Senayan vendors uncertain over relocation
Senayan vendors uncertain over relocation
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Uncertainty still looms over hundreds of street vendors who used
to do business in the east parking lot of Bung Karno Sports
Complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta.
Kicked out of the parking area before Idul Fitri, many have
returned to their hometowns and the rest have moved to the
streets and sidewalks in front of the sports complex's west plaza
and opposite nearby Hotel Atlet Century Park.
A vendor in front of the west plaza told The Jakarta Post on
Tuesday that on Nov. 15, he received a letter from the sports
complex management saying vendors could no longer use the parking
lot as their business ground and that they would be relocated to
an area within the complex.
"The letter didn't specify when or where, though," he said.
The sports complex management's director of infrastructure,
Mahdar, said that inside the sports complex, four areas -- parts
of the east and south parking lots and areas in front of the
Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) and near the beach volleyball
court -- were being prepared to accommodate some 300 vendors.
"They will be ready by January or February 2004," said Mahdar,
and for the time being, no vendors were allowed to operate.
More than 1,000 vendors used to operate in the complex,
selling food, drinks, music or video compact discs, clothes,
shoes and other goods.
"Only the ones selling food and drinks can stay," Mahdar said.
The rest were viewed as having greater capacities to move, he
said.
The majority of vendors used to occupy the 80,000-square-meter
east parking lot, which is now being converted into an urban
forest. The Rp 20 billion (US$2.35 million) project involves
planting about 500 trees and excavating 80 artesian wells.
Areas designated for vendors will be divided into nine-square-
meter numbered lots, and only registered vendors can operate
there.
"They don't have to pay rent," said Mahdar. A small sanitation
fee would be charged for maintenance and upkeep of the vendor
lots.
The word on the street, however, says otherwise.
"Only well-to-do vendors will be able to pay and stay. Poor
ones, like us, will have to go," said one food vendor who used to
pay a Rp 5,000 daily sanitation fee at the east parking lot.
Predicted to be finished by April 2004, the lot's regreening
project is going on schedule and is 20 percent complete. Drainage
pipes were being installed on Tuesday when the Post visited the
site.
No significant development could be seen in the areas reserved
for vendors, however -- only paving blocks piled up in the south
parking lot, while the area in front of the JCC was still full of
parked motorcycles.