Mangga Dua Square admits turning street into parking lot
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The management of the Mangga Dua Square (MDS) wholesale center in Pademangan, North Jakarta, acknowledged on Wednesday that it had taken over a 13-meter public street alongside the Ciliwung River and turned it into private parking space.
MDS management said that the conversion was with the consent of Governor Sutiyoso's administration.
"The conversion is stated in our block plan ... We asked the administration for the use of the street as a parking lot and it was approved," Hary Cahyono, a director of MDS, said in a hearing with the City Council's commission A on legal and administrative affairs.
Hary said that MDS and the city administration had talked of sharing the management of the parking area.
The session on Wednesday took place after MDS's board of directors failed to fulfill three earlier summonses.
Councillor Rois Hadayana Syaugie emphasized that the conversion of the street into a parking lot was unlawful.
"The administration has to consult first with the council before it allows the use of a public facility by a private company for commercial purposes," he asserted.
"Now, people have to pay in order to pass this supposedly public area," he added.
During the hearing, MDS also made contradictory statements over the number of local residents recruited to work in the wholesale center.
MDS claimed that 60 percent of its 600 employees were local residents, while the North Jakarta administration said that MDS had so far only taken on a few locals, leading to complaints among residents.
Many residents have also complained that the construction of the wholesale center, which is located on raised ground on the riverbank, would make the area more prone to flood as the riverbanks could not contain overflowing river water during the wet season.
The council also received complaints from Mangga Dua Utara residents about the increasing number of traffic accidents near the location as the developer had raised the level of one lane of the main access road by one-and-a-half meters, and had not built any pedestrian bridges for people to cross safely.
Another councillor Hidayat Rohim urged MDS to immediately build pedestrian bridges in order to curb traffic accidents there.
"Since the increase in traffic accidents were caused by the project, we called on the management to build the bridges. We don't want the administration using taxpayers money to clean up a mess made by a private company," he confided.
MDS management promised to seriously consider the suggestions and input, promising that they would immediately follow up on them.
"We will improve our poor communications and coordination with the council as well as with residents so that we can settle these problems soon," Hary said.