City to regulate names of projects

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration plans to issue a gubernatorial decree forbidding developers from using the word kota (city) in the name of projects.

The decree, expected to be issued this week, was approved by then governor Surjadi Soedirdja but must be signed by other high ranking officials, Ahmaddin Ahmad, the head of the city's planning agency, said yesterday.

"The decree is informally ready," Ahmaddin said.

Under the new regulation, developers will no longer be allowed to put the word kota in their projects' names and those who are already using the word must remove it immediately, he said.

The councilor refused to disclose the punishment developers would face if they did not toe the line.

He said the use of kota had generated confusion about the nature of administrative and structural boundaries.

"A 'city' should have its own territory, residents, regulations, economic base, administrative and structural procedures," Ahmaddin said.

The term kota can not be used freely by developers, he said, citing Ciputra City as an example that defied the basic concept of a city.

"It's not a small problem," he said. "Imagine if you turn, for instance, a five-hectare plot into a housing complex. Can you call it a city? It's absurd."

Using the word in a project's name can cause misunderstandings, he said.

"A city is a complete part of a society. A satellite city, for instance, must be a self-sufficient city not just a mere name."

In 1990, the municipality issued a decree on the proper use of the Indonesian language on billboards. A crackdown in 1995 saw the dismantling of billboards that used foreign language.

The city has since asked developers to change the foreign names of their properties into correct Indonesian, such as supermall into supermal, mall into mal, plaza into plasa, resort into resor and garden into taman.

Councilor Lukman Mokoginta said earlier that the use of the word kota in many development projects in and around the city over the past few years had created a social disparity.

"It's created a somewhat arrogant image," he said.

But Ahmaddin said it might be difficult to enact the decree in Greater Jakarta alone because some real estates located on the Jakarta-West Java border also used kota in their names.

"The city administration has to coordinate it first with the neighboring West Java municipality," he said. (07)