Mayor says city will buy land in Condet soon

JAKARTA (JP): The city office of the Ministry of Agriculture will soon buy land in the Condet area to preserve Betawi culture.

East Jakarta Mayor Soedarsono said yesterday the mayoralty would appropriate eight hectares of land in the Balekambang subdistrict.

The land in the Kramatjati district, Soedarsono said, would then be redistributed to locals with land use status. The locals were expected to build homes in the Betawi, or native Jakartan, architectural style. They will also be expected to maintain the area as a water catchment area.

"Fruit trees in the area should not be removed," Soedarsono said.

The purchase of land by the city would ensure owners could neither sell their land or be removed from it, he added.

Balekambang is the last of three subdistricts designated by the city in the early 1970s as preservation areas for the fruits and plants native to Jakarta.

Uncontrolled development led to the failure of the preservation project. Condet was also designated a Betawi architecture preservation area.

Failure to prevent rapid changes to land and buildings here led the office in charge of preserving Betawi culture to urge the city to buy up the land.

Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs Tb. M. Rais said the city planned to buy 40 hectares but given financial constraints, would buy land in several stages.

The mayor would not give land prices or details of who would be entitled to the land.

He only said there were two conditions for building on the land. Homes must be built in the Betawi style and buildings could not cover more than 20 percent of the plot.

On Friday residents said they were happy to hear the city plans but said they came far too late. The city rule of building only on 20 percent of a plot had long been ignored.

The city should have bought the land when it designated Condet a Betawi culture preservation area, residents told Kompas last week.

A local leader, Anjung, 51, said many people had built homes without Betawi features and had not been punished.

Wisnu Murti Arjo, an expert at the city's building and renovation center, told the Friday meeting of Condet's Betawi community that the city chose architecture as the main aspect of Betawi culture to preserve as it was the most visible and could last to up to 40 years.

He said there were 10 Betawi features that people could apply to their homes, including fences, windowsills, the roof and poles.

The number of Jakartans with Betawi blood is estimated at 2.5 million of Jakarta's official nine million population. (11)