Tiana Hill

PLANNING AND PLANNING SYSTEMS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES..................................................................2
1.0 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................3
2.0 PLANNING IN ASIA VERSUS THE WEST...............................................3
3.0 THE HISTORY OF PLANNING IN INDONESIA........................................4
3.1 BEGINNING OF PLANNING IN INDONESIA..................................................4
3.2 THE NEW ORDER REGIME.........................................................................5

4.0 CURRENT PLANNING SYSTEM IN INDONESIA......................................6

4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4

THE DECENTRALISATION PROCESS...........................................................6

PLANNING RELATED LEGISLATION............................................................7
ISSUES OF CONCERN IN PLANNING...........................................................8
PLANNING IMPLICATIONS..........................................................................8

5.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................9

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: The process of spatial planning for Indonesia as expressed by
Law 24/1992 ......5
Figure 2: Map of case study area Sleman, Yogyakarta and
Bantul ...................................7
Table _: Planning issues in Asian countries versus the
West ..............................................3

1.0 INTRODUCTION
This background briefing report is designed to provide an introduction
about the planning and planning systems in Indonesia, with focus on
Java. To achieve this, a brief discussion has been conducted on the
differences of planning in Asian and Western countries to form a broad
picture. From this the report goes into more specifics on Indonesia,
covering its planning history, especially the large impact the
government has played before going into the current planning system.
For the current planning system the planning related legislation and
issues of concern for Indonesian planners is outlined. Finally, a number
of planning implications that were not already discussed in the report
are highlighted for a more thorough analysis of planning in Indonesia. It
is hoped that this report will provide readers a basic knowledge for
planning and planning systems in Indonesia so they are better equipped
to potentially engage in the planning process in Indonesia in some form.

2.0 PLANNING IN ASIA VERSUS THE WEST

Planning systems are a system of procedures and laws that create both
a regulatory and legal framework for planning practice (Hudalah &
Woltjer, 2007). In some less developed countries, including Indonesia
there are attempts to adopt the planning systems of developed
countries, which consequently generates a number of problems due to
their different cultural contexts (Damayanti, 2006; McAuslan, 1985).
This Is because the urban resources, administrative systems, political
philosophy, and bureaucracies in less developed countries, differ greatly
to those in developed countries, and lack the capacity to deliver
effective planning intervention in the development process
(Damayanti, 2006, p.41). This is also reflected in Table 1, below which
highlights the different issues planners face in the West versus in Asia
making it ineffective to use the same planning systems in both areas,
despite some Asian countries trying. Considering this issue, focus can
now be drawn to Indonesian planning to better understand its roots and
history.
Table 1: Planning issues in Asian countries versus the West (Damayanti,
2006, p.40-41; Wu, 2000)
ASIA
WEST
rapid and sustained growth over
a number of years
largely based on
industrialization
some Asian nations are facing
acute shortage of labour
regional differences
Urbanizatio rapid urbanization and
n and
suburbanization
population sustained rural to urban
growth
migration
still a very large young
Economic
growth

slow economic growth

economic restructuring
de-industrialization and reindustrialization
focus more on service sector
high and sustained unemployment
steady state population
sunbelt migration
aging population
use of private cars

population
some Asian nations facing
significant international
migration of labour
low but rising car ownership
Urban
mega projects
developme vast investment for new
nt
infrastructure
Income
rapid rise of the middle class
growth
employment expansion
still vast number of the poor
especially in the rural areas
Provision
attention given to the overall
of
poor infrastructure provision
infrastruct
now regarded as an obstacle
ure
to economic growth
more and more attention to the
possibilities of private sector
provision of infrastructure

Environme
ntal
awareness

environmental concerns
amongst the public still
nascent
large and growing
environmental/ pollution
problem

urban consolidation
continuing suburbanization
squeeze on the middle class
growing income gap between rich
and poor
deterioration of some infrastructure
but lack of public capacity to
provide for replacement
look towards the private sector and/
or users pays for funding
increasing demands placed on
developers to provide
infrastructure as part of the
development consent process
very strong environmental concerns
amongst the citizens
increasing political response to
incorporate environmental
concerns into planning decision

3.0 THE HISTORY OF PLANNING IN INDONESIA

For the purposes of this report planning in Indonesia has been broken
down into three separate eras being the introduction of planning to
Indonesia, planning during the New Order regime and the current
planning practice, in a decentralised system. It is important though to
note that the government in Indonesia has three tiers comprising of the
national, provincial and district levels (MLIT, n.d.). Over the history of
planning in Indonesia the power of decision-making has shifted between
these tiers over these different eras.

3.1 BEGINNING OF PLANNING IN INDONESIA

The role of planning in Indonesia has changed greatly in the past
century and has faced both criticisms and approval from a number of
planning academics over its history. This planning history only started
relatively recently with planning systems in Indonesia only being
developed in 1926 during the Dutch colonial period and it was not until
1948 till the first planning regulatory framework was developed
(Hudalah & Woltjer, 2007; Winarso, 2002). This regulation though
focussed predominantly on the improvement of the condition of urban
housing in the municipalities in Java initially and was later expanded to
regions outside of Java in the post-colonial period (Hudalah & Woltier,
2007).

3.2 THE NEW ORDER REGIME

In 1966 a newly elected president Suharto brought about the New
Order regime that consisted of an authoritarian democracy and militarydominated government (Rukmana, 2015). The authoritarian government
was characterized by economic growth, a decline in national poverty
rates, and political stability; however, it has also been characterized by
the marked absence of political reform and the failure to achieve
political democracy in either the classic, procedural sense or in terms of
associational autonomy (Beard, 2002, p.18). What made this
authoritarian government important in regards to the planning
profession was its large influence it had on the direction of planning.
This was especially evident in the number of legal frameworks the New
Order regime created for spatial planning, some in the form of
presidential decrees despite them only controlling certain development
sectors and geographic areas (MLIT, n.d.; Rukmana, 2015). It was then
not until 1992 that the first spatial planning law was passed by the New
Order regime known as Law 24/1992 which set the guidelines for the
planning profession in Indonesia (Hudalah & Woltjer, 2007).
Law 24/1992 aimed to overcome the Java centric and colonial biases
previously seen in legislation in addition to creating a method of
coordinating issues relating to the implementation of spatial plans
(Hudalah & Woltjer, 2007; Rukmana, 2015). The law was developed by a
team founded by the New Order regime government filled of national
spatial planners who were led by the Minister of National Planning.
Interestingly, the law outlines the spatial planning guidelines for the
three-tiers of government for the plan making process, plan
implementation and development control as seen in Figure 1, below
(Rukmana, 2015). Additionally, the law outlines the hierarchy of the
different levelled spatial plans as national (25 year timeframe),
provincial (15 year timeframe) and then district level spatial plans (10
year timeframe), all having a five-year review cycle (Rukmana, 2015).

Figure 1: The process of spatial planning for Indonesia as expressed by

Law 24/1992 (Rukmana, 2015, p.353).
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Another indication of the authoritarians governments control over the

planning profession was its high employment rate of Indonesian
planning university graduates. Additionally, of the few numbers of
graduates employed by private consultants the projects they worked on
were predominantly run by the government leading to an incredibly
centralised system of decision-making (Rukmana, 2015). This meant
that the New Order regime had very little to no public consultation with
members of the community and of the greater society with planning
decisions that impacted them (Sofhani, 2006).

4.0 CURRENT PLANNING SYSTEM IN INDONESIA

The current planning system in Indonesia has been most recently
affected by the fall of the New Order regime to make way for the
decentralisation process of the government (Damayanti, 2006). This
section thereby covers the benefits and consequences of the
decentralisation process, the current legislation guiding planning in
Indonesia and information on some of the current issues of concern for
planners. Finally, some planning implications can be drawn out to create
more educated conclusions on the current planning systems in
Indonesia.

4.1 THE DECENTRALISATION PROCESS

After the end of the authoritarian government in 1998 Indonesia passed

numerous decentralisation reforms. This lead to the smaller levels of
government having a large amount of independence but having little
capacity to act (Hudalah & Woltjer, 2007; Turner et.al., 2003). This was
because during the New Order regime, the lower levels of government
were dependent upon the national level for planning related decisionmaking in the form of uniform ministerial decrees with there being no
opportunities for innovation and originality on the local scale (Turner
et.al., 2003; Widianingsih & Morrell, 2007). Consequently, when the
decentralisation process occurred with a small transition period and lack
of set procedures for the lower levels of government there were some
cases of corruption and ineffective use of decision-making power
(Firman, 2009; Legates & Hudalah, 2014). Even five years after its
implementation, Widianingsih & Morrell argue that Indonesias
decentralisation has still not found its optimum form (2007, p.1) and
that more needs to be done to achieve an effective government so good
planning practice can occur. Despite this, overall the decentralisation
process created a more transparent, accountable, inclusive and
equitable government who were no longer just interested in the needs
of investors and factory owners as seen during the New Order regime
(Damayanti, 2006; Das, 2015). This meant a more participatory
approach to planning could be carried out along with more innovative
and local context specific plans (Widianingsih & Morrell, 2007).
Although the decentralisation process did improve planning on the local
scale from the New Order regime as discussed above, it was not without
some consequences. One consequence of the decentralisation process
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was the fragmentation of peri-urban areas (Firman, 2009; Legates &

Hudalah, 2014). This saw the local government making regional level
decisions without consulting the other local governments that form that
same region. Consequently, the process of governance at the regional
level is a point of concern for planning in Indonesia (Firman, 2009). To
overcome this concern there is currently a number of experiments being
conducted, especially in Java of new regional level development coordinating bodies (known as Badan Kerja Sama Pembangunan BKSP).
However, of all of the regional level development co-ordinating bodies
everyone was unsuccessful despite one (Legates & Hudalah, 2014). The
one region that was successful consisted of the Yogyakarta, Sleman and
Bantul districts (Figure 2) who formed the Sekber Kartamantul a
platform for making decisions on infrastructure that crosses their
borders to balance economic and environmental needs (Legates &
Hudalah, 2014). Originally, the focus was on solid waste management
with a collective rubbish dump being built downstream, away from an
environmentally sensitive area though due to its success the platform
expanded to other sectors such as transport and spatial planning
(Legates & Hudalah, 2014). Therefore, it is possible to successfully
create a regional level planning platform in Indonesia if further
experiments and refinements to existing planning practices are made to
other regions.

Figure 2: Map of case study area Sleman, Yogyakarta and Bantul

(Legates & Hudalah, 2014, p.346)

4.2 PLANNING RELATED LEGISLATION

Legislation in Indonesia generally contains broad statements and
principles with little detail as the details are usually provided in
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ministerial decrees at a later date (Booth, 2005). The key planning

related Indonesian legislation at the national level is the Spatial Planning
Act known as Law 26/2007. This act was developed to amend the abovediscussed Law 24/1992 produced during the New Order regime in order
to address its regulatory effectiveness, and better respond to issues that
arose from the recent decentralisation of government and rapid
urbanisation (MLIT, n.d.; Rukmana, 2015). Some of changes between
the two acts was the greater amount of power given to the provincial
and district governments for purposes of spatial planning and the
consistency of the planning timeframes being 20 years (Rukmana,
2015). Additionally, a separate law known as Law 25/2004 also requires
each level of government to develop a long-term (20 year) development
plan (known as a Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Panjang RPJP) which
can be used in conjunction with Law 26/2007 (Booth, 2005; Rukmana,
2015).

4.3 ISSUES OF CONCERN IN PLANNING

There are a number of areas of concern characteristic to Indonesia for
planners in todays era that are of need to be considered in planning
decisions in the future with some of them being discussed below. One
issue is the spatial disparity of income of urban versus rural areas which
needs to be addressed by planners through providing accessible and
inclusive infrastructure. Another issue includes managing the changing
uses and values of land, which is more often than not conflicting
(Legates & Hudalah, 2014). Finally, the inadequate or lack of
infrastructure in areas is of concern to todays planners in Indonesia
which has been heightened by recent natural disasters and rapid
urbanisation. Some of this rapid urbanisation has been caused by the
urban migration of the rural residents of Indonesia in a response to the
spatial disparity of income in the two areas (Legates & Hudalah, 2014).

4.4 PLANNING IMPLICATIONS

Despite some of the planning implications being intertwined into

previous sections of the report some final planning implications have
been made connecting all of the topics previously discussed. One
planning implication is the inability to use planning systems
implemented in other countries for Indonesia due to the unique
challenges Indonesia faces. This includes the large spatial disparity in
income so there is a need to create an Indonesian-specific planning
system. Another planning implication is the fact that the success of the
planning profession in Indonesia is entirely up to the current
government who are the ones to ensure a consistent, transparent and
equitable planning decision-making framework. Finally, the current
planning system a decentralised system although being an
improvement from the previous New Order regime is still not at a stage
that is optimal and thus requires further changes to more effectively
manage the society, environment and economy of Indonesia.

5.0 CONCLUSION
To conclude, planning in Indonesia is highly dependent on the current
political situation. Over the duration of Indonesias planning history
planning related decision-making power has been shifted among the
different tiers of government, namely from the national level (a
centralised system) to the provincial and district levels (a decentralised
system). This shift although beneficial in terms of participatory planning
and addressing local level issues, has also seen many problems
including cases of inappropriate planning decision-making power usage
and the failure of conducting planning on regional level issues due to
the quick transition times between the different systems and lack of preresearched procedures. On a separate note, this report also highlighted
Law 26/2007 as the current spatial planning legislation in Indonesia and
also discussed some of the current planning issues of concern including
spatial disparity of income, conflicting land uses, urban migration and
changing land values. Finally, some planning implications were derived
from the report to further the analysis of planning in Indonesia.

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