Agnes S. Jayakarna, THE JAKARTA POST, SURABAYA | Mon, 09/14/2009 11:39 AM
To create a better environment and meet green space requirements, the Surabaya city administration has been encouraging property developers in the region to designate at least 20 percent of their development areas as green spaces, an official says.
Head of the city administration's development planning board Tri Rismaharini claimed Surabaya had succeeded in making more than 20 percent out of its total areas of 326 square kilometers as green spaces.
"We have calculated that up to this year we have created more than 65 square kilometers of green space in the city," Rismaharini said last Thursday.
She added that her office would continue encouraging people to allocate small parts of their area as green sites in an effort to encourage eco-friendly living in the city, thus fulfilling the requirement as stipulated in Law No. 26/2007 on spatial management.
The law requires all the regional administrations across the country to allocate at least 20 percent of their respective regions as green sites.
She said her office had also encouraged property developers to mend the abandoned public green spaces in their respective development sites and restore their functions.
"As of this year, 83 developers have developed eco-friendly public facilities," she said.
More than 5,000 square meters of space have been developed into green sites at a number of residential compounds in the city, according to Rismaharini.
Some 135,000 square meters of other areas have been developed into public facilities.
"We will soon verify the development of green spaces in the city and list them as thev city's asset," she said.
Separately, environmental observer Suparto Wijoyo of the Surabaya-based Airlangga University highlighted the urgency for all the administrative regions in the country to improve their eco-friendly development.
Wijoyo, who was also a member of the Environmental Affairs Ministry's working team for the drafting of the bill of the law on environment management and protection that has been made effective since Wednesday, said that the law gave a new hope for people to have a better living.
The law, he added, required the government to take into account the environmental considerations in any of its decisions.
"This is a new and good step for Indonesia to gain better living as the environment will be the center of all the government's policies.
"We do hope the government and the people will cooperate to realize the eco-friendly living."
Suparto then called on all people to guard the implementation of the newly installed law and push the government to base all their decisions on it.
