Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – The city administration revealed on Monday that it had sold one of 22 small lakes in the Greater Jakarta area to private developers.
A hearing between officials of the City Public Works Agency and the City Council Commission D for development affairs revealed that the city administration sold Situ Rawa Badung in Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta, to developers who are constructing a business center in the area.
"The lake was 'sold' to private developers and the city administration was also given shares in the business center that is being developed in the area," said an official of the agency, Andi Baso M.
According to Andi, an agreement between the city administration and several developers including PT Nusa Kirana and PT Metropolitan Kencana, the five hectares of Situ Rawa Badung, is to be reduced to just one hectare, while the rest is to be developed into a business area.
Several legislators also questioned the conversion of areas close to lakes into housing or golf courses, such as the development of a housing project in the area around Situ Rorotan in North Jakarta.
Deputy head of the Public Works Agency Fodly Misbach said that the remaining lakes in Jakarta and its satellite cities were in poor condition.
He cited Situ Rorotan, which originally covered 50 hectares, but it is now only around 5 hectares; Situ Babagan in South Jakarta, which has been reduced from 23 hectares to 17 hectares; Situ Mangga Bolong, also in South Jakarta, which is down from 15 hectares to 12 hectares.
"Many others have become open space or turned into rice fields, and some are illegally occupied by squatters," Fodly told The Jakarta Post.
Fodly said the city administration was powerless in handling the squatters, saying that squatters in the area around Situ Mangga Bolong had once demanded Rupiah 240 million in compensation when they were told to leave.
He admitted that the Greater Jakarta area only had 720 hectares of water catchment areas or around 2.8 percent of the total area of the capital. "This is far below from the ideal figure, which should be around 8 percent," he said.
City planning experts had earlier said that the disappearing lakes contributed to worsening the floods in the capital as the water, which should have been intercepted by the lakes, now flooded other areas.
Other factors that have contributed to exacerbate the floods included the conversion of greenbelts along riverbanks, swamp areas as well as protected mangrove forests, into residential and business developments. Most of them were built after the administration had reduced the green areas under the revision of the city masterplan in 1995.
Among those were Plaza Senayan shopping mall, Hotel Mulia, Pondok Indah Hospital, Sunter industrial zone, housing at Pantai Indah Kapuk and Taman Anggrek condominium and shopping center.