Don't consider changes in land use taboo: Rais

JAKARTA (JP): City development, guided by its urban spatial plans, must now consider the need to attract investment to raise development funds, Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs Tb. Rais said.

Investment needs and more attention to public interest could lead to changes in land use, he said yesterday, as long as changes were based on "responsible" evaluations.

Changes in land use should not be considered taboo, because cities always change, Rais said on the issue of revised urban spatial plans. The plans are neither "static" nor "sterile", he said.

"We must have ways to attract investment," Rais said.

Managing a city, he said, needs "cash flow" like a company.

"Without investment, where would we get funds to maintain infrastructure?" Rais said.

The city is currently finalizing a revision of the 1985/2005 spatial plans, to become the 1985/2010 spatial plans. Revision was considered necessary to meet developing needs of the city.

Executive director of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, Zumrotin K. Soesilo, said earlier the city should not bow to parties with political or economic clout to change spatial plans to their benefit.

She said the city should be consistent and not change spatial plans too easily, as it would cause the insecurity of some people living here.

The draft of the revised spatial plans was presented for the first time last week to Governor Surjadi Soedirdja and other executives.

Rais said if there were any changes in the spatial plans, they would have to be based on "responsible" evaluations and go through legal requirements. These would include approval from the governor, the minister of home affairs and the new City Council formed after the general election.

The concept of the urban spatial plans used to be "very idealistic", Rais said. City areas planned had strictly adhered to office, residential and commercial zones.

But now this has been considered unwise, Rais said, adding that now the city tried more to accommodate for social factors.

"Is it wise to allocate an area just for office space?" he said. "After office hours the area becomes scary. Now we prefer to mix development," he said.

City development, he said, no longer adheres to strict designated land use, in view of people's needs.

"Hopefully we could reduce the time it takes for people to reach workplaces," Rais said.

Density of an area would receive more attention, he said, in a bid to ease traffic.

For instance, in areas like Kemang, South Jakarta, he said, the city was now evaluating the appropriate portion of "supporting facilities". According to current spatial plans supporting facilities are allowed in residential areas.

"The problem is whether the area really needs 20 drug stores, for instance," Rais said.

He added that current spatial plans not only mark residential sites, for instance, but also areas with potential development growth.

But he added that the plans would designate certain areas in which further development was prohibited, such as along the outer ring roads.

On the exclusion of two new transport proposals in the revised plans, Rais said they might not be on the new map, but they would be in the new spatial plans document regarding transportation concepts.

He was referring to both the Manggarai bus and train station and the three-tier transit system.

Meanwhile yesterday, a lawyer who heads the land division of the Jakarta Legal Institute, Waskito Adiribowo, said regardless of spatial plans, lower-income people would likely become more insecure.

"Much of city development will happen on state-owned land on which many lower-income families live."

Similar to the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, Waskito said the public should have more access to spatial plans. (ste/anr)