Bylaw on parking to be reviewed
JAKARTA (JP): City Council will soon reevaluate the city's bylaw on parking in a bid to give it greater flexibility to cooperate with private investors, a councilor said yesterday.
Lukman Mokoginta of Commission D for development affairs told The Jakarta Post that a special team would be established later this month to conduct the reevaluation.
Lukman said the reevaluation was needed because Bylaw No. 7/1987 on parking was already out of date.
He said that in facing the global era, the city's parking management agency, BP Parkir, should be converted into a municipal company to give it greater flexibility.
"If the management of BP Parkir becomes a company, it has more authority to hire experts, invite investors or to buy buildings," he said.
Lukman said the commission would also urge the municipality to make off-street parking more prominent than on-street parking, "because under the law on traffic, on-street parking is actually forbidden".
On Saturday, Ali Wongso Sinaga, head of the commission, said the development of more parking space was desperately needed by Jakartans because the existing parking lots were no longer sufficient to accommodate vehicles.
He said in Jakarta there were four million vehicles, including those from Greater Jakarta, plying the streets every day looking for somewhere to park.
"On-street parking has caused chronic traffic congestion around the city," he said.
Ali said that to develop parking lots the municipality could cooperate with private businesspeople under a profit sharing scheme.
He said to attract investors they should be given legal certainty and be allowed to use 10 percent to 20 percent of the parking lots business plots.
Parking lots should be built in areas notorious for traffic congestion while on-street parking should be prohibited in those areas, he said.
According to him, parking fees could be based on the area, investment and people's financial situation.
However, Ali said businesspeople should "guarantee safety and available parking space. If there is no parking space available don't let vehicles come in." (ind)