Corruption in Spatial Planning
I was invited to give a lecture at the Yale Indonesia Forum Dialogue on April 21, 2017. The other guest lecture was M. Chatib Basri, a former Indonesian Minister of Finance. On the following day, Mr. Basri and I also attended the 16th Northwestern Conference on Indonesia. The theme of the dialogue and conference was “A Nation in Dysfunction: Discourses on Corruption in Indonesia”. A total of five scholars presented their papers in the conference. They offered an insightful analysis of the case of corruptions in various aspects in Indonesia. The presentations revealed some distressing issues of corruption, but offered some recommendations for rectifying the issues.
I enjoyed my time in the dialogue and the conference. It’s a well-organized event and I would like to commend the event organizers for running a successful event. Below is my presentation at the Yale Indonesia Forum Dialogue
The reformation
movement in Indonesia sought to get rid of economic monopolies, fight corruption,
collusion, and nepotism and promote accountable and clean government (Anwar
2005; Nomura 2007). The new system of government after the fall of Suharto’s
New Order regime enacted a more democratic and accountable institutional
setting. One of the new regulations is the transfer of various authorities and
responsibilities from central government to local government. Such a transfer
creates powerful local government and leads to rampant corruption in city and
provincial governments.
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| All photos credit: Amanda Anggita, Yale University The keynote speakers and the conference organizers of the Yale Indonesia Forum Dialogue |
Spatial Planning Laws
in Indonesia
The increases of economic growth and foreign investments in
Indonesia as the results of the deregulation measures in the 1980s had
substantially increased the demand for lands, particularly in the Jakarta
Metropolitan Areas (Firman and Dharmapatni 1994; Firman 1998). The increasing
demand for lands had also resulted in various problems of implementing spatial
plans.
In response to the growing need for coordinating the issues
of spatial plans implementation, in November 1989, the Indonesia government
formed a coordinating team of national spatial planners (Keppres 57/1989) which
was led by the Minister of National Planning. This team was assigned to develop
a set of guidelines for implementing spatial plans. The coordinating team of
spatial plan implementation also prepared a spatial planning bill which then
was passed by the Indonesian parliament in October 1992 and became the first
Indonesian spatial planning law, The Spatial Planning Law 24/1992.
Spatial planning is defined by the Spatial Planning Law
24/1992 as plan-making process (proses perencanaan tata ruang), plan
implementation (pemanfaatan ruang), and development control (pengendalian
pemanfaatan ruang). The provision of the Spatial Planning Law 24/1992 includes
the guidelines of the plan-making process, plan implementation and development
control for national, provincial and local levels.
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| The attendees, keynote speakers and organizers of the Yale Indonesia Forum Dialogue |
The Spatial Planning Law 24/1992 stipulates the principles
of the spatial planning in Indonesia including integrity, sustainability,
effectiveness, efficiency, compatibility, harmony, openness, equality, justice,
and legal protection. The rights,
obligations and participation of the people in the spatial planning are also
stipulated in the Spatial Planning Law 24/1992. The people have the right to
know the spatial plan, participate in the plan-making process and receive just
compensation when their property is acquired for public uses. The detailed
regulation on the rights, obligation and participation of the people in spatial
planning was issued in December 1996 (Peraturan Pemerintah (National
Regulation) 69/1996). This regulation was the first detailed regulation enacted
by the Indonesian government from the Spatial Planning Law 24/1992.
The fundamental institutional changes in Indonesia following
the fall of the New Order Regime also affected the Spatial Planning Law
24/1992. This law was considered to be no longer relevant with new
institutional settings, particularly with the new decentralization laws. This
law was also poorly implemented and considered to be ineffective. The Spatial
Law 24/1992 had no sanction provisions for spatial plan violations.
The Directorate General of Spatial Planning prepared the
bill of spatial planning and actively participated in the deliberation for
nearly two years with the Indonesian parliament. The Indonesian parliament
passed the bill of spatial planning in April 2007 and replaced the Spatial
Planning Law 24/1992. The new law, the Spatial Planning Law 26/2007, contains
some provisions that are not included in the previous law. In accordance with
the new decentralization laws, the Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 stipulates
explicitly the authority of provincial governments (pemerintah provinsi) and of
district governments (pemerintah kabupaten and pemerintah kota) in spatial
planning. The provincial and district governments have a broader authority in
spatial planning. The provincial or district governments can stipulate new
components in their spatial plan that are not stipulated in the higher level of
spatial plans.
The planning periods of national spatial plans (RTRW
Nasional), provincial spatial plans (RTRW Propinsi) and district spatial plans
(RTRW Kabupaten and RTRW Kotamadya) in the Spatial Plan 26/2007 differ from
those in the Spatial Plan 24/1992. The planning periods of each level of
governments are 20 years. The changes of planning periods were made to be
consistent with the National Development and Planning System Law 25/2004. The
Law 25/2004 stipulates that each level of government is required to prepare a
long term development plan (RPJP). The planning periods of RPJP in each level
of government are 20 years. The spatial plans and RPJP of each level of
government become the long term guidelines for the government leaders in each
level (president, governors, and mayors or regents) to govern in their
respective jurisdictions.
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| The Sixteenth Northeastern Conference on Indonesia at Yale University on April 22, 2017 |
The Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 also stipulates the minimal
standard of services in spatial planning. Such provision is to ensure a good
quality of basic services of spatial planning for the Indonesian people. This
is a response to the dissatisfaction of the Indonesian people over the poor
quality of services from the government during the New Order Regime. The
quality of basic services has not improved under the new system of government
in Indonesia. Many local governments do not even know how to efficiently and
effectively manage their resources for providing basic needs and improving
public services in their localities (Firman 2002; Firman 2004; Silver 2005).
The new spatial law provides some new ways for enhancing the
development control including zoning regulation (peraturan zonasi), planning
permits, implementation of incentive and disincentive and imposing sanctions.
The incentives could be tax cuts, compensation, cross subsidy, planning permit
deregulation, and awards. The disincentives include higher taxes, the
limitation of infrastructure, imposing compensation and penalty. The
implementation of incentive and disincentive could be from the central
government to local governments (province, kabupaten and kota), from local
government to other local governments and from governments to community.
Another important provision of the Spatial Planning Law
26/2007 is the sanction provision for spatial plan violations. The sanctions
for spatial plan violations include administrative sanctions and criminal
sanctions. This law stipulates nine types of administrative sanctions including
written warning, temporary activity termination, temporary service termination,
location closure, permit revocation, cancellation, building removal, land use
reconversion, and administrative charges. The criminal sanctions in this law
include imprisonments up to 15 years and penalties up to Rp. 5billions (approximately
US$ 500,000).
The Practice of
Spatial Planning
During the New Order regime, almost all large developers
were well connected to the President Suharto’s family and inner circle. Winarso
and Firman (2002) revealed almost all large developers were well connected to the
President Suharto’s daughters, sons, brother, in-laws and close friends. The
connection to the Suharto’s family and inner circle became an important factor
for the developers to develop their businesses. The closeness to the first
family helped the large developers to expand their business. These interlinks
also occurred among the large developers through cross-shareholding, shared
directors, and joint ventures. The interlinks turned potential competitors into
collaborators and created oligopolistic types of land and housing markets.
Many development decisions made in the JMA were in favor of
the proposed developments from the developers who often bribed the authorities
and the local governments. The spatial plan was poorly implemented.
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| The Sixteenth Northeastern Conference on Indonesia at Yale University on April 22, 2017 |
Cowherd (2005, p. 183) revealed that only some eight percent of the land permitted for housing in the province of West Java was in compliance with the spatial plans. The spatial planning was made to accommodate new development rather than to control undesirable development as confirmed in the following interview with a planner:
The
economic growth and the expansion of employment are more important than the
enforcement of spatial plans. The enforcement of spatial plan is so weak that
spatial plans have simply been ineffective. Spatial plans were frequently
prepared to accommodate the interest of developers rather than to plan for more
sustainable areas and communities. For example, the spatial plans in Purwakarta
and Karawang Regencies in 1995 were prepared to accommodate the interest of the
Bukit Indah City developers (R. Sutriadi, personal communication, 5 September
2011).
The alterations to the statutory spatial plan were very
often made when the proposals from the developer were not recommended in the
statutory spatial plan. Furthermore, the large developers were also allowed to
prepare a new spatial plan then approved by the government (Winarso and Firman
2002).
President Suharto used his extraordinary powers to
circumvent planning and exempted the megaprojects of his family, friends and
business partners from both spatial plans and free-market competition (Cowherd
2005, p. 183). The case of Kapuknaga Beach Tourism Development in the mid-1990s
provides a testament to the use of political elite influences, particularly
those of President Suharto, in the violation of spatial plans. A consortium of
large developers planned to develop the 8,000 hectares of Kapuknaga, a coastal
area in the northern part of the JMA, through land reclamation.
Regardless of these laws and regulations that protect the
Kapuknaga area from land use change, the 8,000 hectares of Kapuknaga Beach
Tourism Development was approved by the Presidential Decree 73/1995, and the
Governor of West Java was appointed as the chair of the Kapuknaga Development
Board (Firman 1999, p. 1039; Wijayanti 1998).
There was also a controversial plan proposed by Bambang
Trihatmodjo, son of the former President Suharto, to develop a new town of
Bukit Jonggol. The 30,000 hectares of
Bukit Jonggol was approved by the Presidential Decree 1/1997for a possible new
Indonesian capital. The size of this new town was almost equal to that of
Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya (Firman 1997, p. 1037). This area was
critical to the water supply of Jakarta and the control of downstream flooding.
The Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 was enacted in a more transparent and accountable system of government. The central government has never issued a presidential decree for approving any gigantic project that violates spatial plans. Nevertheless, the central government still interfered, through several ministries, in local decision-making including local spatial plan decisions.
A recent case in the Senayan Area showed the Jakarta city
administration cannot regulate the areas which are fully controlled by the
central government. The central government through the State Secretariat
(Kantor Sekretariat Negara) leased the 11.2 hectare, unused Taman Ria amusement
park in Senayan Area to PT. Ariobimo Laguna Perkasa, a developer that planned
to transform the unused amusement park into a shopping mall. The project drew
reactions from some members of the House of Representatives who opposed the
conversion of the area into a shopping mall (Tempo Interaktif, 19 July 2010).
The Jakarta spatial plan 2000-2010 and the draft Jakarta
spatial plan 2010-2030 designated the area of the unused amusement park as
green areas. The project of a shopping mall in the area is a violation of the
Jakarta spatial plans by the developer with the support from the central
government. The central government through the State Secretariat has full
authority over the area and disregarded the Jakarta spatial plan when they
leased the area to the developer. This case clearly shows the Jakarta city
administration cannot enforce the spatial plans when the area is fully
controlled by the central government.
In the local government level, the violations of spatial
plans were more rampant than ever. Spatial plan violations before the reformasi
are mostly associated with the central government’s power, particularly with
President Suharto’s extraordinary powers that benefited his family, friends and
business partners. In contrast, spatial plan violations after the reformasi are
mostly associated with local governments that use their decentralized powers
and exploit their natural resources more intensively, as the interview excerpt
below shows:
The decentralized powers have created powerful mayors and regents. They are no longer afraid of their respective governors and the governors are no longer afraid of the Minister of Home Affairs. The spatial plan violations are even worse when the local authorities rent or sell the local assets such as parks and historic buildings to the developers for generating more local revenues (D. Priatmodjo, personal communication, 25 July 2010).
The Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 stipulates the requirement
of at least 30% of urban areas for open spaces, but such a provision is poorly
implemented, particularly by local governments. In the 1970s, green areas made
up between 40 and 50 percent of Jakarta and have been shrinking ever since
(Silver 2007). Green areas in Jakarta in 2009 account for only 9.3 percent of
the city's area (Rukmana 2009).
The proportions of green areas in the Jakarta spatial plans
decreased from 27.6 percent in Rencana Induk Djakarta (Djakarta Master Plan)
1965-1985 and 26.1 percent in Rencana Umum Tata Ruang Jakarta (Jakarta Spatial
Plan) 1985-2005 to 13.94 percent in Rencana Tata Ruang Wilayah Jakarta (Jakarta
Spatial Plan) 2000-2010 (Rukmana 2008). The newer spatial plan accepted the
decreases of green areas and validated the violations of the previous spatial
plans (Steinberg 2007). The decreases of green areas in the three Jakarta
spatial plans strongly indicate the spatial plan violations.
The Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 provides the sanction
provision for spatial plan violations but the government failed to impose
sanctions against the conversion of green areas in the Jakarta Metropolitan
Area. The spatial plans were all but
ignored by the Jakarta city administration. The enforcement of spatial plans
has been so weak and no sanctions have been imposed to spatial plan violations
including the Jakarta city administration and the developers who convert the green
areas into new homes, condominiums, malls, hotels, commercials and office
buildings.
One of Indonesia’s prominent NGOs, WALHI, has identified at
least 5 areas designated as green areas in the Jakarta spatial plan
1985-2005have been converted into malls, commercials, hotels and residential
areas (Khalid 2009). These five areas include Kelapa Gading (3,182 acres),
Pantai Kapuk (2,053 acres), Sunter ( 3,605 acres), Senayan (689 acres), and
Tomang (172 acres). The converted uses in each area can be seen in Table 1. The
Jakarta spatial plan 2000-2010 accepted the conversion of those five areas and
validated the violations of the Jakarta spatial plan 1985-2005 (Joga and Antar
2007). As many other spatial plan violation cases, there was no sanction imposed
against the Jakarta Administration for allowing those conversions.
The Indonesian National Agency of Land Affairs (BPN) issued the
maps of land use conformity with the spatial plans for all provinces in 2007. In
Jakarta, non-conformity lands were found in many parts of the area particularly
in the southwest and northeast parts of Jakarta. Spatial planning violations
and unconformity are evidence of corruption in spatial planning.
Spatial planning is one of the important keys to create inclusive,
safe, resilient and sustainable cities. Spatial planning is an important urban
intervention for achieving sustainable urban development. The corruption in
spatial planning occurred in all stages of spatial planning (plan making
process, plan implementation, and development control) and it will impede sustainable
urban development.
Eradicating
corruption in spatial planning is a precondition for achieving sustainable
urban development. I would offer some ways of eradicating corruption in spatial
planning as follows:
1. Increase
public participation and transparency during the plan making process
Public participation has become a key
element of planning activity in developed countries over the last decades (Laurian
and Shaw 2009). The public should be involved in every step of the plan making
process in order to increase the legitimacy of the plan. Public participation
is also a way of increasing community empowerment and capacity building. Public
participation will promote transparency, inclusiveness and fairness in the plan
making process. Transparency will minimize rooms for corruptions and corrupt behavior.
2. Empower
citizens and non-government organizations
Public participation will promote the
consideration of all concerned and affected citizens. Public participation can
increase public awareness of local issues including spatial plans in the local
level. The awareness of local issues from the empowered citizen and
non-government organizations is very important and can strive to achieve
sustainable urban development and reduce corruptions and corrupt behavior from
the city administrators.
3. Offer
training to more urban planners with a deep knowledge of inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable cities
Urban planners need to understand that
corruption is the roots of urban issues including annual floods and acute traffic
jams. Inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities will not be achieved
without efforts of eradicating rampant corruptions in spatial planning. In
order to prevent the spatial plan violations, technical and legal training and
adequate operational budget for spatial plan inspections should be offered to
the officials in the lowest level of government including sub-district
(kecamatan) and neighborhood (kelurahan) levels (R. Munir, personal
communication, 11 July 2011). Capacity building of the government officials in
the lowest level of government is an important key to enforcing spatial plans
in Indonesian cities. This important key is not stipulated in the Spatial
Planning Law 26/2007.
4. Promote
access to spatial planning information
Spatial plans are the public
information. All residents must have access to spatial plans. Residents should be
able to access any information concerning zoning and other land use regulations
in their areas. The informed residents will promote the level of public
participation in the plan making process and raise the legitimacy of the
spatial plans.
5. Enforce
spatial plan laws
The poor spatial plan enforcement is a
result of the absence of zoning regulations and zoning inspections. Zoning
regulation is one of four new provisions in the Spatial Planning Law 26/2007
for enhancing the development control. Zoning regulation is the main reference
for the issuance of land use permit in Indonesian cities, but such new
provision was not supported by the provision of zoning inspectors. The Spatial
Planning Law 26/2007 stipulates the role of Penyidik Pegawai Negeri Sipil (PPNS)
who is expected to investigate any spatial plan violations. However, most
planning departments in Indonesian cities do not have zoning inspectors or
PPNSs. The lack of zoning inspectors is one of the causes of spatial plan
violations and rampant corruptions in spatial planning in Indonesian cities.
6. Discretionary
vs. regulatory planning system
The Spatial Planning Law 26/2007 is an
application of regulatory planning system. Some benefits and costs were found
in the regulatory planning system. It’s going to be a new study that compares
and contrasts these two planning systems in Indonesia. Nevertheless, the
application of discretionary planning system could potentially reduce rooms for
corruptions and corrupt behavior in spatial planning in Indonesia.
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