Brief outline of the low carbon town development plan

Hat Yai is one of the largest cities in southern Thailand. Hat Yai is already a popular tourist destination for entertainment and shopping, and a center for commerce and education, that is keen to enhance its livability by becoming resilient to urban flooding and continue its economic dominance in the region.

Hat Yai participated in a national three-year program (2012-2015) funded by the European Union, to promote low carbon municipalities. There are four focus areas under this low carbon initiative – greening, energy-efficiency, waste minimization, and sustainable consumption. Through the national level initiative, some of the low carbon activities relevant to cities are being undertaken in Hat Yai. However, the two main areas where low carbon activities are generally the focus in cities are reducing transport emissions and reducing building emissions.
The former is not at all addressed, the latter is somewhat addressed through promoting solar power. But it is even more important in the short-term to promote energy-efficiency in
buildings since Hat Yai is seeing a boom in the construction of large buildings.

Scoping GrEEEn Initiatives for Hat Yai have six initiatives. The strategies under each initiative shown below:

Initiative 1: Diversify Tourism Opportunities
1.1: Prepare a regional tourism strategy to promote complementary assets

Initiative 2: Promote Living with Floods While Seeking to Reduce Floods
2.1: Studying alternatives for flood management and avoidance
2.2: Cleaning, dredging and beautification of the canal
2.3: Continuing the “Living with Floods” initiative
2.4: Develop a ‘flood-proofing’ program to improve properties that will continue to be flooded

Initiative 3: Enhance Environmental Quality
3.1: Identifying the areas of industry, business and trade to promote GrEEEn considerations
3.2: Interventions with the rubber processing industries
3.3: Third party water quality monitoring
3.4: Achieving 100 percent coverage of wastewater collection
3.5: Increase awareness on waste reduction and segregation
3.6: Study the existing landfill to plan for future land use and streamlining of septage disposal
3.7: Establish an incinerator for bio-medical waste and hazardous waste
3.8: Conduct pilot epidemiology studies relevant to the transboundary movement of air pollution

Initiative 4: Promote Low Carbon Growth
4.1: Increase public transportation coverage
4.2: Promote energy-efficiency in buildings
4.3: Promote sustainable consumption

Initiative 5: Enhance Land Management
5.1: Conduct a land availability assessment to identify developable land within the city
5.2: Prepare small area plans for strategic sites where the city wants to promote development
5.3: Explore redevelopment of slum and low income housing through land readjustment, titling and/or resettlement
5.4: Evaluate e«ectiveness, including delivery, of housing improvement financing at the community level
5.5: Intensifying Green areas
5.6: Pilot use of green spaces to provide economic value

Initiative 6: Pursue Innovative Financing Mechanisms
6.1: Develop proposals for Central Government funding in the direction of becoming a GrEEEn City
6.2: Establish a separate Cell/Division to raise finances from the private sector for GrEEEn City initiatives