Jakarta 2030: Public input needed

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 12/24/2009 10:10 AM

What will Jakarta be like in 2030? Would you entrust the future to city officials or would you want a say yourself?

Several urban activists who live in and love Jakarta gathered Wednesday at Tarumanagara University (Untar) in West Jakarta to emphasize that they should have a say in shaping the city’s future.

They claimed the city administration had compiled a document called RTRW (spatial planning) Jakarta 2010-2030 with almost no input from the public. The 2007 Spatial Planning Law stipulates that public participation is required when designing a city masterplan, but the administration has clearly failed to adhere to this law.

“They said they would have a campaign publicizing the planning draft to the people, but I have not heard any announcement or news on this,” Elisa Sutanudjaja, an architecture lecturer at Pelita Harapan University said.

Suryono Herlambang, a spatial planning lecturer at Untar, which hosted the meeting, said the city’s Regional Planning Agency (Bappeda) invited him in November to discuss the masterplan draft, but he found it to be lacking.

“What they meant by public participation is presenting us with the highly technical draft and asking for our opinions,” Herlambang said.

He said, as a spatial planning expert, even he could not immediately grasp the draft details.

“Even non-technical people should be able to envisage Jakarta in 2030,” Sri Palupi, the director of the Institute for Ecosoc Rights, said.

Bappeda has created the rtrwjakarta2030.com website where people can download the plan. However, Irvan Pulungan from the Indonesian Center from Environmental Law said not all resident had access to the Internet.

The website was set up in the third week of December, and Elisa said she received information that Bappeda were accepting emails from the public at rtrwdkijakarta@gmail.com until Jan. 10.

Herlambang said the contents of the plan itself seemed to pose a lot of problems that residents should scrutinize. Compared to 2030 masterplans for Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, New York City and London, Herlambang said Jakarta’s plan lacked vision.

Sydney planners, for example, stated in a separate “Vision Book” that they wanted a “sustainable city,” a city “with walkable streets,” “which celebrates outdoor life,” “which is not clogged by cars.”

Palupi added that Jakarta’s masterplan clearly lacked a human aspect as it included no mention of people or the demographic makeup of Jakarta.

Elisa said the masterplan had conflicting ideas. She said it included plans to build toll roads, which would encourage private car use but on the other hand, it planned a “park and ride” system, which suggested a well-planned public transportation.

Following the two hour discussion, the participants, comprising around a dozen people concerned with issues such as the environment, the economy, society, habitat, and urban poor, agreed they should help the city increase public participation.

They said they would scrutinize the masterplan and meet again on Jan. 7 to highlight problems and offer solutions.

Marco Kusumawijaya from the rujak.org community said participants accepted the 2030 masterplan was important, therefore they wanted to participate in shaping it. “We are concerned and we want to say, please take a look at New York, Melbourne and Sydney,” he said. “We want to be involved and we will do this with energy and courage.”