Experts slam Monas Park fence project

Experts slam Monas Park fence project

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Ten landscaping experts demanded on Monday that the city
administration cancel its Rp 9 billion (almost US$900,000)
project to erect a fence around the National Monument (Monas)
Park in Central Jakarta, saying the project would spoil the
aesthetics of the park and make it less accessible to the public.

The City Parks Agency, however, has insisted it will go ahead
with the work. Agency head Mauritz Napitupulu said 32 contractors
would participate in an open bid for the project, which would
start in July.

The bid was announced in the little-known Sentana publication.

The city administration has been criticized for wasting
billions of rupiah on various projects at Monas Park.

On Monday, the 10 experts, from private Trisakti University's
architects and landscape department, said that by proposing Monas
Park be fenced in, the city administration was showing that it
had poor aesthetic sense.

"It would deprive people's right to public space and also
damage the symbolical and historical values of the park," the
department's chairwoman, Rully B. Budiyanti, said in a hearing
with the council's Commission D for development affairs.

The administration should encourage public participation in
projects related to public rights, including park management, she
said.

She suggested the Rp 9 billion fund allocated for the project
be used to manage vendors in parks and to cover the park's
operational costs.

The commission's chairman, Sayogo Hendrosubroto, said the
council had not approved the installation of a fence.

"We did not know that the project was a high fence. We were
just informed that it would be a border," he told reporters after
the hearing.