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Jakarta pledges to increase green space
Nandar Sunandar
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Nandar Sunandar. Tribunnews.com
Jakartans may see more green parks in the heavily polluted capital if the Parks and Cemetery Agency reaches its target of procuring around three-dozen hectares of land.
The agency's officials set a target to procure 31 hectares of land to be converted into public parks next year although it only purchased around 3 to 4 hectares in five locations this year.
Agency head Nandar Sunandar said the 31 hectares were spread out in 46 locations. Once the land procurement processes are finished, the parks will commence construction next year. The agency has proposed Rp 500 billion from the 2015 city budget to procure the plots of land.
'We are still scrutinizing the land plots' documents, which hopefully can be completed by the end of this year, so we can purchase them next year,' Nandar said at City Hall, as quoted by beritajakarta.com.
Nandar admitted that his agency was the provincial agency with the lowest budget absorption this year as only 1.7 percent of its budget was spent. He said his agency received this year Rp 2.4 trillion (US$191 million), 1.9 trillion of which was allocated for 50 hectares land acquisition expenses in 89 areas. However, most of the land had failed to meet the requirements, forcing the agency to cancel the land procurement for 19 hectares of land in 43 locations worth Rp 1.2 trillion.
He argued that the plots of land in the 32 locations were either too big, had high property tax or were being disputed.
'Most of the land we wanted to acquire were either physically inadequate or did not meet the legal requirements, so we canceled the purchases. We do not want to take the risk,' Nandar said.
Nandar said his agency would make budget allocation more flexible next year and would not focus on specific locations.
'If we fail to purchase land in one location, we can allocate the funds to purchase land in another area,' he said.
Meanwhile, urban analyst Nirwono Yoga said the administration's officials should focus on improving green spaces rather than developing new parks.
'They should have known that there would be a lot of land-purchasing issues,' Nirwono told The Jakarta Post via the phone over the weekend.
He said the agency should work together with state-owned railway company PT KAI to improve green areas around railways.
'Between railways and the streets there are 3 to 6 meters of space that could be filled with plants and trees. They can also build parks around reservoirs, which would be a more effective and cheaper solution,' he said.
Jakarta should ideally set aside 30 percent of its territory for open-green spaces, as obliged by the law, but data from the agency says the figure has only reached 10 percent to date.
' JP/Indra Budiari
