0 City to strictly enforce percolation pit rules

The Jakarta administration is set to get tough with the managements of commercial buildings to ensure they build percolation pits as required in a gubernatorial regulation, with analysts skeptical about whether existing buildings are actually in compliance. Although most of building managements on Jakarta’s main thoroughfares say they have dug the pits, urban planner at the Rujak Center for Urban Studies Elisa Sutanudjaja suspects otherwise. “Seeing what has happened [the floods], including those on Jan. 17, I doubt that they have [percolation pits],” she told The Jakarta Post on Friday. 

“The volume of water on [Jl. Jend. Sudirman] showed that the pits don’t exist.” She added that the lack of a clear punishment in the 2005 regulation led to weak enforcement despite the importance of percolation pits. Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo recently made a target of digging at least 100,000 percolation pits over the next five years, using funds from the city budget, making it one of his breakthroughs in countering the city’s endemic flooding problem. He also pledged to shut down buildings that did not comply with the regulation. 

The excavation of percolation pits by building managements is mandated by the regulation, which stipulates that the administration, through its Construction Supervision and Regulation Agency, supervises the construction of the pits to ensure their compliance. The environmental sustainability division head of the Jakarta Environment Management Agency (BPLHD), Rusman Sagala, said percolation pits would contribute to efforts to eradicate flooding as they reduced the volume of water flowing above the ground. 

Percolation pits, he said, could also help catch rainwater, and maintain groundwater supplies for the city to use in the dry season. “Not all of the rainwater should go to the ocean. Some should be kept for such uses as drinking, washing etc,” he said. “However, percolation pits cannot be built in just any area. You need a geological map to determine the location.” The BPLHD reported that Jakarta had 86,551 percolation pits as of December 2011, with a total capacity of 3,104,127 cubic meters. 

Construction Supervision and Regulation Agency head I Putu Ngurah Indiana said that his team made sure of the existence of percolation pits in buildings, starting from the design that developers attached when applying for a building permit until the construction process was complete. The supervision of the construction of percolation pits applied to all buildings, whether they were built before or after the enactment of the regulation, Indiana said. “If we find a building without the required pit, we will not extend [the building worthiness certificate] and seal the building. 

No management would want that, right?” he said. He said punishing the violators by sealing their buildings would be significant as the buildings were used for commercial purposes. According to Indiana, building managements need to extend their building worthiness certificate every five years. “By that time, we check the pits again, and those who still do not have percolation pits will need to dig one,” he said. The head of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Shopping Centers Management Association, Handaka Santosa, said he acknowledged that not all shopping malls had constructed proper percolation pits. 

“The construction is a must when applying for a building permit, but what eventually happens in the field can be somewhat different,” he said. Henceforth, he said he would encourage group members to comply with the rule as the city administration was also ready to apply stricter punishments for violators. Handaka added that the association would help monitor the sustainability of percolation pits at its members’ buildings. (fzm/aml)

source : the jakarta post