A development company with a government concession for a high-end property project on the island of Koh Pos, also known as Snake Island, has announced that it will significantly alter its original plans for the project. The new plan, which must first be submitted for government approval, will raise the project budget from $276 million to $1billion.

Keam Kolnead, chief public relations officer of Koh Puos (Cambodia) Investment Group, told the Post in a phone interview that the villa, hotel and office projects on the island have been redrawn to adapt to the current situation. Villas were not selling well due to their large size and nearly $1 million asking price, he said.

“Now the company is altering the project blueprints before seeking permission for construction from the Council of the Development of Cambodia [CDC] again,” Kolnead said. “Reapplying for permission will happen in 2014 and the revised project will have a budget of $1 billion.”

The company submitted its first application for the project to the CDC in 2006, when it was planning on investing $276 million in converting the 116-hectare island into a luxury residential and resort complex.

Kolnead said the company had already invested $100 million in building a 1-kilometre bridge to the island as well as other infrastructure on the island itself, including an unfinished 5-kilometre road circling the island.

Noun Rithy, general manager of Bunna Realty Group, said that it appeared that progress on the Koh Pos project was slow. Bunna Realty’s contract to sell residential properties on the island had already expired, he said.

Ho Vandy, co-chairman of the government’s Private Sector Tourism Working Group, said that the government had provided many similar island concessions to other companies. It was understood that companies with concessions would use their developments to attract domestic and international tourists, maintain an existing national resource and provide jobs and income for local people, he said.