Although most of Jakarta has been fortunate enough to avoid major flooding for quite a while, one area that has been hit hard by the recent bouts of unseasonably heavy rain is Kemang, which experienced significant flooding in some areas due to yesterday’s downpour as well as a particularly fierce storm one-and-a-half weeks ago.
The heavily commercialized area, known for its dense clustering of shops, restaurants and nightlife spots, is routinely flooded during rainy season, but these most recent floods stand out as Kemang was affected so much worse than the rest of the capital.
According to Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who has made flood prevention one of the major focal points of his administration, the high water sitting on Kemang’s streets can primarily be blamed on commercial buildings encroaching on the Krukut River which runs through the neighborhood. He has said that the river was once 25 meters in width but that developments have slowly shrunken that figure down to a mere 3 meters, preventing rainwater from being channeled away swiftly.
In fact, the Jakarta government recently did an audit of buildings in the area and found that around 300 buildings in Kemang were violating their permits and spatial planning regulations by building along the Krukut River.
Just as Ahok has been firm in tearing down illegal settlements in other areas of the capital that were built along waterways and causing flooding, the governor has promised that the government will tear down the offending buildings in order to normalize the river’s flow, even the “luxurious” ones built by large commercial developers.
“If they don’t have a proper permit, then surely we will tear them down,” Ahok said at City Hall today as quoted by Kompas.
Ahok said that even if a building did have a proper permit, they would still be torn down although the government would pay the market price for the land.
However, Ahok acknowledged this would not be an easy process. One of the biggest possible offenders is the Kemang Village shopping center and apartment complex, built by property giant Lippo Group. Officials say that the superbloc has built walls around segments of the Krukut and altered the river’s flow in violation of regulations.
Lippo Group argues that their development cannot be blamed for any of the flooding as they have built a 1.8-hectare water reservoir under the shopping center to help contain overflow from the river.
Governor Ahok said he had serious doubts about the effectiveness of their reservoir and called into question the veracity of the results of the environmental impact study that was done to allow Lippo to receive its building permit.
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