Presenter and long-time Kemang resident Irma Hutabarat says she feels like she's slowly being kicked out from the area by the massive development projects.
In a similar vein, neighborhood leaders are putting up banners saying they will not let the area fall into decadence like Kuta in Bali.
With the formerly quiet South Jakarta residential area now one of the most popular hangout places in Jakarta, Kemang residents are grumpy.
"Ask any Kemang resident about the situation in Kemang. No one will say they're happy," says Irma.
The activist and TV host has lived in Kemang since its quieter days, when her university friends mocked her for living in an area so out of the way that "genies exchange dollars there".
"My friends used to tease me like that. The area was *seen as* so far away that my friends changed the phrase *a place where genies throw babies' to *a place where genies exchange dollars'," she says laughing.
Indonesians use the former phrase to refer to a rural backwater.
"I've lived in Kemang for around 30 years. In the old days, Kemang was green and quiet, the traffic was light and not noisy," she says.
In the 1980s, quiet and traffic jam-free, Irma's commute from home to her university in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, took all of 30 minutes. But in the past few years, Kemang has changed from being a quiet and lush area to a thriving hangout destination with hundreds of caf*s, restaurants, lounges, clubs, bars, beauty salons, boutiques, shops and galleries.
"Now it takes me an hour just to get out of Kemang," Irma says.
In her green and lush house, filled with carved wooden furniture and wooden Javanese doors, Irma talks about how the area, previously dedicated as a water catchment basin, has transformed into a gridlocked commercial area due to poor city management.
"It's bad planning, or the lack of any planning at all, that has made Kemang what it is today," she says.
During the severe flooding of 2007, the low-lying Kemang was badly hit, with luxury homes submerged and access in and out cut off. Now, anytime it rain, puddles instantly form on the streets, causing long queues of cars on the narrow roads. Weekend nights in Kemang are a traffic nightmare for drivers, with a lack of parking space for the numerous nightclubs in the area.
Irma says clubbers park in the little residential streets in front of people's homes.
"My sister has people parking in front of her house every weekend," she says.
While the streets cannot accommodate the flow of traffic through Kemang, which sees daily gridlock, a number of massive apartment projects are underway.
"Who gave permits for the construction of apartments in Kemang? We don't need that. The streets won't be able to sustain the traffic," Irma says.
The city administration has flip-flopped over plans for Kemang, one of the city's more affluent areas.
The city's spatial planning agency head Wiriyatmoko previously said the residential area would be turned into a commercial zone, while Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said he would take action against businesses there operating without permits.
Last week, South Jakarta Mayor Widiyo Dwiyono flexed some muscle and tore down shop-houses without the proper permits, on Jl. Kemang Raya, sending a warning to the owners of some 200 illegally constructed buildings in Kemang.
If business owners ignored the warnings, he threatened, his office would tear their buildings down too.
A neighborhood forum responded to Wiriyatmoko's idea to turn Kemang into Jakarta's own version of Kuta, by putting up banners that read, "Welcome to Kemang. We, the Kemang residents, refuse to let Kemang become a place of entertainment/decadence like in Kuta, Bali."
Local residents have complained about the loud music from clubs and drunkards walking the streets in the wee hours of the day.
Irma skirts the issue of decadence, saying the real issue is the lack of planning in Kemang. She says she is still waiting for Fauzi's promise to include the public in the city's planning and policy.
She adds the construction of the apartments clearly contradicts that spirit.
Irma has been a vocal proponent for better planning in Kemang. In early 2000, she founded Komunitas Kemang, comprising residents, to ask for the publication of the city's plan for Kemang. Some of her friends gave up and moved out of the neighborhood.
She cites examples of how an AC unit in one building exhausts straight into a neighboring house, while a generator in another building does the same.
In the end, people sell their homes, which are later transformed into commercial buildings by the new owners. Some rent out their homes in Kemang while living elsewhere, Irma says.
"It's like residents who have lived here for dozens of years are slowly being kicked out," she says.
Dentist Ati Sinuko is considering moving her 16-year dental practice out of Kemang.
"The area is no longer conducive for business," she says.
A couple of years ago, she could see 20 patients a day.
"Now it's only three a day."
Patients frequently cancel their appointments because they get stuck in traffic for hours heading to Kemang, she says. During the flooding, she had to close her practice because access to her office was cut off.
Irma says there should be a moratorium on businesses in Kemang.
"It's enough," she says.
"What Kemang really needs are water catchment areas, sidewalks, access for fire trucks, parks, and parking lots."
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