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Jakarta Post

Sell up or face continued flooding, warns Ahok

Agnes Anya and Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, August 31, 2016

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Sell up or face continued flooding, warns Ahok Water city: Vehicles drive through a flooded section of road in the Sudirman area, Jakarta, on Tuesday. A one-hour downpour inundated several roads in the city. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)

J

akarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has come under pressure following recent flooding in an upscale residential area of South Jakarta, allegedly caused by overdevelopment in the area.

Following the recent severe floods in Kemang and other parts of the municipality, the administration plans to negotiate with owners of houses and commercial units built along the Krukut River in a bid to persuade them to sell their properties to the city.

“If they do not want to sell the land, we will just leave them there and let them face the floods,” Ahok said, adding that the city would provide low-cost rental apartments for home owners.

Clearing the river was the most appropriate way to deal with the floods caused by the Krukut overflowing, Ahok claimed.

Almost all the space along the river, he added, was now occupied by houses, cafes, restaurants or hotels. The river is now only 5 meters wide, down from its former 20 meters.

Ahok acknowledged that the administration faced difficulty in carrying out the necessary work because the riverbanks were occupied by buildings, whose owners held ownership certificates.

“That’s what we’re concerned about. I have taken over state land [through evictions], and you wanted to sue me. So how can I take over land with ownership certificates?” Ahok said, declining to comment on previous city administrations that presumably issued the ownership certificates.

“Therefore, we are now looking for a legal basis while we examine the issue,” he said.

The administration is currently conducting environmental inspections to see whether the owners do actually have building permits for their riverbank properties.

If they are found to have violated their permits, they will be forced to move and hand over their land.

“However, if they happen to have legal permits for the properties — like I have said before, they will be advised to sell their land to us. They occupy the banks of a river whose water level is as high as their walls. Their walls must be knocked down,” Ahok said.

The issue has become a challenge for Ahok to prove whether he can provide spatial justice for all residents in the capital, said Nirwono Joga an urban analyst at Trisakti University.

Like Ahok, Nirwono also said that the buildings on the Krukut’s riverbanks should be inspected as the banks had been earmarked as green spaces according to the city’s 2000 to 2010 spatial plan and this indicated nefarious practices somewhere along the line.

“Spatial planning has often been a game for officials in the administration and the National Planning Agency (Bappenas, as well as developers. If the developers could use ownership certificates to build on the riverbanks, there must be something wrong,” said Nirwono.

“Here, Ahok and his administration are challenged to provide spatial justice for all residents.”

Separately, Jakarta Planning Agency spatial pattern planning department staff member, Dertha E., said that according to Bylaw No. 1/2014 on Spatial planning and zoning, most parts of Kemang were still classed as residential.

Dertha said, however, that many residents used their homes for commercial purposes. “As it would create great difficulties regulating the spatial planning, the city administration looked for the middle way to resolve the problem,” he said.

Meanwhile, residents must be ready to face ongoing floods as the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has predicted heavy rain will continue to fall on the city in the coming weeks.

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