Indonesia picks Borneo island for new capital

Yahoo – AFP, August 26, 2019

Indonesia wants to move its capital from congested Jakarta to a new
purpose-built city in east Kalimantan (AFP Photo/BAY ISMOYO)

Indonesia will move its capital to the eastern edge of jungle-clad Borneo island, President Joko Widodo said Monday, as the country shifts its political heart away from congested and sinking megalopolis Jakarta.

The proposed location -- near the regional cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda -- is an area at "minimal" risk of natural disasters, where the government already owns some 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of land, he added.

"The location is very strategic -- it's in the centre of Indonesia and close to urban areas," Widodo said in a televised speech.

"The burden Jakarta is holding right now is too heavy as the centre of governance, business, finance, trade and services," he added.

The announcement ends months of speculation about whether Widodo would follow through on the long-mooted plan -- it was floated by the newly independent country's founding father Sukarno more than half a century ago.

Map of Indonesia showing approximate area of the proposed 

site of the country's new capital. (AFP Photo/AFP)

Shifting from problem-plagued Jakarta would also transfer Indonesia's power base off Java island, where about half of the sprawling archipelago's 260 million people live.

"Moving the capital off Java is a gesture that aims to solidify unity," said Jakarta-based political risk analyst Kevin O'Rourke.

"Jakarta will continue to be a megacity -- as a centre for finance and commerce -- for a few more decades, but ultimately it is at severe risk to climate change," he added.

A bill for the proposed move will now be presented to parliament, Widodo said.

Building is set to begin next year with the move of some 1.5 million civil servants slated to begin by 2024, at a cost of 466 trillion rupiah ($33 billion), officials said.

Orangutans, mining

Known as Kalimantan, Indonesia's section of Borneo -- the island it shares with Malaysia and Brunei -- is home to major mining activities as well as rainforests, and is one of the few places on Earth with orangutans in their natural habitat.

The area around Samboja, Kutai Kartanegara, is one of two locations in 

Eastern Kalimantan chosen as a possible site for the new capital (AFP Photo/

Fachmi RACHMAN)

Environmentalists expressed concerns the capital city move could threaten endangered species.

"The government must make sure that the new capital is not built in a conservation or protected area," said Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner Jasmine Putri.

The region has also been blanketed in choking haze from annual forest fires that ravage vast swathes of land.

"That makes Kalimantan unfit as a candidate for a new capital city," said Jakarta-based urban planning expert Nirwono Joga.

"And the move won't necessarily free Jakarta of problems like flooding, traffic jams and rapid urbanisation," he added.

Map showing the tidal inundation of Jakarta in 2012 and projected 

expansion in 2025 and 2050. (AFP Photo/Janis LATVELS)

Concerns have soared over the future of Jakarta -- a city nicknamed "the Big Durian" after the pungent, spiky fruit that deeply divides fans and detractors.

Built on swampland, the city is one of the fastest-sinking cities on earth, with experts warning that one third of it could be submerged by 2050 if current rates continue. The problem is largely linked to excessive groundwater extraction.

But the city of 10 million -- a number that bloats to about 30 million with surrounding satellite cities -- is also plagued by a host of other ills, from eye-watering traffic jams and pollution to the risk of earthquakes and floods.

Indonesia is not the first Southeast Asian country to move its capital.

Myanmar and Malaysia have both moved their seat of government, while Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria are among the nations that have also shifted their capital cities.

Indonesia to Build Ten New Cities on Outer Islands

Jakarta Globe, Mar 24, 2015

Development Planning Minister Andrinof Chaniago, left, wants to develop new
urban areas across Indonesia to deal with poverty and unemployment. (Antara
Foto/Vitalis Yogi Trisna)

Jakarta. The government intends to build ten new cities in remote parts of Indonesia, Andrinof Chaniago, head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), announced on Tuesday.

The first new city will be Tanjung Selor in North Kalimantan, the new province founded in 2012 on land that used to be part of East Kalimantan province. Tanjung Selor is the capital of North Kalimantan, but currently only has 42,000 inhabitants. The administration of President Joko Widodo now wants to turn the town into a true city.

“We will start the [development of] ten cities during the term of this administration,” Andrinof said on Tuesday, as quoted by state-owned news agency Antara.

The Bappenas head explained that the purpose of  developing new urban areas throughout Indonesia was to boost equitable economic growth in the regions outside Java to decrease poverty and unemployment.

Andrinof declined to provide additional details about the plan.

Moving Indonesia's Capital ‘No Help to Jakarta’

Jakarta Globe, Faisal Maliki Baskoro | September 20, 2010

Jakarta. Not so fast. Any recent dreams of cruising along Jakarta boulevards swept clear by a relocation of the capital to Kalimantan will likely continue to be just that: dreams.

Moving Indonesia's capital from Jakarta would
have little impact on the city, experts say.

International experts in urban planning and policy say moving Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta would have little to no effect on the overcrowding and crushing traffic endured by its residents.

The idea has gained ground in recent weeks, and the government announced last month that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was seriously considering a plan to relocate the capital, with Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan and Jonggol in West Java as the two most likely sites. Officials said Yudhoyono’s plan, also floated by presidents Sukarno and Suharto, was motivated partly by a desire to even the disparity in the country’s regional development.

For many Jakartans, though, the big boon would be a freeing up of the crippling traffic, which moves at an excruciating eight kilometers per hour, on average, costing at least $1.4 billion a year in lost productivity. And it will only get worse. The Jakarta city administration has predicted total gridlock by 2012 without drastic action, as the population grows and car sales soar by about 15 percent annually.

But Kenneth Corey, a professor of urban and regional planning at Michigan State University, says moving the capital would be no help.

“I know of no evidence that documents conclusively that traffic congestion is reduced by relocating all or some capital functions out of a national capital,” Corey said. He conducted an extensive study of capital relocations and their implications for South Korea’s now-abandoned plan to totally relocate its capital.

Wendell Cox, an expert on urban policy and transportation issues with the consultancy Demographia, said residents of Greater Jakarta could look forward to ever-worsening gridlock regardless of where the capital was moved. Cox noted that Jakarta, as the nation’s commercial hub, would continue to experience explosive population growth in the coming decades, as well as surging sales of automobiles.

Cox said relocating Brazil’s capital from Rio de Janeiro, Pakistan’s from Karachi and Nigeria’s from Lagos did not prevent those cities from extending their sprawl. He said Rio’s population had tripled since the capital was moved to Brasilia in 1960, while that of Lagos, which ceded capital status to Abuja in 1991, is expected to grow to 15 million by 2025 from an estimated nine million now.

He said the population of Greater Jakarta, or Jabodetabek, which he estimated at 26 million people now, would grow to nearly 40 million by 2050, regardless of whether the capital was moved.

“Based upon the experiences of Abuja, Islamabad and Brasilia, I would be surprised if a new remote capital would reduce Jakarta’s future population by more than two million, and it could be substantially less than that. A megacity of 38 million would be just as unmanageable as one of 40 million,” he said. He estimated that the 40 million mark would be reached by 2030.

Cox stressed that ultimately, while relocating the capital might make Jakarta marginally less crowded and would have other benefits, the city was still destined to suffer gridlock without a massive investment in infrastructure.

“If a principal objective of the capital move is to reduce traffic congestion, then it would be far better to spend the money on the infrastructure needed to do that rather than taking the approach of moving the capital to reduce traffic congestion,” he said.

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Special Report: Creating Clean, Green Cities of the Future

Jakarta Globe, April 11, 2010, Dody Rochadi

Jakarta is far from being classified as a green city.

On 16 February 2005, an international agreement on how to tackle climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, was ratified by over 140 countries. At that time, the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, decided to promote the aspirations of the Kyoto Protocol in Seattle. He also encouraged other cities in the United States to follow suit by urging those in positions of leadership to consider adopting the principles of the Kyoto Protocol through the Climate Protection Agreement and creating green cities.

By June 2005, 141 mayors had signed on. By early 2009, the agreement had been signed by 935 mayors, in cities with a combined population of 83 million.

Today, many city mayors are working to get their cities focused on the environment. Though trying to achieve green city status, leaders are acting to improve the quality of the air, lower the use of non-renewable resources, encourage the building of green homes, offices, and other structures, create more green spaces, support environmentally friendly methods of transportation, and offer recycling programs.

The United Arab Emirates and China are two vastly different countries. But several years from now, they will have one thing in common — they both will have the first green cities in the world. Yes, China and the United Arab Emirates are currently preparing cities that have everything human beings could ever dream of such as clean air and clean water.

China is a country know for being polluted. No visitor returns without remarking on it. Car headlights gleam through the smog.

In April 2007, the government twice issued its most severe Air Pollution Index rating, which advises that the aged and ill should stay indoors.

This condition has been going on for a very long time, until the government embarked on a bold, expensive experiment to see whether pollution and waste – of all forms, not just the kind that taints the air – can be drastically reduced or even eliminated.

In March 2007, the government broke ground on what it called the world’s first eco-city. Designed by the London-based global consulting firm Arup Group, Dongtan is to be built on an island that is just a ferry ride away from central Shanghai. The government expects that by the time of the Expo, the new enclave would be a showcase city of 8,000 and it would have 1 million residents by 2050.

Dongtan will ban all polluting cars, even the most advanced hybrids. It will dig canals for waterways. On its streets, people will get around using electric cars, bicycles or just their legs.

The city would recycle as much as possible, including all its wastewater, grow food on its own environmentally-sensitive farms, and create all its own energy in non-polluting ways — wind, solar, and the burning of human and animal waste.

Most of these technologies are not new, and many are commonly used in Western Europe, Asia or the United States. What will make Dongtan unique is the integration of environmentally friendly practices and the strict exclusion of older, polluting ones.

If it is unusual for a business deal to be witnessed by the heads of two of the world’s most powerful nations, so too is the idea of creating from scratch an eco-city as large as Manhattan and more populous than Edinburgh or Atlanta.

But building cities virtually overnight is nothing new for the Chinese. In 1980, the central government created a special economic zone for Shenzhen, at the time a small fishing village about an hour from Hong Kong. These days, it’s a sprawling metropolis of 9 million.

While China will have Dongtan, the United Arab Emirates will have its own green city which will be named Masdar City. It is a city which is designed to have no carbon emissions, cars, or waste. It will cost $22 billion and take eight years to build. It will be able to hold a population of 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city will cover 1,483 acres. Masdar City is being designed by Foster and Partners, a British company.

The city will have a personal electrical power supply mainly from two renewable energy sources — wind turbines and solar panels. Water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant and air conditioning will be provided naturally from wind towers.

It is forecast to save more than $2 billion in oil costs over the next 25 years along with creating more than 70,000 jobs.

The immense project will be supported by a company created for it called “Masdar Initiative”, which will develop and commercialize clean energy technologies. It will also be supported by the World Wildlife Fund, a global conservation charity, and it is hoped that international joint ventures will bring in more money.

Both Dongtan and Masdar are currently still undergoing development and we won’t see the results for at least 8 years. So, are we saying that we can only start having green cities many years from now? Is there any chance that we could start today?

A sustainability ranking of 30 major European cities was released in December 2009 in Copenhagen, the Scandinavian city that besides hosting the recent United Nations climate change talks, has been ranked in first place in the new European Green City Index.

The study, sponsored by Siemens and developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked 30 major cities across Europe relative to one another in eight categories with 30 underlying qualitative and quantitative indicators.

The top cities are, in order — Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Vienna and Amsterdam.

Don’t think that this ranking is of the “Greenest Cities” in Europe, even though it’s called the European Green City Index. Such an assumption is made by many about city sustainability indexes.

Some of our biggest challenges in cutting carbon to reduce global climate change will be in understanding the system dynamics that cities and other complex entities such as corporations, neighborhoods or even our households comprise. We no longer have the luxury of viewing our energy sources, food, water, buildings and land as separate, unrelated systems, even if business, government and academic institutions have been formulated according to this silo-type way of thinking.

Now that we have seen examples and pictures of how a green city can actually be realized, it leave us with a question — “what has your government done to make your city green?”

Community-based green areas needed, say NGOs

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In response to the administration's plan to evict thousands of residents in 2008 to make way for green areas, organizations have offered a community-based approach in revitalizing green areas.

The organizations said they believed that the concept would benefit the city, the communities and the public.

"The city could save some budget money for revitalization and maintenance, while it would still get the green areas," Nurkholis Hidaya from Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) told a press conference Wednesday.

Nurkholis said that in the draft of the city budget, the institute noted that during 2008 the city planned to evict 16 communities to get 55,540 square meters of green areas. The fund for the evictions and revitalization is set at Rp 27.3 billion.

The series of evictions is another phase in the administration's plan to increase the city's existing green area, 9.6 percent of its total 9,156 hectares, to 13.9 percent by 2010.

Among the 16 communities to be moved are the fish and flower traders on Jl. Barito, who were evicted on Jan. 18. The next community to be evicted is ceramics and rattan traders in Rawasari, Central Jakarta.

Vendors in Rawasari got their eviction orders on Wednesday.

LBH Jakarta and the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), which helped Barito fish and flower sellers protest against the move, said communities in Jakarta were smart. They had the capacity to offer solutions to the city's problems, if the city administration allowed them, the groups said.

"We work with at least two architecture firms, which support community-based design. For Barito, the YP+A firm had designed a lively hybrid park," Nurkholis said.

He said it was unfortunate the administration had decided to its own design, despite praising the one proposed by the vendors.

Selamet Daroyni from Walhi said the city's plan to evict thousands was unfair and showed the city did not have the courage to shut down the malls and hotels sitting on formerly green areas and instead preferred to tackle the powerless.

"Jakarta's green areas have dwindled from 37.2 percent in 1965 to 6.2 percent in 2007, largely thanks to the developments of large commercial buildings like malls and hotels," Selamet said in the conference.

"The communities only use a small percentage the green areas, about 10 percent, probably," he added. "Therefore, we think the city's attempt to evict these communities won't touch the source of Jakarta's environmental problems."

Entering the epicenter

The Jakarta Post

At this moment, Rasuna Epicentrum is probably one of the most ambitious superblock developments in Jakarta, on a parallel with other mixed-use areas like the Sudirman Central Business District and Mega Kuningan. I consider the mixed-use development concept to be the most appropriate for living in the city center.

The concept abandons the ancient zoning separations of commercial and residential, which play a major role in generating vehicle traffic. Some urban planners believe that the mixed-use concept can help reduce our carbon footprint.

In order to succeed, the complex should generate more pedestrian traffic because of the close proximity between living spaces and workplaces, rather than motorized vehicle traffic to avoid congestion. A mass transportation hub should be connected with the pedestrian network of the complex.

Designed by Urbane, a Bandung-based architectural design office, the entrance gate of the Rasuna Epicentrum complex takes a whole different approach to traditional gate design, emphasizing accessibility and the resurfacing of the landscape.

The resurfacing strategy, which involves applying different paving materials for various purposes, has two important tasks: to slow down motorized traffic and to create a more pleasant sidewalk. Rough paving stones are used to reduce the speed of the motorists. The sidewalk is paved with a similar but finer texture to the road and leveled with the road rather than being raised, so it appears there is only slight difference between the road and the sidewalk. In my opinion, this gesture is a part of the effort of converting the gate area to a square-like place that is more pedestrian friendly.

However, some minor details have to come to my attention. The area is also paved with crisscrossing lines which have no meaning when viewed from the street level. We can only see and understand how those lines are interconnected with one another when we view them from above.

Those lines are set in a highly complex and illogical pattern, and consequently it is obvious that some of the construction workers are still struggling to finish laying it out.

I wish that the pattern was not excessively decorative and that it did not discard its functional values. The pattern could have been used to define pathways for pedestrians and motorists.

In most cities in Japan, pedestrian markings with extruded surface textures are used to increase accessibility by creating paths for the blind. At Rasuna Epicentrum, if a blind person tried to follow the interweaving path, he or she would bump into a light pole or end up in the middle of the street.

I must commend Rasuna Epicentrum's efforts in their approach for improving pedestrian environment in the area. I have been enjoying that short stretch of the road, and hopefully the effort will continue into the whole new complex and become a prototype for similar development in other areas. The entrance gate also represents how improving public amenities can be accomplished through collaboration with the private sector.

Zenin Adrian can be reached at zenin.adrian@zadl.net

Communities learn how to treat household waste

Agnes Winarti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Education programs are being introduced across the city to help Jakarta go green and its residents become more environmentally aware.

"We (have started) by educating residents with the simplest task of sorting out their domestic waste," said Harry Poli Riyanto from Pondok Kelapa subdistrict.

For two years, Harry has run a local composting system and he said, "Most residents aren't educated or accustomed to manage waste in their home".

The 40-year-old father of two, along with a handful of his neighbors, other residents and members of the subdistrict board, said he would expand his program at the 20,000-square-meter city forest in Jl. Haji Dogon, Pondok Kelapa, Duren Sawit, East Jakarta.

The forest today sees composted about 40 percent of its leaf waste, 30 percent of market and domestic organic waste, as well as 30 percent of animal waste from chicken, goat, cow and horse meat products.

"Raising people's awareness to sort out their domestic organic waste is a tough job, I know," Harry said.

He also said most organic waste for the composting program came from the nearby market instead of residential homes.

It is estimated a community unit (RW) with some 500 families can produce an average of 500 kg in daily waste.

There are 13 RWs in the Pondok Kelapa subdistrict and Harry, who has been living there for nine years, said an estimated 95 percent of the total 130,000 people in the area were not yet aware of the importance of waste management.

Only 20 percent of the residents are willing to sort out their organic waste from their non-organic waste, he said, "However, even the 20 percent do not always do that".

"They still need to be constantly reminded."

No residents were currently involved in the three-week process of decomposing the mix of waste into fertilizer.

Harry said the program paid two to three sanitation workers to monitor the humidity of the mixed waste piled in the city forest.

The fertilizer is then packed into 2.5 kg sacks.

"The most important thing is we want to inspire others to make an effort in creating a cleaner and greener living environment," Harry said.

He was referring to the lines of lush medication plants fertilized with compost.

They deliberately put the plants at the front yard of the subdistrict office because he said residents often relaxed there.

The compost fertilizer is currently being sold for Rp 4,000 per 2.5 kg sack to residents.

"We use the income sales to pay two to three sanitation officers, who daily monitor the piles of the composted waste in the forest."

Harry said he hoped city administration would support them by allocating funds for the program.

"We need to keep informing the public about this kind of waste management.

"At the moment we are only able to recycle the organic waste.

"We hope that one day we will also be able to process non-organic waste," Harry said.

In 2001, a similar waste recycling program operated from a small waste dump at Jl. Haji Naman, just a stone's throw from the Pondok Kelapa city forest.

The composting program, which used machines, unfortunately only lasted for about a year.

Not many residents were even aware of its about its existence at the time.

Ari, 24, who has lived in Pondok Kelapa since childhood, said she had heard of some composting programs held in areas around Jakarta, but not one in her immediate area.

Jakarta has a major garbage problem, producing more than 6,000 tons of waste per day.

Although most of the city's waste goes to the 108-hectare sanitary landfill in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, at least 118 hectares of land in Jakarta is still occupied by garbage.

The city has one recycling plant capable of processing around 500 tons of waste in Cakung Cilincing, North Jakarta.

Jakarta plans to evict more squatters near railways, dam

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government and the Jakarta administration are planning to dismantle more than 15,000 shanties around railways and the Pluit dam in North Jakarta.

State-owned railway operator PT Kereta Api said Friday illegal properties around railways had disturbed its operations.

"We'll be dismantling approximately 5,220 illegal properties around railways in December, in line with the reviving of circle-line train operations," said the company's public relations head for operation district I, Akhmad Sujadi.

"The company and the city administration will work jointly every day on the evictions. Hopefully, all circle-line tracks will be cleared of shanties by the end of the year."

He said squatters occupied spaces alongside circle-line tracks because those spaces had gone unused for two decades due to low demand.

PT Kereta Api removed 120 shanties around Senen train station and Kemayoran train station, both in Central Jakarta, on Thursday, a day before the circle-line train was launched.

The company also dismantled 660 shanties around Gaplok traditional market in Central Jakarta in January this year, said Akhmad.

The circle-line train runs through five municipalities, beginning at Manggarai train station in South Jakarta and stopping at nine other stations.

The Jakarta Public Works Agency said it would "relocate" squatters currently living in the 10,000 shanties around Pluit dam in North Jakarta next year.

"The squatters around Pluit dam have been littering and clogging the dam," said the agency's water resources and coast development division head, I Gde Nyoman Soeandhi.

"The agency wants to relocate all 70,000 squatters living around dams and riverbanks next year because they have disturbed water flow. But we have a limited budget."

The implementation of the relocation plans, he said, would be the North Jakarta mayor's responsibility.

In response to future mass evictions, Urban Poor Consortium director Wardah Hafidz said both the government and the administration had breached the Habitat II Convention signed in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1996, and the Economic and Social Rights Convention, which Indonesia ratified.

The conventions, she said, prohibited governments from evicting squatters before providing them with "beneficial alternatives".

"What often happens is that either the government or the administration evicts squatters and leaves them with more miserable lives," said Wardah.

"Those evicted often are not able to reach the same social and economic levels they once had. They can't afford low-cost apartments either."

Such apartments, she said, were priced between Rp 90,000 (US$9.60) and Rp 190,000 a month, excluding water and electricity.

President Yudhoyono to officiate integrated city in W. Sulawesi

Makassar (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to officiate the development of a self-reliant and integrated city in Mamuju district, West Sulawesi, in December this year, West Sulawesi Governor Anwar Adnan Saleh said here last night.

"God`s willing, President Yudhoyono will next month declare the commencement of the self-reliant and integrated city`s infrastructure development in Mamuju with a total fund of Rp2.3 trillion from 2008-2009 state budget," Governor Anwar Adnan Saleh said.

The governor pointed out that the integrated city with education facilities, houses of worship, markets, warehouses, roads, and other supporting facility including people`s forest and plantation would be built on a 350-hectare plot of land in Mamuju, around 630 kilometers north of here.

After declaring the development of the integrated city, President Yudhoyono and his entourage would inspect the infrastructure development of roads and bridges, pier of Belang-Belang Port, and the expansion of Tampapadang airport`s runway.

West Sulawesi province which was separated from South Sulawesi province in 2005 has five districts, namely Mamuju district, Majene district, Polewali Mandar district, Masamba district, and Mamuju Utara district with the total population of 1.2 million.

Tougher drain laws to tackle city floods

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration plans to give heavier sanctions for buildings that do not have adequate rain water drainage -- also known as water harvest -- installations in place, a city official said in a meeting set by the State Ministry of Environment Monday.

The meeting saw officials from the Greater Jakarta Meteorological and Geophysics body and State Ministry of Environment discuss their plans to mitigate flooding.

Ep Fitratunnisa, head of the Natural Resources Utilization division of Jakarta's Environment Management Board, said a 2005 bylaw on water harvest was "inadequate" and would be revised to include penalties and other measures necessary to ensure compliance by businesses.

"We are still working on the details of the revision, but several businesses and parties have asked for clearer rules on water harvest installations, so this is in our agenda."

Bylaw 68 stipulates that developments larger than 5,000 square meters must include a water absorption area of no less than one percent of the total area.

There are at least 12 types of pits that can be used as water harvest installations. The city has urged residents to consider a biopore system and water absorption wells.

The biopore system utilizes a hand-operated drill to make a hole 100 centimeters deep and 30 centimeters wide which is filled with compost to increase absorption.

Water absorption wells are more involved: small pipes are connected to a 1-meter-wide, 1.5-meter-deep well which should be located near a drainpipe and equipped with sedimentation rocks so rainwater can pour directly into the well, instead of pooling on the ground. Such wells cost around Rp 1 million (Around US $110).

"These wells not only absorb water, they also reduce litter in rivers and roads.

Water harvest installations are gaining popularity as short-term solutions to mitigate flooding, a major problem in the city. Floods in 2002 and 2007 were the worst in memory, costing trillions in damages.

According to Dindin Wahidin, speaker from the State Ministry of Environment, part of the blame also goes to bad city planning and the lack of designated green zones and water catchment sites. Green zones in Jakarta account for only nine percent of the city's total area, much less than the minimum 30 percent required by the Home Affairs Ministry.

Water management expert Fatchy Mohammad, also in the meeting, said it would take one million biopores to make a substantial change in flooding.

Depok is currently intensifying the cleaning of artificial lakes while Bekasi had budgeted Rp 250 million for a water absorption well project. Bogor, often blamed for flash floods, had no new plans. (anw)

Review of building restrictions praised

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

A city planning expert from Udayana University, Putu Rumawan Salain, said Tuesday the Bali provincial administration's plan to re-evaluate restrictions on high-rise developments would protect the environment provided the restrictions were based on a thorough study.

"It is wise to protect the environment, but there are things which must be noted. There must be a comprehensive research into which areas can have high-rises," he said.

The administration said last week it would re-evaluate high-rise development restrictions, particularly the building height limit that uses coconut palms as a yardstick, to prevent the island's "green areas" from disappearing.

A special team has been assigned to study possible changes in zoning regulations and are looking for ways to accommodate local objections to taller buildings with the growing need for land in Bali.

Chairman of Indonesia's Hindu Council I Gusti Ngurah Sudiana objected to the changes, saying that Hindu Balinese do not need high-rise buildings. Balinese Hindu regards high places as sacred.

Rumawan said Bali must find ways to support its growing population. "We need high-rise buildings for hotels, housing, offices, schools and hospitals."

Each big city in Bali has an average population density of 600 persons per square km, higher than the ideal population density of 400 persons per square km. Bali only covers some 563,286 hectares.

The number of paddy fields is "shrinking fast" at a rate of approximately 107 hectares (ha) a year, Tabanan Regent N. Adi Wiryatama said.

The regent said in 2002, there were around 22,842 ha offields in Tabanan, but the area had shrunk to 22,413 hectares in 2006.

Renowned Balinese architect Popo Danes acknowledged the need for constructing buildings vertically to save land, but was concerned at the lack of law enforcement for the regulations.

"There are violations in building permits under the existing regulation, let alone for regulations on more complex buildings," Popo said.

"Before we make a step forward, we should fix the regulation system."

The regulation, enacted more than 20 years ago, prevents the construction of buildings more over 15 meters in height, or above the tops of local coconut trees.

The island only has one high-rise building, Inna Grand Bali Beach hotel, which was constructed in the 1960s before the introduction of the restriction.