Japan tries to help Jakarta solve its problems

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta has since Independence been considered an overcrowded city with about 8.3 million registered residents and slum neighborhoods found in every nook and cranny of the 650-square- kilometer capital city, but finally one group from Japan is trying to alleviate the problem.

The number of inhabitants increases during the day by several million people from the surrounding cities flocking into the city for work.

Anybody living in Greater Jakarta has to endure daily headaches when moving from one place to another and few, if any, are spared from the problem.

Those who have to take public transportation certainly suffer the most, as they have to rely on overcrowded trains and deteriorating buses.

Residents with their own cars are no exceptions as they have to spend hours each day in traffic jams.

However, Jakarta can still grow in population if there is an emphasis on high-rise buildings and orderly coordination of the city managers, like other Asian metropolises, such as Seoul, Tokyo or Singapore, according to a report by a Japanese government aid organization.

With a smaller total area, 605 square kilometers, Seoul still has a larger population, over 10 million, despite its hilly topography against Jakarta's flat topography, due to an extensive use of high-rise residences.

Despite its higher population density, Seoul still has a great many more open public spaces than Jakarta, such as gardens and parks.

Jakarta, however, has not focused on a vertical development.

"We only make recommendations to land owners to build vertically, especially for housing. We, however, provide several incentives to boost such vertical development," Gamal Sinurat, head of the City Planning Agency for Master Plan Evaluation, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"It is up to the land owners to decide although we provide several incentives. The 2010 City Master Plan only sets the vertical development in certain business areas," he reiterated, while failing to reveal what sorts of incentives were offered.

Gamal said the business districts included, among others, the corridor spanning from Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta to Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta, the nearby Semanggi Central Business District (SCBD), the Golden Triangle area which bordered by Jl. Sudirman, Jl. Gatot Subroto and Jl. HR Rasuna Said, and the corridor of Jl. HR Rasuna Said itself.

Separately, head of the City Housing Agency, Jaender Sagala said his agency was focusing its efforts on residents from lower income brackets by providing low-cost rental flat units.

"We have yet to be able to provide basic flats for residents from middle-income groups. The city administration's financial condition is very limited.

"Besides, there are so many private developers who offer various types of housing for the middle and upper income groups."

The neccessity of having a more vertically-developed Jakarta was among the recommendations included in the Study on Integrated Transportation Master Plan for Greater Jakarta (SITRAMP) which hints that better urban design and regional planning approaches were needed to solve transportation problems in a more comprehensive way.

"There should be an integration between land use and transportation systems. Highly dense land development is required to promote public transportation use," study team leader, Tomokazu Wachi, said in the study report.

"High floor area ratios should be given to the surrounding areas of railway stations and bus terminals," he added.

The study was conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to formulate a transportation master plan for Greater Jakarta by March 2004.

It also revealed that in just 10 years the population had grown very rapidly. There has been a nearly 10-fold increase of commuters here from the surrounding cities and regencies between 1985 and 2002.

There were only 76,300 trips made when the first SITRAMP's survey was conducted in 1985 compared to 716,000 trips during the second survey last year.

According to the study, there are over 21 million residents living in Greater Jakarta.