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Missing lakes turned into restaurant, houses and park
Depok city administration recently found out that five natural lakes, or situ, had been transformed into a restaurant, a park and three houses
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epok city administration recently found out that five natural lakes, or situ, had been transformed into a restaurant, a park and three houses.
Kania Parwanti, head of the Depok Land Use and Settlement Agency, told The Jakarta Post that the five lakes had been converted prior to 1999, when Depok split from Bogor regency and set up their own administration.
'The five lakes had all changed ownership and already been converted before Depok's split from Bogor in 1999,' she said.
Kania said the restaurant and the houses were owned by individuals and the owners had their proper ownership documents. The park is recorded as a public facility of state-owned housing developer Perum Perumnas.
'Each of the owners were given permits by the government of Bogor regency,' she added.
The five lakes were Situ Ciming in Sukma Jaya district, Situ Bunder in Cimanggis, Situ Telaga Subur and Situ Lembah Gurame in Pancoranmas and Situ Cinere in Cinere.
Last month, a West Java councillor, Hasbullah Rahmad, raised the missing lakes for discussion. He found a discrepancy between data from West Java provincial administration and the Depok city administration. West Java's data showed that Depok had 31 lakes, but they could not find five of them.
'The five missing lakes have to be restored,' Hasbullah said as quoted by tempo.co. 'They are important as open green space as well as water retention,' he said.
Hasbullah said there was no use in playing a blame game but he would propose that Depok and West Java administrations as well as the central government sit together and talk about restoring the lakes.
'Depok has to record details about the five lakes, including their size. Let us not talk about who made them disappear, but record them,' he said.
Kania said West Java administration had written a letter to the Public Works and Housing Ministry about the discrepancy in the data.
Taufiq DS, the leader of Depok Ciliwung Community, applauded the West Java Council initiative to restore the five lakes. 'The five lakes initially functioned as water retention basins. Restoring them will prevent future floods,' Taufiq said.
'We deplore the increasing conversions of dams and swamps to build offices and housing complexes across the city,' he told the Post.
'I don't know whether the five lakes are connected to the Ciliwung River or not, but most of the reservoirs in Depok are. A decrease in the number of retention basins will indeed affect Jakarta as well,' he added.
However, he said he was skeptical about the plan restore the lakes because he found a caveat in Depok's 2012-2032 spatial planning bylaw that stated that the Depok administration was not responsible for the five lakes.
He questioned the bylaw and argued that the five lakes should have been under Depok's authority.
Taufiq said Depok's rapid pace of urban development had threatened the environment. One of the problems, he said, was the lack of serious supervision from the administration.
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The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post
