Around 30 residents of Pluit hung banners on their garden walls on Saturday objecting to the construction of an elevated road that will serve as a transit route from the new man-made Islet G, or Pluit City, in Jakarta Bay to North Jakarta.

However, many of the banners, which read '€œStop the construction of the elevated road as it violates the Spatial Planning Bylaw and Detailed Spatial Planning Bylaw'€, had been removed on Sunday.

'€œSome people said the banners were taken down by the Jakarta Public Order Agency [Satpol PP],'€ resident William Hartono said, adding that they had now moved the banners to their second-floor balconies so they would not be removed again.

He said that he and his neighbors urged the city administration to halt the ongoing elevated road construction project in front of their houses on Jl. Pluit Barat Raya connecting Jl. Pluit Selatan Raya to Jl. Pluit Utara Raya, because no one had ever consulted them about the impact.

Oky Santosa, the leader of the residents grouped under the Pluit Residents Forum, said the elevated road was being built on a nearby embankment. '€œTo our knowledge, it is dangerous to construct buildings on the embankment,'€ he said.

Oky said there should be technical studies conducted on the project and the city administration should inform the residents. '€œOur houses are below sea level. We already have our own pumps to protect our houses. The embankment is also essential to protect us from flooding,'€ he said.

William said the drilling process was also worrying. '€œOur houses are old buildings. The vibration affects the houses,'€ he said.

Later, residents said they had checked Bylaw No. 1/2012 on spatial planning 2010-2030 and Bylaw No. 1/2014 on detailed spatial planning and found no mention of the elevated road.

The residents held a meeting with the Rujak Center for Urban Studies (RCUS) and during the meeting Oky said the construction had been ongoing for two months and had not received the consent of residents.

'€œWe have sent letters to various officials, including the Pluit subdistrict office and Jakarta Governor [Basuki '€˜Ahok'€™ Tjahaja Purnama], but we'€™ve got no reply,'€ he said, adding that more than 200 local residents had signed a petition to stop the project.

'€œWe have been trying to get a copy of the permit but none of the parties involved have shown it to us,'€ he said.

Oky said after being kept in the dark about the project, they did some investigating and finally discovered that the road would head to Jl. Pluit Utara Raya before continuing on to Pluit City, being developed by Agung Podomoro Land'€™s subsidiary PT Muara Wisesa Samudra (MWS).

Oky said they had staged a protest in front of the construction site but it did not stop the construction.

'€œWe have never been informed about the Amdal [Environmental Impact Analysis],'€ he said.

Marco Kusumawijaya of the RCUS said the city administration should stop the construction if the local residents opposed the project. '€œIt also should have informed the residents first before commencing the project,'€ he said.

On a YouTube video uploaded by the city administration on Nov. 2 discussing the 1.1-kilometer road, Ahok shrugged off the concerns, saying they were only related to feng shui, a Chinese philosophy about the harmonization of elements, often used in architecture.

The video also showed that the city administration had known about the objections but proceeded anyway. Bina Marga Road Agency head Yusmada Faizal said in the video they were experienced in building roads on embankments and even building pillars in the water.

Ahok responded to concerns about falling property prices by saying that if the prices dropped, he would buy the land and build low-cost rental apartments on it.

Yusmada told The Jakarta Post the governor had issued in-principle approval for the road but the elevated aspect was the initiative of MWS.

However, MWS spokesperson Pramono said the road was an initiative of the administration in the public interest. '€œAs we are capable of carrying out the project, we'€™ve fulfilled the request,'€ he said.
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