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rban planners have proposed a participative planning method in developing areas of Jakarta, to realize people’s aspirations and understand what facilities such areas need.

The idea of involving residents in urban planning from scratch has been drawn from examples of projects carried out by the Rujak Center for Urban Studies in Labuan Bajo and Komodo subdistricts, East Nusa Tenggara, in May 2012 and February 2013, respectively.

Facilities may comprise roads, ports, drainage systems and other forms of infrastructure.

“This method can also be applied to Jakarta but with a different approach,” said Dian Tri Irawaty, an urban planner with the Rujak Center, on Saturday.

After conducting a study in the two subdistricts, the center found that many public infrastructure facilities built by the government were abandoned because they had failed to meet locals’ actual needs.

“Some public toilets have been abandoned in Labuan Bajo. The local Public Works Agency built them, but they left them with no water and located them far from local residents,” Dian said.

“People then chose the sea because it was easier and closer to their homes.”

Dian added that Jakarta could involve people in the process of deciding what was best for them in terms of infrastructure.

The center’s team lived in the two subdistricts for more than two months to understand the local culture and map the problems faced by local residents.

However, Dian said her team was disappointed because the designs they made together with local residents were rejected by the local agency, which had the authority to make decisions — a problem that could happen in Jakarta if participative planning is introduced.

Yayat Supriyatna, an urban planner from Trisakti University, echoed Dian and said participative planning, if well-implemented, would result in the best form of development.

“But participative planning is only interesting if both parties [the administration and public] can sit together as equals,” Yayat told The Jakarta Post. “If the city administration can reduce its domination, the result will be very good.”

But he said Jakarta’s leaders, headed by Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, must first build public trust before proceeding with participative planning. “With Pak Jokowi now in office, [public trust] may improve,” he said.

Government programs often stalled because their ends were political, rather than for real development, he went on.

A similar participative planning proposal was made in 2007 by several architects who initiated a plan to utilize vacant spaces under elevated roads, especially for housing.

City decision makers seemed to agree these spaces should be utilized when former Jakarta governor Sutiyoso said the city tried to use the spaces for parks, badminton courts and soccer fields.

But city officials differed when it came to using such spaces for housing, citing the safety risks people faced.

In 2007, a team of urban planners and architects with the Urban Poor Consortium also proposed a housing development concept that directly involved locals at 10 locations under elevated roads in North and West Jakarta. (fzm)