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Under pressure to provide more green space, the city administration has put forward a proposal to turn its cemeteries into parks complete with fountains and garden furniture, an official said.

“The revitalization is not simply to change the perception of cemeteries as something creepy to something comfortable, but also to increase water catchment areas in the city,” said Ery Basworo, head of Jakarta’s Parks and Cemetery Agency.

Ery said the city’s 96 public cemeteries would get a Rp 6 billion ($636,000) to fund the makeover, which will include fountains, trees, park lamps and garden chairs.

Ery said the first cemeteries to be converted into grave parks would be those in Pondok Kelapa in East Jakarta, Semper in North Jakarta, Karet Bivak in Central Jakarta and Kampung Kandang in South Jakarta.

Nurmansjah Lubis, a member of the city council, praised the idea and said it had the council’s support.

He said the plan was taking cues from the privately owned, upmarket San Diego Hills Memorial Park and Funeral Homes in Karawang, which has landscaped hills, concrete roads, an eight-hectare lake, an Italian restaurant and a swimming pool.

Like each individual grave at San Diego, Nurmansjah said each public plot would be raised and covered in grass, with water channels separating the graves.

Jakarta has preserved only 10 percent of its land as green open spaces, though critics say this figure is inflated. Under the 2007 urban planning law, adapted from the recommendations of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the ideal allocation is 30 percent of total urban land.

In October, the administration shut 27 gas stations in Jakarta as part of attempts to increase green space.