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)