TEACHERS, students and alumni of Regina Coeli College have teamed up to fight plans to build a condominium block next to the school.

“The nearby plot spans over nine rai [1.4 hectares] of land and is full of trees. If construction starts, we will lose a green zone or a ‘lung’ of Chiang Mai,” college director Ampaporn Junkajang said yesterday.

Ampaporn led about 30 students, teachers and alumni of the college to submit a petition against the planned Treasury Department project at a government complaint centre.

Treasury plans to designate the condominiums for low-income government officials.

Regina Coeli College has also called on local residents and alumni of other nearby institutes, such as Montfort College, to help to stop the project, inviting them to a meeting next Monday to discuss the project’s possible adverse impacts.

“Apparently, the project will worsen traffic jams in the area,” Ampaporn said.

She said traffic congestion was already serious in the area with four large schools and more than 10,000 students. “This is on top of road-safety issues and air pollution.”

Ampaporn urged relevant authorities to review the possibility to convert the area into a public green area as an alternative to the condominium project.

“It deserves to be a public park rather than the site of a condominium,” the college director told reporters.

She said if the department wanted to develop a condominium for low-income officials, it could choose other plots of land.

“There are many appropriate plots in the area, but not this one,” she said.

A source said Treasury initially agreed to a local municipal request that the area next to Regina Coeli College be left as a public park. “But it changed its mind in 2009,” the source said.

‘Unreasonable project’

Ampaporn said she did not understand how the plot could be used as a condominium site given the area’s land usage is designated for state agencies or public infrastructure.

She said it is unreasonable for the department to promote the project as appropriate land usage simply because the housing will be reserved for civil servants.

The Treasury Department has reportedly already consulted with Public Works and the Town and City Planning Department about the project and was allegedly given permission to proceed with the development project.