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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

There is less to be said about state initiatives to provide land for low-
income housing in urban areas. A 2003 target for provision of 600,000 homes
for low-income families nationwide (Ua-Arthorn project) remains unfulfilled

nearly 20 years later (280,000 units provided by 2019). Since the 1970s around
500,000 units have been provided under other programmes but the stock has
barely increased over the past decade.
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The main constraint on expansion of low-income urban housing in
convenient locations, is certainly the availability and price of land. State land in
and around towns and cities is not in short supply but government agencies
that hold the land have their own duties and functions. So long as they continue
to hold land free of rent or tax, these agencies have little reason to release land
for other public uses, however urgent, unless so directed by specific cabinet
resolutions. If more effective mechanisms can be established for deciding
priorities and sharing public resources between central and local governments,
it may be possible to use state land to mitigate housing problems faced by low-
income families and improve urban environments for the benefit of all city-dwellers.
Until then, we are left with a stalemate where the good intentions of the state and
local governments can hardly be implemented and private land use in urban
areas is ruled by market-determined patterns of wealth, income, living conditions
and livelihood.

2. The value and distribution of private land in Thailand today

Having related features of the process and conditions under which
private land has been registered and acquired increasing value, we now turn to
the task of estimating the value of private land in Thailand and its distribution
between different groups of households.

There is no convincing estimate of the total value of private land or indeed
private wealth in Thailand today. The valuation of 34.5 trillion Baht for 2018
that we arrive at below (see Table 4) is lower than a 2007 estimate of 47 trillion
Baht for real estate by the Thailand Real Estate Appraisal Foundation, and much

The National Housing Authority, established in 1973, had provided 700,000 residential units
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by 2012 with a focus on middle-income and as well as low-income people. Seven years later
the total had barely increased to 737,000 units. See NHA Annual Reports for 2012 and 2019.

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Francis Cripps

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