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nlike the previous post-Soeharto administrations, the government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla envisions and directs it political agenda to maximize the archipelagic country’s maritime potential.

The people expect the new administration to lead a new direction for urban and land development with highly concentrated populations in regard to maritime resources. In other words, the current government should prioritize its policy of urbanism within the framework of integrated coastal development.

The goals include the necessities for the improvement of: interisland communication, export oriented facilities and the productivity of the country’s maritime geography.

Until recently, the clear and strong commitment for maritime-based development has not been yet established and incorporated into a public policy directive concerning maritime urbanism and geopolitically integrated coastal management.

The interdisciplinary management of development within coastal areas — the area within 60 km from the coastline — has been fending off or ignored by the central government, and left it to provincial and municipal governments. The outcome has been fragmentary landscape development with overlapping and politically unsynchronized regulations.

The best example of this political dissonance is the National Capital Seawall Development and reclamation projects in Jakarta Bay. Jokowi’s policy toward the projects are surprisingly in the opposite direction from his own political agenda in relation to the presence of the state in development.

From the mission statement of the Nawacita (nine goals) political agenda, the state is present in guarding and stewarding public interests.

From this point, the most important role and function of the state for this mission is to conceive the land as its primordial asset and dignity of the state.

How could the state relegate the reclamation of land to the private sector? Lack of funding is politically unacceptable because there is no other competent and legitimate agency that protects and maintains public interests than the state.

In matter of fact, creating land through reclamation anywhere else on the globe is considered as a strategic effort of the state on behalf of public interests.

The other important thing that is necessary to incorporate is the presence of state for land development to protect the public interest through spatial and land-use planning. From this point, the Jakarta administration should be in charge of the master plan of the whole project.

But that is likely not the case. The developers of each island propose their spatial and land-use plan in the interest of their business. In the past and during the New Order regime, this was a common practice and planning process.

Under the Nawacita, such liberal politics must be stopped because the synergy of economic and environmental development will not happen for the public interest, but for the accumulation of capital in a few hands: the private developers.

State intervention under the Jokowi-Kalla administration only is obvious in infrastructure and border-area development. Urban and land development needs the presence of state in order to secure the actualization of social justice and a sustainable environment.

The intervention should be pushed further in land banking and transformation of brown-field and grey-field areas. In this regard, the state should take care in its active role as the regulator of land control in terms of land-use planning and spatial structure.

In doing so, the era of master planning development by private developers should come to an end. No good comes out from the private sector than economic profit and the accumulation of capital. The Nawacita should be implemented to make a change in the politics of urbanism from the reliance on the private sector to the state government and municipality. This can be considered as a strategic public policy to ensure the public realm is for all urban citizens. The private sector can invest and develop land within urban areas under the state spatial framework.

How does this public policy work for good urbanism?

In order to advocate the politics of good maritime urbanism, the government — in this case the provincial government, municipality and local regency — should prepare the official spatial plan and design
principles for urban and rural development.

Maritime urbanism is characterized with the orientation and mobilization of urban and regional potential to have access to water. In other words, the coastal vicinities need to be provided with appropriate facilities and infrastructure to export their commodities by sea transportation networks.

Citizen participation in the planning process should be integrated in this scheme. This includes bringing together representatives of communities, business associations, professionals, specialists and various expertise. The current large-scale land developments should be reviewed and readjusted to the interest of the public good for maritime urbanism in terms of environmental sustainability, social justice and the penetrable public realm.

Furthermore, under maritime urbanism, the coastal cities are well connected to each other with various modes of sea transportation in terms of speed, capacity and type of commodity.

The presence of the state in urban development is also to ensure small businesses of property development are able to participate in building the city regardless the scale, area and scope of work.

To the question how then big companies and developers can participate in the urban and rural development? Of course, they always have the chance and opportunity to construct buildings, infrastructure and public utilities, but not as the patrons of development but as clients of the public interest. They are in the role and function of builders of the already prepared land and site for housing, commercial, cultural, public utilities and other buildings. In short, the Nawacita political agenda should be understood as the government being the patron of the private sector.

From a governance point of view, the Nawacita on maritime is workable within the framework of integrated coastal management. Coastal regions and cities should establish a coordinating agency that works across sectors and disciplines for the public interest of environmental sustainability, economic growth based on social justice, and the improvement of quality of life, work and play.

Practically speaking, this management agency is a governing body with the governor as the decision-maker. The membership of this coastal management agency should comprise government, community, business and professional components. The key points for the success of this integrated coastal management system lies in the leadership of municipal and regional government’s planning office to work in collaboration so that various sectors are able to deal with the issues and challenges on-site and on a regular basis, without any delay of long bureaucratic processes.

All strategic public policy, such as spatial planning, should be in the hands of the local authority from onset. Consequently, implementing the Nawacita necessitates amendment of the law of spatial planning and other related regulations. Otherwise, urban and land development will remain business as usual.
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The writer is a practicing architect with special expertise in green building technology in Southeast Asia. His latest book is Javanese Culture and the Meanings of Locality (Lexington Books, July 2016).