerated into, imagine these low priced developments in a few years time.

[saint]

The two near me are holding up reasonably well , accept where the residents put a covered roof or even a tiny room on the little pathway around the house . Been up and running over 5 years or so , fairing better than some more expensive developments ive see. I gather these properties cannot be traded on the open market , must be sold back to the government agency , but can be left to a relative . Stops prices rising out of reach i guess . Any Thai citizen can apply for one , and i believe in some cases theres a waiting list .

[parrot]

There are several areas in/around town where these developments have been built.......two just off the ring road near Ban Jan, another just off the Nongkai Hwy near Nongsamrong......probably several others to boot. 15ish years ago, there were slums near the airport (shortcut to town) and another not far from the President Hotel area. Those areas were bulldozed down............say what you want about the 'developments'.....I personally wouldn't want to live in a cramped area like that.....but I'd guess the people who do live there have moved up in living conditions.....paved roads, running water, electricity, city services, etc.

[FrazeeDK]

living arsehole to elbow seems normal on most of the housing estates and most older rural villages are equally jammed together. But, as Parrot pointed out, some of those estates replaced bulldoze ""slums".. so isn't an estate better than slums?

[parrot]

We watched the ?1000? or so houses go up behind Ban Jan (off the ring road) 12 or so years ago. They're made with the cheapest grade materials (large sheets of painted cement panel walls)......but as FrazeeDK says, they're a world above what many of the residents lived in previously.
That particular estate was completed for probably a year.......cordoned off......nobody lived there........then, whoosh, it filled up.
According to some government stats for Udon, average HOUSEHOLD income (monthly) in 2017 was 20,700 Baht. Strip away the households that don't have a working college graduate, and I'd guess the average is significantly less. By the time you pay for basic education needs, mobile phone(s), bubble teas, motorcycles, food, clothes.......those folks are probably not in a position to pay much for housing.
http://social.nesdb.go.th/SocialStat/St ... ubcatid=80