Satellite cities lack planning: Official

Satellite cities lack planning: Official

JAKARTA (JP): An official of the National Development Planning
Board (Bappenas) said yesterday that the development of satellite
cities in Greater Jakarta, which covers Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang
and Bekasi, lacks good planning.

Bambang Panudju told participants of a meeting of the 28th
East Asian Regional Organization for Planning and Housing at the
Ministry of Public Works that instead of improving the already
chaotic traffic problem, the establishment of new satellite
cities has further worsened it.

"Our planning consultants should increase their capability,
both in their discipline and in management," he said.

Management is badly needed by the consultants because good
planning without good management would be useless to high-cost
infrastructure projects, he added.

Bambang said that the number of qualified planning consultants
here is still limited.

"In comparison to other countries, the number of qualified
consultants here is very small," he said.

That is why many developers tend to employ foreign consultants
instead of local ones, he added.

Moh. S. Hidayat, an executive of the Association of Indonesian
Real Estate Developers underlined the importance of integrating
planning strategy with the main infrastructure development
programs.

"As members of the association are increasingly involved in
large-scale urban development projects, like new towns and
superblocks, coordination between planning and infrastructure
provision is important. Otherwise, development costs would swell
uncontrollably," he said.

The two-day meeting, which was opened yesterday by Hou Jie,
president of the East Asian Regional Organization for Planning
and Housing, who is also the Chinese minister for construction,
also discussed integrated urban infrastructure and planning
strategy.

The meeting was attended by about 200 government officials,
professionals and business executives from East Asian countries
including China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia,
Pakistan and Thailand as well as Australia and New Zealand
attended the meeting, vice president of the organization,
Parulian Sidabutar, said.

Speakers at the meeting also included Lance Leikis from the
New Zealand Institute of Planners, Stephen Hamnett from the
University of South Australia, Hong Sung Woong from the
Construction and Economic Research Institute of South Korea,
President of the International Real Estate Federation Ferry
Sonneville of Indonesia and Z.X. Weng from the Tongji University
of China. (31)