The
city administration plans to commence construction of an international-standard
soccer stadium at BMW Park in North Jakarta this month despite the unresolved
land conflict concerning a part of the 66.6-hectare park.
Youth
and Sports Agency head Ratiyono said here over the weekend that a
groundbreaking ceremony would be held to mark the start of the project and that
he was seeking an appropriate time so that Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo could
attend the ceremony.
“We are still looking for the right time, but we will certainly do it this month,” he said, adding that Jokowi was expected to stay in power
despite the recent declaration by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI-P) of his presidential candidacy.
The
city is also facing a civil lawsuit from an individual who claims to be the
heir of a portion of the land and a class action lawsuit from squatters
occupying the land.
According
to Ratiyono, the city administration owns 12 hectares of certified land in the
park where the stadium is set to be constructed while it is still working out
the conflict over the remaining 54 hectares.
He
further said that the city administration had allocated Rp 1.2 trillion (US$105
million) to finance the project.
Separately,
Jokowi said that he did not dare to start construction of the project until the
legal status of the land was settled.
“We can start now because 12 hectares has been certified,”
he said, adding that the city would continue to work out the legal status of
the remaining land.
He
said the city had been preparing the necessary tools to start construction of
the stadium, including its design and environmental impact analysis, which had
both been completed.
Besides
the soccer stadium, a lake and open green space will also be developed.
With
regard to the stadium’s capacity, Ratiyono said the stadium would accommodate
50,000 people.
The
stadium would function as a homebase for city soccer club Persija Jakarta,
replacing the soccer stadium in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, which had been
affected by the MRT project, he added.
BMW
Park was originally designated as a green area during the city’s Clean
(Bersih), Humane (Manusiawi), Dignified (Wibawa) or BMW program in the 1960s.
But since the early 1990s, as many as 1,400 squatter families took over the
land. In August 2008, the city administration evicted most of the squatters to
develop the area into a open green space.
Illegal
squatters began occupying BMW Park, locally known as Kampung Bayam (Spinach Kampong),
in the early 1990s after undergrowth was cleared on the site, making way for
plants of vegetables.
It
is the second-largest park in the city, after the 80-hectare Monas Park in
Central Jakarta.
