City administration vows to restore parks
City administration vows to restore parks
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration has vowed to restore the capital's parks and green areas to their original function by removing buildings that have been constructed on them.
Deputy Governor for Administration Affairs Idroes acknowledged yesterday that many of Jakarta's parks and green areas have been used for buildings, including schools, and stalls for years. He said that all such structures will be demolished over time.
"Things will be carried out gradually. The first target will be the green areas now being used as building sites without permits. The second target will be the buildings standing in the parks and green areas on the basis of mayoralty permits," he said.
Idroes said that, in the case of buildings erected with permission from the mayoralty, the administration would wait until the permits have expired before reclaiming the land.
"We cannot demolish the buildings while the permits are still valid," he said.
Idroes cited the green area adjacent to Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan in East Jakarta as an example. The traders occupying the land have obtained permits from the mayor for their stalls, he said.
The green areas had been used illegally by traders for years before the mayoralty issued the land-use permits, he added.
"Gradually we are returning the areas to their original function by not renewing the traders' permits," he said.
Deadline
Last week, the city public order office announced that it would not be able to meet the February 1996 deadline set by the city administration for the clearing of buildings from parks and green areas because many of the structures in question were protected by mayoralty permits.
Examples of such buildings include the community unit secretariat office (Sekretariat RW) in a park on Jl. Ternate, Central Jakarta, and a school occupying a park on Jl. Tebet Timur Dalam VIII in South Jakarta.
Efforts to return the city's parks and green areas to their original function have encountered difficulties for the past five years.
In 1990, a city councilor of the Indonesian Democratic Party faction, Romulus Sihombing, said that the city administration, both singularly and in cooperation with the private sector, was to blame for the disappearance of Jakarta's parks and green areas.
The councilor urged the administration to be consistent in maintaining the parks and green areas. Among measures he called for was the administration's refusal to issue new permits for future building plans on land designated as a park or green area.
Jakarta has 465 parks covering an area of 3,300 hectares, or 12 percent of the city's total area.
The city parks office says that during the 1993/1994 fiscal year it returned 52 parks and green areas to their original use. In the 1994/1995 fiscal year 14 such areas were restored to their designated function. In the current fiscal year, the parks office plans to restore a further 10 parks and green areas. (yns)