When swampy areas turn into housing estates

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta was once mostly marshland where farmers grew rice and vegetables. But that has all changed. Kelapa Gading is one of the fastest developing areas in the capital, and shops, offices, malls and other commercial businesses have come to dominate the landscape. The result of this unchecked development has been flooding, which has left thousands of Kelapa Gading residents bitter at the city administration's negligence of the environment.

The district of Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta is one of the most attractive places to work and live, as it is renown for its shopping malls, trade centers and luxury housings.

This is a contrast to the situation in the 1980s, when the majority of the district was dominated by swampy areas and agricultural fields, where farmers planted rice and various kinds of leafy vegetables.

Many people, including those living in the area, may not realize the conversion of swamps and other wetlands into business and residential plots is another example of policymakers' negligence of the environment.

One of the effects of this negligence was the huge flood in early 2002, which inundated their stylish houses with up to one meter of water.

The development of the area into commercial and housing estates was a violation by the city administration of the 2005 City Master Plan drafted in 1985. The master plan stipulated that Kelapa Gading should not be developed into a commercial and residential area unless flood infrastructure was available.

"While flood infrastructure, like the Eastern Flood Canal, has not yet been constructed, Kelapa Gading has been built up with residences and commercial places," Ahmad "Puput" Syafruddin, Chairman of the Environment Task Force (ETF) told The Jakarta Post.

This year, hundreds of Kelapa Gading residents still swallowed the bitter consequences of the violation, as although the rainfall was not so high nor heavy, dirty floodwaters still entered their homes.

This time, floodwater did not inundate luxury houses, but did flood those houses occupied by low-income families located in subdistricts that are built on lower ground.

For environmentalists, the conversion of Kelapa Gading into the current fast-growing district was another example of a crime against the environment. Its accelerated development, however, is not as serious as the development of the Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) exclusive housing estates in early 1990s, which was approved by the city administration.

The PIK project, which converted hundreds of hectares of swamps and protected forests into luxury homes, was a serious environmental tragedy in the city, causing the loss of various species in the areas.

The project was also blamed for the worsening floods in its surrounding areas, including the flooding of the toll road connecting the city with Soekarno-Hatta airport.

"Violating the land allocation as stated in the (1985-1995) City Master Plan was not a big deal for the city's leaders, as they considered it to be a 'dead document' which could easily be replaced by another document, if necessary," Syafruddin added.

In fact, in an effort to "legalize" various violations of the Master Plan -- like the Kelapa Gading development, as well as the construction of Hotel Mulia and shopping malls in Senayan in Central Jakarta, and the Taman Anggrek shopping mall and condominiums in West Jakarta -- the city issued another City Master Plan.

The revised City Master Plan issued in 1999, known as the 2010 City Master Plan, clearly denotes Kelapa Gading as a part of the city which could be developed into housings, industrial areas and trade centers.

A historical mistake was not the only blunder, as there were many violations and inconsistencies during the development of Kelapa Gading, which territory was formerly part of Koja district, North Jakarta.

Based on stipulations as to land use in Kelapa Gading in Gubernatorial Decree no. 1516/1997, the land allocation for housings until 2005, for example, is 558.04 hectares, or 4 percent of its total territory of 16,330 hectares.

A survey conducted by the North Jakarta City Planning Office in 2000 showed that existing residential areas occupied 585.04 hectares of land, exceeding the land allotted in the decree by 27 hectares.

Another survey in 2002 revealed that residential areas in the district now measured 5,850.412 hectares, or 35.83 percent of the total territory of Kelapa Gading.

These figures blatantly contradict the aim of the subdistrict to develop green areas.

The survey also showed that existing green areas in the district covered 714.1 hectares, or 4.37 percent of the total territory. The green areas consist of recreation areas and sports grounds (41.6 hectares) and waterways and water ponds (672.5 hectares).

According to the land use decree, Kelapa Gading should develop 58.14 hectares of parks and accompanying facilities and 58.24 hectares of other green areas such as cemeteries and recreation areas. With the development of these facilities, it was expected that green areas would cover 7.22 percent of the district by 2005.

So far, however, none of these facilities have been developed. Moreover, a target of 7.22 percent of green areas is far from what is set in the 2010 City Master Plan.

The Master Plan allocates 13.94 percent of the total area of the city toward green areas, but even this is far from the ideal figure of 30 percent.