Outery from residents over stadium project
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The plan to build the largest basketball stadium in Southeast Asia has drawn public outcry, and ignores the fact that Indonesia's men and women teams have performed poorly in international events.
Despite the outcry from local residents of West Kelapa Gading subdistrict, North Jakarta, the Jakarta administration -- in which Governor Sutiyoso has served as the Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi) chairman -- pledged on Monday to continue the "sports mall" construction.
North Jakarta deputy mayor and the acting operational manager for the project, Pinondang Simanjuntak, said the construction must go on although "there was strong protests from the local residents."
"It's just a matter of socializing the venue. Soon, they (the residents) will approve to the project anyway," he said.
The sports mall is being constructed by PT Gamma Investa Lestari, a private contractor and subsidiary of PT Satria Mahaka, under the build transfer operating (BOT) system, which allows the administration to take over the sports mall after 25 years of operation.
PT Satria Mahaka is the owner of Satria Muda basketball club, whose general manager Erick Thohir had served as the national basketball men's team manager at the 2001 Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur last September. Erick is also the general manager of Republika daily.
The project, occupying a 2.6-hectare plot of land, has been protested by the public as it is being built on land aimed for social and public facilities. The land, located on Jl. Janur Elok Raya, is surrounded by nearly 600 houses. The sports mall and the houses are only separated by six-meter-width roads.
Chief of the community unit 6, Yacob F. Mulya, said locals would be very annoyed should the basketball stadium really be erected.
"Take into consideration our feelings, that only six meters from our house stands a giant three-story basketball stadium. They claim it's going to be the biggest in Southeast Asia? Who cares?" he groaned.
"The social impact is just too great for us to bear. Traffic congestion after matches, noise, hoodlums and sanitary problems are just simple examples of the possible impact."
The city plan states that the plot of land must be used for public school or administration offices.
Yacob and other residents had delivered their letter of objection to the governor on Feb. 25 and had also met with city councillors on the issue on Mar. 27.
Unfortunately, both authorities turned down their objection.
The residents plan to file a law suit against the administration should it insist to continue the construction.
The controversy mounted further as the project is not equipped with analysis on environmental effect (AMDAL) and building permit (IMB).
The project did not put the IMB announcement on the building site unlike other city projects.
Pinondang admitted that the building permit was still being processed.
"I still have no idea if the permit has been issued. I just know that it's being processed," he said.