Senayan vendors to be relocated

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"We've been hearing for some time that the east parking lot is to be converted into something they're calling an urban forest, but it has never happened," said Nazirman, a vendor who has been selling sportswear for two years at the east parking lot in the Bung Karno Sports Complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, over the week end.

He is one of hundreds of vendors currently earning their living at the parking lot.

Nazirman, 27, expressed the hope that the Senayan management would set aside a another area for the vendors if the plan came to fruition.

His hope has apparently been responded to by the management, which says it plans to relocate the swelling ranks of vendors to specially designated areas.

The relocation has been necessitated as a result of a project to convert the east parking lot into a "green oasis".

Senayan managing director Yasidi Hambali told The Jakarta Post recently that basically no vendors were allowed to trade inside the complex. To avoid unrest, however, the management would set aside a number of place for some of the street vendors.

He said that as a result the 279-hectare complex would be free from (unregistered) vendors and would have an appropriate ambience as a national heritage center -- something that had been urged recently by the House of Representatives, the city administration and the State Secretariat, to which the Senayan management is accountable.

He stressed that the Senayan management would commence the Rp 20 billion (US$2.35 million) project next month.

The project, to be finished in eight months time, will involve removing the asphalt from the 80,000-square-meter parking lot, the drilling of 80 artesian wells, fencing work and the planting of 500,000 trees.