6:16:00 PM
The garbage-strewn, riverside area that contains Chrang Chamres commune may be unsightly, but the local Cham community fears that a future away from their niche in Phnom Penh’s far north would be far worse.
“If our houses are destroyed, how much will the government compensate us?” said Him Tola, deputy chief of the commune’s Chrang Chamres I village.
“We won’t be able to live with our relatives, and if the government evicts us from here to a relocation site, we will lose our jobs here,” he added.
It’s a common refrain. Over the years, numerous communities across Phnom Penh have been forced from their land and dumped on far away relocation sites with little or no amenities or prospects of earning a living.
However, residents and NGO workers are hopeful that Chrang Chamres will turn a page in the city’s checkered developmental history.
Piotr Sasin, country director of Czech-funded People in Need, said the NGO had developed a plan for the communes incorporating “human rights-based spatial planning” balancing economic development with the needs of the existing residents.
With careful planning and the political will, he added, even ambitious urban development needn’t require mass evictions.
“What we’re trying to do is generate a solution that will be win-win, so the city can develop and look better in a more engineered, organised manner, but at the same time, the people who have lived here can stay on their land,” said Sasin, who is partnered with local NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut.
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