Developers told to coordinate drainage systems

Developers told to coordinate drainage systems

JAKARTA (JP): The secretariat head of the Greater Jakarta
Coordination Board has suggested that developers coordinate the
design and construction of drainage systems to prevent floods.

This would prevent floods not only in their project areas, but
also in surrounding sites, secretariat head Gunawan said
yesterday.

Developers, through provincial branches of the Indonesian Real
Estate Developers Association, should have consulted local
administrations before designing and building drainage systems,
he said.

He acknowledged that Greater Jakarta does not yet have an
integrated drainage plan.

"Currently each developer builds its own drainage system,"
Gunawan said.

It is likely this is one reason that areas between two real
estate complexes become flooded, he said.

Residents in the Kelapa Dua complex in Tangerang recently said
their homes were flooded for the first time since the residential
area was built by the state-owned Perumnas housing company in
1989.

The area is located between two large-scale projects, Lippo
Karawaci and Gading Serpong.

A plan for an integrated drainage system was drawn up in the
1980s, Gunawan said. However, a lack of funds may be the main
factor hampering its realization, he added.

The coordination board, he added, can only urge the West Java
and Jakarta administrations to adhere to spatial plans in issuing
permits for developers.

He was commenting on results of a recent study coordinated by
the Ciliwung-Cisadane river basin development project.

The study found that construction activities in areas around
the river basin in West Java have greater potential to cause
floods in Jakarta than building activities in upstream areas.

So far uncontrolled construction in the mountainous resort
area of Bogor, Puncak and Cianjur have been blamed as the main
cause of flooding in the capital. This led the National
Development Planning Board to support firm action to preserve the
area as a water catchment.

While action has been significant, Soeparmono, the director
general of water resources development at the Ministry of Public
Works, said recently only 20 percent of the runoff from upstream
areas causes floods, compared to up to 50 percent of runoff from
river basin areas. Projects here include those in Bukit Sentul,
Pamulang, Ciputat and Cibubur.

Gunawan said he could not comment much on the fact that the
developers obtained permits for the projects, as the coordination
board has never been consulted. However, provincial
administrations may also face difficulties as other offices also
issue permits, he said.

A developer building a satellite town in Jonggol, for
instance, gained permission from the Ministry of Forestry,
without the acknowledgement of the board, he said.

Earlier, the Ciputra group announced it was building a 600-
hectare town with camping grounds and a mini zoo in the vicinity
of Jonggol, near the toll gate in Cibubur, East Jakarta.

Gunawan said that in the prevention of floods, the board
coordinates the refunctioning of existing lakes, besides urging
developers to build artificial lakes to replace the lost water
catchment areas.

The board also coordinates the regreening of several
"critical" areas with the Jakarta and West Java administrations,
he said. (anr)