Saturday, January 9, 2010 9:10 PM Be a member & get the benefits! Register or login Coalition seeks greater say in city’s future

Jakarta ; More than 20 people from NGOs gathered Monday to discuss the 2030 spatial planning draft while questioning the limited public participation in the process of the draft’s development.

The meeting also led to the formation of the People’s Coalition for Jakarta 2030 to raise public participation in planning the city for the next 20 years.

“We’re not criticizing the draft yet because we first need to know more about several unclear points,” said Suryono Herlambang, a lecturer at Tarumanagara University’s School of Spatial Planning and Real Estate.

He added the coalition wanted to push the city administration to be more active in talking to the public about what Jakarta should look like in the future.

“We want more details,” he said.

The meeting found, for instance, that the draft used the expression “climate change” but did not really explain which parts of Jakarta would be affected by it or how to help mitigate the impacts.

The NGOs, comprising those concerned with housing, transportation, water management, the environment, justice for the poor, waste management, and urban architecture, also questioned the assumption the city had used as the basis of the projection.

“The draft limits the population to 10 million, for instance, but we don’t really know about the distribution or how they got to the figure of 10 million,” Herlambang said.

The consequences of the points in the spatial plan were also of concern, Herlambang went on.
“That’s another point that emerged at the discussion. Reading the draft, it’s not immediately clear what will happen in the future.”

“River normalization,” he pointed out, could mean thousands of people being evicted in the future, but this was not clear.

“What we want now is for the city to allow greater public access so we can start mapping our future together,” Herlambang