H

endrik Thee has been fuming for months about what is happening in front of his house on Jl. Pluit Barat Raya in North Jakarta, where heavy machinery takes up half the street, scraping away an almost 10-meter-wide section of the soil embankment of the canal, uprooting trees and wrecking residents'€™ gardens for '€œ22 hours a day'€.

No one from the project, which they later learned was an elevated road, ever talked to him about what was happening and local authorities have no answer as to why the residents have to bear the noise pollution, air pollution and the tremors from the construction throughout each day and evening.

'€œLast night, they worked until 2 a.m.,'€ Hendrik said. He said he had been worrying about the welfare of his 1-year-old and 2-year-old children and his 90-year-old grandmother with all the dust and cement particles entering his house despite his door being closed.

His neighbors, William Hartono, Oky Santosa and Kenan share his sentiment. In fact, hundreds of other residents in the area raised objections to the project, and dozens of them hung banners on their second floor balconies and garden walls, protesting the project '€” an elevated access road to Agung Podomoro Land'€™s Green Bay apartment and the planned Pluit City on man-made Islet G.

They have several objections including concerns that the elevated road will compromise the strength of the canal embankment, raising the risk of flooding. '€œIf the embankment breaks, hundreds of houses here will drown,'€ William said.

Jl. Pluit Barat Raya is a relatively quiet local road along the east side of Karang Canal, which serves as local access to the luxury housing of Pluit. Along the street are dozens of luxury houses.

In fact, the caretakers of Satya Dharma Buddhist temple and Shiva Mandir Hindu temple also raised objections in a recent consolidation meeting between several residents. The issues the places of worship raised, among others, were the possibility of noise pollution after the elevated road opened and the loss of parking space for thousands of their congregation members. Worshippers usually park their cars on the wide space on the side of the canal. That space will be gone and replaced by columns for the road.

The residents have spoken with several city officials and sent letters to Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, but they finally found out about what was happening in front of their houses from a marketing agent of Pluit City, who gave the residents Pluit City marketing material. The elevated road is included in the marketing information as '€œeasy access'€ from the Sedyatmo toll road. The 3D rendering of the plan shows that the road will have two directions, from and to Jl. Pluit Karang Utara.

The city administration did not receive the plan and The Jakarta Post'€™s several attempts to obtain the plan for the elevated road have also been fruitless. But, on a YouTube video uploaded by the city administration on Nov. 2, the head of Bina Marga (Roads) Agency Yusmada Faizal told a city meeting, where Ahok was present, that the road would only be one direction, from Jl. Pluit Karang Utara heading south.

Pramono, a PR officer for Podomoro'€™s subsidiary PT Muara Wisesa Samudra, told the Post the road was built at the request of the city administration and that he was yet to get updated information about whether the road would be two directions or one. '€œThe city administration knows what'€™s best for the public, and we will follow their instruction,'€ he said.

The residents said that later they found out that the elevated road, connecting Jl. Pluit Selatan Raya with Jl. Pluit Karang Utara, was not included in the bylaw on spatial planning for 2010-2030.

Ahok, however, claimed recently that it did not violate the bylaw and if it did he would '€œjust change the spatial planning'€.

William has also raised questions about the permits and the detailed plan. The city administration has never given the residents any documents.

The residents have also prepared a legal action as a last resort if the city administration does not stop the project.

'€œWe do not need the road. It'€™s not congested here, and we know more roads do not mean less traffic. The new elevated road will soon get congested, we know that,'€ Kenan said.