Transparency on spatial plan badly needed: Expert

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)