JakartaPost-Sept 9, 2024
The Bali provincial administration has proposed a two-year moratorium on the construction of hotels, nightclubs and villas on the island, as it seeks to deal with increased land conversion and conservation problems. Interim Bali governor Sang Made Mahendra Jaya made the proposal public on Saturday, which he submitted to the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister. He proposed the moratorium to cover the Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar and Tabanan (Sarbagita) area. The aim was to better organize the area and to pursue quality tourism, Sang Made said, as quoted by state-owned news portal Antara. Moreover, the proposal is designed to address the side-effects of having centralized decision making on land conversion for commercial use, which does not involve the regional government, as stipulated in the Job Creation Law. “I was very shocked as a [government] official; I saw the cliff cutting that went viral on TikTok, which we didn’t know about, suddenly it’s there. There are also big beach clubs in Tabanan and Denpasar, which we also didn’t know about, so we’re dumbfounded,” said the interim governor. The viral video refers to a hotel construction in Southern Kuta district in Bali that has cut through cliffs on the coast. Locals living near the area have raised concerns over the activity’s damage to the environment and safety of fishermen operating near the coast. Sang Made also mentioned there had been an increase in unsupervised street vendors selling alcoholic beverages illegally, which by law should only be done through “restaurants or hotels”. He expressed the hope that the coordinating minister’s office would bring the matter up with the central government, which he said might result in a presidential instruction (Inpres). He said the central government had so far been responsive about this hospitality industry moratorium. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/business/2024/09/09/bali-proposes-two-year-moratorium-on-hotel-nightclub-construction.html.
