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Joint towers good to ease city clutter
With the growth of cellular phone operators triggering a sprout in the number of base transceiver station (BTS) towers, an architecture expert calls for the joint use of every tower to reduce "visual pollution" in the capital
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With the growth of cellular phone operators triggering a sprout in the number of base transceiver station (BTS) towers, an architecture expert calls for the joint use of every tower to reduce "visual pollution" in the capital.
"The towers are signs of progress in telecommunications, but they also pose as visual pollution," professor of architecture from the University of Indonesia, Gunawan Tjahjono, told a discussion on Tuesday.
Gunawan said cell phone operators should think about sharing towers to help ease space pollution.
"Jakarta is now like a jungle of towers. Many towers are built every year without the necessary building permits," he said.
In October 2008, the city was reportedly home to 3,400 BTS towers.
"It is hard for the administration to supervise tower development due to human resources constraints," said the professor, who is also familiar with building permit issues overseen by city property control and supervision agency (P2B).
He said the P2B office processed 17,000 building permit applications every year.
"With its workload, the office is not be able to process the applications in short periods of time, of course," he said.
"We cannot expect them to do extra work to monitor the construction of the towers."
He said many local residents objected to the towers, and many businesses erected towers without waiting for a permit, which requires the consent of residents near the tower.
Last week, residents of Lagoa in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, protested the presence of a BTS tower belonging to PT Excelindo on Jl. Mengkudu, fearing that the station's radiation would affect their health.
They called on the administration to dismantle the 30-meter tower.
Another panelist at Tuesday's discussion, cultural observer and artist Putu Wijaya, said businesspeople needed to hold a dialogue with residents in the neighborhood before building any towers.
In Bali, for example, many towers have to be dismantled because they breach regulations, including local belief that towers should not be higher than temples, Putu said.
"Maybe, Jakarta is different," he said. "It has more liberty to build concrete structures.
"However, any development doesn't necessarily mean going wild,"he said.
"We always need regulations to make order things." (iwp)
