Within Two Years, Anies Accelerates Urban Park Construction to Realize the Third Place for Citizens

For the recent two years, Jakarta Government accelerates public infrastructure development as the 'third place' for Jakarta citizens. Third place is a place where people interact, where each development has a value called Equality.

Most importantly, its main purpose is to add RTH and make it as a place for citizens to interact

One of the massive Third Place development carried out by Jakarta Government is City Park such as Maju Bersama City Park or other green open spaces (RTH)s such as Dukuh Atas Park in Central Jakarta, Kembang Kerep Park in West Jakarta, and other parks that already exist and need to be revitalized, such as Menteng Park and Lapangan Banteng Park, Central Jakarta.

"Maju Bersama Park is a part of existing Children-Friendly Integrated Public Space (RPTRA). Each Maju Bersama Park is constructed according to the needs of local residents. Most importantly, its main purpose is to add RTH and make it as a place for citizens to interact," conveyed Suzy Marsitawati, Jakarta Forestry Department Head, as quoted from Jakarta PPID Press Conference, Tuesday (10/15).

Forestry Department Revitalizes Two Parks in Jakarta with Grande Park Concept

Jakarta Provincial Government has targeted to build 261 Maju Bersama Park as mentioned in Jakarta Medium-Term Development Planning (RPJMD) 2018-2022. Through this development, city wants citizens to be able to access parks and RTHs within radius about 300 meters by foot.

Thus, park can be used as a place to bring together differences in social classes of society, and also place for human to meet the nature. In 2018, city targeted to build 21 Maju Bersama Parks with total budget Rp 27.3 billion.

From that target, only 10 Maju Bersama Parks projects were auctioned and 7 of them have been completed with budget Rp 10 billion.

In 2019, city's target increases into 53 Maju Bersama Parks with budget Rp 130 billion on total 335,807 square meters land. For its realization per October 2, 2019, construction process of 30 parks have reached about 80-90 percent. While the remaining parks are between 40-80 percent and below 40 percent, some of them are still hampered due to land issue or auction result. But, Anies ensures physical construction of 53 Maju Bersama Parks will be finished on December 10, 2019.

These are locations of Taman Maju Bersama that have reached 90 percent progress: Kampung Jati RTH, East Jakarta; Kamping Baru Park RTJ, West Jakarta; Jalan Centex RTH, East Jakarta; Mangga XIV RTH, West Jakarta; Jalan Panglima Polim II RTH, South Jakarta; Jalan Setapak RTH, East Jakarta; and Jalan Kebagusan Raya RTH, South Jakarta.

Anies asserted, Maju Bersama Park (TMB) construction has different paradigm than previous parks, which is Children-Friendly Integrated Public Space (RTPRA). Even though both of them are included as Green Open Space (RTH), TMB is different since it has more variations, thematical, built based on its land characteristic and size, and also built collaboratively with the community.

Maju Bersama Park is dominated by open space which concept is more tendency to 'park' than 'garden'. Since it is located in the middle of settlement, locals are expected to be more flexible in using this park, such as playing on the grass because not many facilities built on this park.

From the ecological side, this park can be functioned as water catchment area to maintain availability of groundwater, especially during dry season.

One example of successful development of Maju Bersama Park is Piknik Park located on Jalan Manunggal II, Cipinang Melayu, Makasar, East Jakarta. In this 1-hectare land, residents not only enjoy the greens, but also the cool air since it has artificial lake with various types of fish in it and hyacinth plants.

Besides Maju Bersama Park, city also revitalizes two types of Grande Park in 2019; Mataram Park and Puring Park. Revitalization on both parks is carried out on August 16 and targeted to finish on December 15, 2019.

Grande Park is different with Maju Bersama Park, where it is more emphasized on revitalizing large-scale parks but still use it as water retention area. Concept of this park is Fun Transit Park, where it is built to facilitate pedestrian since it is integrated with public transportation. Thus Grande Park is not only provided to support RTH (ecology), but also equipped with playground (playful), and it can be accessed by anyone including people with disability (inclusive).

Needs of RTH in Jakarta is not only realized to fulfill the mandate of legislation but also to response residents towards high air pollution in Jakarta. On August 1, 2019, Jakarta Governor, Anies Baswedan signed Governor Instruction (Ingub) No. 66/2019 regarding Air Quality Control.

In this Ingub, Anies wants to intensify plantation of pollutant-absorbing plants from this year and instructs building management to apply green building concept. Plants that are emphasized to be planted massively are bougenvillea, tabebuia, sansiviera (snake plant), and golden pothos.

In the other hand, this movement is not enough to be done only by the Jakarta Provincial Government, ut also needs intensive collaboration from communities. Thus on August 18, 2019, Anies launched #200Taman2JutaTanaman movement that involves various institutions and communities in environmental sector. Through this movement, city plans to plant 500,000 trees and 1,500,000 decorative plants. Until September 2019, his side has planted 339,590 decorative plants and 6,787 trees.

Presence of Urban Parks in Jakarta shows that Jakarta Government is fully committed to implement the comfort 'third place' for its citizens.  

Moreover, city arrangement becomes more advanced since it involves all components of society in accordance with City 4.0 concept.