Borey is a gated community in Cambodia. It has the form of a row of houses that look the same. Borey projects are mostly situated in suburbia and it is the main cause of the urban sprawl in Cambodia.
Quoted from an article written by Phnom Penh Post, it is said that there are 178 Borey projects have been completed in Phnom Penh alone. As a curious urbanist, I wonder what makes Borey projects grow like mushrooms?
To answer this question, we need to find the powerhouse that fuels those Borey projects. Four main points make it possible: the rise of middle-income families, the absence of government intervention in social housing, the limitation of urban planning, and the power of private developers over planners.
As the Cambodian populations grow bigger, they need to be housed. And the increase of middle-income families, they can afford to buy houses or apply for mortgages. Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction released figures predicting that the entire country needs about 50,000 units per year – each year – until 2030 when the number of units demanded for housing can be reached close to a million.
Since the Sangkum Reastr Niyum era, modern-day Cambodia has not established another prominent social housing project yet. The concept of social housing is still foreign to the Cambodian population; even though, we already had social housing built on our soil long ago. The government is too slow to take the initiative to build affordable social housing for its people.
There are still limitations to urban planning and management. The greater Phnom Penh zone is made up mostly of individual houses which were built privately with little regard for the Master Plan. The awareness of the Master Plan is still very limited at the Khan level (district), esp in the greater Phnom Penh area.
The last powerhouse that fuels the expansive Borey projects is the power of private developers over planners. It is the heyday for private developers to make millions of dollars from middle-income families. They manage to turn cheap agricultural lands into gated communities. Private developers are the leading force in providing housing to the rising population. There is a power vacuum for good housing development and the profit-base private developers fill this vacuum. It is an unfortunate time that there are not much of alternatives to choose from besides buying a flat house in Borey. It looks like there are only two options: buying 30,000$ to 80,000$ flat house or a unit apartment that costs similar. It is a no-brainer to choose a unit of apartment over a flat house in Borey.
If the growth rate of Borey cannot be curbed, we will suffer dire consequences. Borey project only leads to horizontal urban growth and it will lead to greater urban inequality, inefficient resource management, prone to climate change and disaster, and dire traffic congestion and accidents. We will continue to suffer from this mismanagement until our planners take critical actions.