Sluggish progress on expanding public green spaces in Jakarta reflects not only a lack of political will on the part of the administration but also a need for private parties to make land available, experts have said.

Jakarta currently spares only 10 percent of its land for green open space (RTH), a far cry from the 30 percent national law requires by 2030.

The 2007 Spatial Planning Law stipulates that every city designate at least 30 percent of its total land area to RTH. To share the burden of achieving that, it prescribes that each city make available 20 percent and private enterprises or individuals 10 percent of the designated breathing space.

The city administration’s apparent unwillingness to acquire land has given rise to pessimism about the odds of Jakarta setting aside 30 percent of its 661.5 square kilometers of land for public open spaces.

Niken Prawestiti, an urban planning activist and founder of RTH search engine ayoketaman.com, said in a recent public discussion that the greatest potential for increasing RTH in the capital lay with the private sector.

“In the case of Jakarta, where land prices are high, the city administration could provide incentives, such as tax exemptions, for private corporations or individuals to entice them to donate land to be used as green open space for the community.”

Trisakti University urban development expert Nirwono Joga sees indolence on the part of the administration, and he wants to see city leaders take a more aggressive approach to achieving the target.

“The administration is defensively pessimistic. Instead of arguing that there are few plots of land left to be transformed into RTH, it should be more innovative and creative,” Nirwono told The Jakarta Post.

He proposed that the administration clear the public land under the city’s overpasses from squatters and turn it into green open spaces, too. RTH could also be carved out of state land by railway tracks, in the middle of wide streets and under powerlines. This, he said, would significantly boost the area at minimal costs.

Utari, 21, a civil engineering student from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said the RTH coverage in Jakarta should be more than green open spaces managed by the administration.

“For the sake of practicality, we should also consider the central government-owned urban forest of the Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Stadium and other government-run green open spaces as RTH. In that case, Jakarta’s RTH area is definitely above 10 percent,” said Utari.

Amid concern of sluggish progress in providing green spaces, the Jakarta administration has halved its spending for land acquisition for green space projects from Rp 1.9 trillion (US$136.46 million) last year to Rp 1 trillion. At Rp 89 trillion, Jakarta’s budget is bigger than that of any of the country’s other provinces.

Still, the Jakarta Forestry Agency, tasked with finding land for the project, claimed the administration was doing its best to meet its obligation. The agency had set its sights on 42 hectares to be acquired by the end of the year, agency head Eko Cahyono said.

“The actual figures may be higher or lower, depending on the land owners’ willingness sell their land to the administration,” he recently said.

Niken said a majority of Jakartans were still unaware about the wide range of activities people could go about in city parks.

She said most of the city’s residents were more accustomed to crowded open spaces, such as the jogging track outside the GBK Stadium in Central Jakarta or the Tribeca Park on top of the Central Park shopping mall in West Jakarta.

Since beginning her work on city parks, such as Taman Ayodya, Gandaria, Menteng or Suropati, she had encountered music lessons, poetry workshops, skateboarding showdowns, parkour and many other community-based activities.

“I think most people prefer being in a [crowded] place, since there are preconceptions of loneliness, danger and immorality in city parks. We need to eliminate such stigmas.” (bry)