Almost all Jakartans are aware that both they and the city administration have failed to uphold the spatial planning ordinance for decades. The result is clear: the city has developed messily. Green and open spaces have turned into malls, office buildings and housing complexes.
It is apparent that the bylaw requiring building permit applicants to spare between 60 and 80 percent of their land for open space never worked. This has been a case of blatant violation and disrespect of and by the authorities.
Efforts to preserve green and open space in Jakarta began a long time ago. Long before Sutiyoso was elected governor, certain areas in South Jakarta, for example, had been designated as catchment areas. Permits to erect buildings there should have been hard to obtain. But that was the theory, not the practice.
Most land owners turned out to be reluctant to give much of their land up for open space. Instead they found they could bribe officials to get building permits. This marked the beginning of the city administration's failure to preserve green spaces.
Learning of the worsening situation, Jakarta has been striving to expand its open spaces for a decade. But again, poor law enforcement posed the main hurdle and violations continued.
Sutiyoso recently sprang a surprise on all of us by claiming, quite amazingly, that Jakarta in fact already had enough green space. It remains unknown who provided him with the data for this assertion. The city administration had earlier reported that only 5.911 hectares or 9 percent of Jakarta's total area was open or green space. This was well below the city's target of 13.9 percent by 2010.
That reality has raised concerns among environmentalists and pro-green members of society.
While Sutiyoso had no evidence to support his statement, it was obvious that his remark had a political intent.
All that aside, the Jakarta administration's plan to re-green the city is in line with the newly endorsed national spatial planning bill.
When the new law comes into effect, it will require provincial administrations, including Jakarta's, to be responsible for restoring green areas.
The Jakarta administration should firstly take an inventory of the green areas that have been converted into buildings. These would include the natural ponds, locally called situ, on Jakarta's border with the neighboring provinces of Banten and West Java. The conversion of these ponds has shrunk groundwater deposits.
It looks impossible for the Jakarta administration to take radical moves. Demolishing numerous buildings, including residential houses, for spatial plan violations will be very costly and risky as it would involve the revocation of permits issued by government officials. More importantly would be a slap in the face of city officials.
As Governor Sutiyoso will soon step down, it is imperative for his successor to plan moves to fix the damage that has already been done. The most urgent policy to be pursued should be continuous campaigns to raise public awareness of spatial planning regulations. The next should be the punishment of violators, be they individuals or corporations.
As Jakarta can never solve its problems alone, the involvement of neighboring provinces will be essential.
The campaign could be followed by a review of the existing city layout. Article 16 of the bill on spatial planning allows for the review of the old layout. Any change in the old plan is possible provided that the ownership of the property affected by the new law is respected.
Learning from past mistakes, the Jakarta administration must have the guts to uphold the spatial planning regulations without exception. This is the only way to make the dream of 30 percent of Jakarta's land as open and green space come true.
Otherwise, the new spatial law will remain on the shelf as the next generations will continue to live in the dry concrete jungle that Jakarta is becoming.
