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n a bid to be able to better manage street vendors that are scattered across the city, the Semarang municipal administration has planned to build pasar klithikan (a flea market) in the Penggaron bus station compound.

The Municipal Market Agency head Nugroho Joko Purwanto said that if the budget approval ran as expected, the development of the flea market that will be in the same compound with the Penggaron bird slaughter house (RPU) would be started in the second half of this year.

“Hopefully the flea market will be worthy and comfortable for the street vendors and at the same time provide easy access to customers,” Nugroho said recently.

He said the Penggaron flea market will be designed to replace all the flea markets scattered across a number of places including the Progor, Imam Bonjol, Kokrosono, Sompok and Kartini areas.

Most of these markets indeed are not well managed. Vendors display their merchandise just as they want along the roadside, causing traffic congestion in the surrounding areas. Untidiness is unavoidable because what they sell are used goods.

He said that relocating all the street vendors in Penggaron was also good for city planning, although such a relocation was not an easy thing to do. “We need intensive communication.”

Nugroho said his agency has prepared some 2.5 hectares of land in the designated area and the market is designed to accommodate 1,500 street vendors.

Penggaron was deliberately chosen because the development of the flea market was also expected to attract more buyers to come to the RPU Penggaron.

The construction development is predicted to cost up to Rp 40 billion (US$4 million), but the municipal administration so far has only allocated Rp 10 billion from its 2013 budget.

Djoko Setijawarno of the Semarang City Development Advisory Council (DP2K) said that the detailed engineering design of the Penggaron flea market had been completed. The next step would be for the city administration to prepare for the environmental impact analysis (Amdal) document.

According to Djoko, there are at least four steps that the administration needs to take to make the project effective. First it has to be able to convince the vendors that the flea market is being developed for their interests.

Secondly, the administration has to provide easy access into the market, including affordable means of transportation.

Third, it has to promote the market so people are also attracted to come and visit it. “If necessary, it is even better if it is made into a tourist attraction so that it can become one of the city’s icons,” Djoko said.

Finally, the city administration has to offer incentives to vendors who refuse to relocate by, for example, exempting them from the market rent fee for three to six months.

Nuhir, a vendor at Kokrosono flea market, expressed disagreement with the city’s plan of relocating all street vendors into one place, arguing that he might lose customers because Kokrosono was relatively far from Penggaron.

“My customers only know that I am [operating] here,” said Nuhir, who claimed to have been in the business for 20 years.

Suwandi, another vendor, on the contrary expressed support for the city plan, saying that it would put street vendors in order.

“I just hope that we will not be obliged to spend extra money or to pay other unaccountable levies to relocate,” he said.