Transparency on spatial plan badly needed: Expert
JAKARTA (JP): Councilors and a city spatial expert urged Governor Sutiyoso's administration on Sunday to prepare and publicize details soon on its new spatial plan to avoid the possibility of violations, which were rampant in the past.
Contacted separately by The Jakarta Post, councilors Lukman Mokoginta, Ali Wongso Sinaga and city spatial expert M. Dhanisworo said that if the public had access to such detailed information, they could carry out their control function properly.
Lukman insisted that transparency should be the most crucial step to accompany the plan in a bid to achieve a consistent spatial plan for Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.
"In the past, people found it difficult to access information on the plan. Such difficulties even occurred for city councilors and up to now the administration never exposes the evaluation on the spatial plan," he said.
For that reason, he said, the council has no data on the number of violations of city spatiality and, worse, the plan's implementation was also uncontrollable.
He also suggested the administration draft a detailed spatial plan for district and subdistrict levels soon.
A newly enacted bylaw only regulates spatial plans for provincial and mayoralty levels.
According to Dhanisworo, one of the few city spatial experts, the administration should publicize the detailed plan in sections through mass media or print booklets or some other kind of publication to be freely distributed to the public.
"By doing so, we hope the control mechanism will work properly," he said.
Dhanisworo reminded officials of the related institutions in the administration to first have a similar view on the spatial plan before spreading it to the people.
"Based on my experience, sometimes the institutions have different policies on planning.
"For instance, the city planning agency's policy has different views with that of the city development control agency," he said.
Last week, the council endorsed a bylaw on the city spatial plan, effective through 2010, with the spirit to tightly control the implementation that a compensation mechanism for "permitted" violations, like the absence of providing green areas, would no longer be permitted.
The bylaw also stipulates that the spatial plan should be evaluated every five years.
Councilor Ali said the spirit of transparency had, indeed, been stipulated in the newly endorsed city spatial plan bylaw.
"The bylaw clearly regulates that the spatial plan should be visual in certain places at every district and subdistrict to facilitate people who need information," he said.
He added that the administration could also publicize it through books sold at bookstores.
In the past, only property developers and high-ranking city officials knew details of the plan. Therefore, it was only them who knew which developers had breached, for example, the original plan of certain area, giving great opportunities for both officials and businesspeople to settle violations out of court.
According to Lukman, it was difficult to punish violators in the past since it was a collective violation.
"There are too many parties involved in spatial plan violations, which would mean spending a lot of time imposing punishment. Moreover, violations occurred not merely due to administration faults but because sometimes there was also pressure from 'above'," he said, referring to VVIPs in the city administration and central government.
Previously, city councilors and city spatial experts supported the administration's policy of allowing buildings whose construction breached existing spatial plan, saying that demolition of such buildings would not benefit the city. (ind)