The Changes of Urban Land Use on Housing in Siem Reap/Angkor Town

Vongvithyea Srey
Royal University of Agriculture, Land Management and Land Administration Faculty,
Cambodia
Email: srey.vongvithyea@gmail.com




At present, Cambodia encounters a period of rapid urbanization, especially in tourist areas like Shihanouk Ville or Siem Reap Town, a City south of the world heritage site of the ancient Ankor Wat area. This ancient city fell abandoned after the Khmer empire of Angkor until the early 18th century. During the period of Khmer Rough regime the people who were living in this area were forced to move there houses to remote areas and therefore the city of Siem Reap fell abandoned for a second short period in time during the late seventies of the former century. Since the 1991 Paris peace agreement subsequently followed by further political arrangements in 1998 and especially during the last five year, permanent construction of new houses and larger contemporary hotels and shopping complexes were started. Only some of the old buildings were recently renovated according the old French colonial style which dominated the old City of Siem Reap before 1975. Uncontrolled renovations and limitless new constructions are under establishment everywhere in the city. Especially along the urban fringes.New hotels, guesthouses and restaurants are rising nearly everywhere and there is little effort to control or regulate this construction boom. The existing land use system and housing types in Siem Reap/Angkor town will change to different and new housing styles over the next few years due to tremendously increasing tourism activities in the Siem Reap area.This paper focuses on the current situation and characteristics of recent housing and urban land use types in Siem Reap/Angkor town. It will present details about land use planning issues and presents one of three urban master plan, which are in the discussion at the moment. The transformation of land use and housing types as well as land use changes over a period of time will be assessed and main factor of land use change will be discussed for further urban planning policies. Secondly, this paper will illustrate the characteristics and the dimension of ongoing changes in Siem Reap and mention factors which determine the changes for future urban planning activities.