T

he city administration plans to commence construction of an international-standard soccer stadium at BMW Park in North Jakarta this month despite the unresolved land conflict concerning a part of the 66.6-hectare park.

Youth and Sports Agency head Ratiyono said here over the weekend that a groundbreaking ceremony would be held to mark the start of the project and that he was seeking an appropriate time so that Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo could attend the ceremony.

'€œWe are still looking for the right time, but we will certainly do it this month,'€ he said, adding that Jokowi was expected to stay in power despite the recent declaration by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) of his presidential candidacy.

The city is also facing a civil lawsuit from an individual who claims to be the heir of a portion of the land and a class action lawsuit from squatters occupying the land.

According to Ratiyono, the city administration owns 12 hectares of certified land in the park where the stadium is set to be constructed while it is still working out the conflict over the remaining 54 hectares.

He further said that the city administration had allocated Rp 1.2 trillion (US$105 million) to finance the project.

Separately, Jokowi said that he did not dare to start construction of the project until the legal status of the land was settled.

'€œWe can start now because 12 hectares has been certified,'€ he said, adding that the city would continue to work out the legal status of the remaining land.

He said the city had been preparing the necessary tools to start construction of the stadium, including its design and environmental impact analysis, which had both been completed.

Besides the soccer stadium, a lake and open green space will also be developed.

With regard to the stadium'€™s capacity, Ratiyono said the stadium would accommodate 50,000 people.

The stadium would function as a homebase for city soccer club Persija Jakarta, replacing the soccer stadium in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, which had been affected by the MRT project, he added.

BMW Park was originally designated as a green area during the city'€™s Clean (Bersih), Humane (Manusiawi), Dignified (Wibawa) or BMW program in the 1960s. But since the early 1990s, as many as 1,400 squatter families took over the land. In August 2008, the city administration evicted most of the squatters to develop the area into a open green space.

Illegal squatters began occupying BMW Park, locally known as Kampung Bayam (Spinach Kampong), in the early 1990s after undergrowth was cleared on the site, making way for plants of vegetables.

It is the second-largest park in the city, after the 80-hectare Monas Park in Central Jakarta.

'€”JP/Indah Setiawati