J

oanes Gunawan, a resident of Sunrise Garden housing complex in Kedoya Utara, West Jakarta, still recalls the years before 2008 when he only experienced floods every five years. '€œNow our complex is inundated whenever it rains,'€ he told The Jakarta Post recently.

Joanes, a civil engineer, discussed the issue with other residents and they agreed to investigate the cause of the worsening floods in their 100-hectare residential area.

They managed to collect 130 signatures on a petition and started to send letters to relevant authorities, including the subdistrict head, district head and then governor Fauzi Bowo. The residents call themselves the '€œKedoya Utara Flood Mitigation Team'€.

The year 2008 marked the beginning of the residents'€™ long fight, a fight requiring them to spend endless hours dealing with an array of offices and agencies.

In the first meeting with the city administration, at that time under the leadership of governor Fauzi, the residents met officials overseeing spatial planning and water management.

They were told that the drainage system in the housing complex was malfunctioning, as one of the two main water channels was blocked by a vertical-housing project. The waterways were designed to channel water to the major water channels.

'€œThe project has blocked our drainage system,'€ Joanes said.

The residents saw a glimpse of a solution when the West Jakarta mayor issued a letter declaring the construction a violation and promised to take action.

The West Jakarta municipal administration, through its Public Works Agency, even allocated funds to study the case. However, the problem was not solved.

Following the inauguration of a new governor, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, and his deputy Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, the residents opened a new chapter in their struggle.

'€œWe intensively communicated with Pak Ahok and after technical and detailed studies, the city administration eventually created a project titled '€˜the expansion of waterways in [community unit] RW5, Kedoya Utara subdistrict'€™,'€ he said.

The waterways were planned to have a diameter of 2.5 meter but when the project finished at the end of last year, residents found corners had been cut.

Another representative of the residents, Sonny Rianto, said that the water channel had been built with a diameter of 80 centimeters, far narrower than the initial design.

'€œIt created a bottleneck. The water could not be channeled properly,'€ he said, adding that their area had flooded again after the project was complete.

'€œThe budget set for the project was around Rp 13 billion [US$988,000], but it did not produce any results,'€ Sonny complained.

The residents'€™ representatives have reported the situation to the relevant authorities and attempted to organize a meeting, but to no avail.

'€œWe want an explanation. How can a project costing billions of rupiah not solve the problem? There must be something not right,'€ Sonny argued, adding that the residents also demanded that the authority unveil the spatial planning masterplan in the area.

Meanwhile, Ahok said that he was well aware of the situation in the neighborhood and that the city would find a solution to the problem this year.

'€œThe waterways in the area are not equipped with pumps or embankments, which is one of the reasons why the neighborhood is always flooded,'€ Ahok told the Post recently. He went on that he was coordinating with the relevant authorities and the neighborhood'€™s developer to find a solution.

'€œWe will equip the area with pumps and embankments this year,'€ he promised. (swd/dwa)