Jakarta Spatial Planning Agency head Heru Hermawanto said the renovation was aimed at preserving the building with its Dutch colonial style.

“It is the city administration’s duty to periodically carry out maintenance to heritage buildings in Jakarta, including the governor’s official residence, despite it being occupied or not,” he said on Tuesday.

The residential area comprises a two-story house, the main building that classified as cultural heritage, an added pavilion at the east side of the house and a warehouse at the west side.

Roof repairs on the 1,100-square-meter house would be the main activity to be completed because of the brittle roof, Heru added.

“Others [repairs are] relatively minor. Most [of the expenditure] would be for the roof, which requires hundreds of tiles, sheathing, frames, beams and aluminum foil as the cover layer,” he said.

The city administration said it intended to use teak wood for the roof to resemble the original material.

The chairman of the city administration’s independent review team for cultural heritage restoration, Bambang Eryudhawan, told The Jakarta Post that his office had yet to be involved in the discussion over the proposed city budget.

However, he acknowledged the house needed repairs, including the additional buildings.

Bambang expressed the opinion that whether the proposed budget was sufficient would depend on the details of the work. Above all, a cultural heritage property should be properly handled with high-quality repairs, he said.

"What worries me is that the budget preparation does not thoroughly identify the damage, hence there might be unnecessary repairs," he said.

To complete the project, Bambang emphasized the selected consultant and contractor must have experience renovating a cultural heritage building.

"The architect must have knowledge of parts of the residential area classified as cultural heritage, as well as original [form] and additional ones," he said.

"Do not choose the winner [contractor] solely based on those offering the lowest cost."

The city administration started planning and budgeting for the renovations in 2015.

The city allocated Rp 2.9 billion for the governor's official residence in the 2017 city budget but the project failed to be carried out, according to Jakarta Development Planning Board (Bappeda) head Sri Mahendra Satria Wirawan on Tuesday.

The city proposed Rp 2.4 billion for renovations in the 2018 city budget, which included installation of an elevator to facilitate people with disabilities who visited the house.

However, after controversy was stirred up over the urgency to install an elevator, as well as by some officials who argued they had not been involved in the discussion, including Anies, the project was scrapped.

Bambang said the governor’s official residence was designed by JFL Blankenberg, an architect who also designed the Proclamation Text Museum on Jl. Imam Bonjol, Central Jakarta.

The building was designed purposely to be an official residence for the mayor of Batavia, now Jakarta.

Former mayor G. J Bisschop reportedly became the first occupant of the house in 1916. Sjamsuridjal, who served from 1951 until 1953 as Jakarta governor, became the first the Indonesian governor who occupied the house.

Since then, a number of Jakarta governors lived in the house, including Sutiyoso, who served in the post for 10 years starting in 1997, Fauzi Bowo, who served from 2007 until 2012, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who served from 2012 until 2014, and Djarot Syaiful Hidayat from May until October 2017.

Former governor Basuki Tjahja Purnama and incumbent Anies Baswedan resided their own houses in Pluit, North Jakarta, and Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, respectively.

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