Dessy Sagita – City planning experts called on the Jakarta administration on Monday to tighten supervision of land use, building permits and development to prevent worsening floods and traffic jams, two traditional woes in the capital.

"Jakarta is like a severely obese person and it needs a super strict diet to get healthier," Yayat Supriyatna, a city planning expert at the private Trisakti University, told a media discussion.

According to Yayat, Jakarta, a city of around 12 million people, is experiencing a green area problem as malls and other commercial buildings continue to gobble up vacant land.

"Jakarta is [probably] the biggest mall city in the world with 130 malls, or 173 if you want to count satellite cities such as Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi," he said, adding that the city only has four public parks.

"Jakarta's open green areas account for less than 10 percent of the city's land area, far below the 30 percent required by the central government and the 13.9 percent targeted by the city administration," Yayat said.

The steady conversion of green areas for commercial purposes such as shopping centers and office buildings has led to a plague of floods in the capital over the past few years.

Yayat also said that many areas in Jakarta that were supposed to be conservation areas had been converted into business districts.

"Take TB Simatupang [in South Jakarta], for example, the place should be for conservation but it's now packed with tall buildings and malls," he said, adding that city records in 2008 alone showed that more than 3,400 buildings in the city violated planning regulations.

The city administration has dismantled some buildings found to have violated land-use permits, but their numbers seem to have outpaced city public order officers working to tear them down.

Gunawan Tjahjono, a professor of architecture at the state-owned University of Indonesia, said that a moratorium on city development might be needed. However, he said completely stopping development would be impossible, so the best solution would be to conduct regular raids on buildings that flouted permits.