Apartment rent fee hike rejected

Apartment rent fee hike rejected

JAKARTA: Dozens of people living in city owned, mid- and low-
cost apartments in Pluit, North Jakarta visited the City Council
Wednesday to protest rent fee and service charge increases of 70
percent.

Monthly rent, ranging from Rp 270,000 and Rp 492,000, was
increased to between Rp 470,000 and Rp 848,500 per month, from
January.

Last week, security officers of PT Jakarta Propertindo, the
city-owned company which manages the apartments, clashed with
residents as the officers, backed by elements of the Army and
police, turned off electricity to several units owned by protest
leaders.

There are some 480 families or about 3,000 people living in
the apartments.

They expressed hope the legislators would ask PT Jakarta
Propertindo to revise the decision. --JP

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Focus-housing-protest
Residents protest housing complex
JP/8/G-VILA

Residents protest housing complex

JAKARTA: Around 100 residents of Tugu Selatan in North Jakarta
staged on Wednesday to protest the existence of the Villa Permata
Gading housing complex, which they accused of having caused
floods in the area.

Since its establishment in 1995, residential homes in the area
were always flooded, said the protesters.

"Every year, my house always floods, but that never happened
before (the complex was built)," Aminah of the RT4 neighborhood
unit was quoted as saying by Antara. She claimed to have been
living in the area for the past 15 years.

The protesters demanded the city administration to revoke the
business license of its developer, PT Multiduta Parama Centra,
for ignoring to conduct the obligatory environmental impact
assessment before developing the housing complex.

They also demanded PT Multiduta to cover all damages and
losses due to the flooding, and to fund the construction of a
water channel to resolve the flood problem. -- JP

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Focus-Tangerang-mall-building
Mall construction site shut down
JP/8/GREATER

Mall construction site shut down

TANGERANG: The municipal public order agency has shut down the
construction site of the Metropolis shopping mall at the Modern
Land housing complex on Jl. Sudirman in Tangerang as the
developer failed to obtain a building permit from the
administration.

"They have been working on the site for a week, but the
developer has not applied to the municipal capital Investment and
Permit Office (KPKPM) for a permit yet," Agus R. Wahyudi, the
agency's chief of the public order affairs department, said on
Wednesday.

However, a staff member of the developer, PT Modernland
Realty, claimed that the company had received verbal
authorization from Tangerang Mayor M. Thamrin.

The source, who asked not to be named, said that the five-
story building with a total area of 46,000 square meters was
being funded by PT Lippo Karawaci.

All of the construction work is being carried out by
Modernland. However, Agus said that the agency would allow the
developer to proceed with the construction if it produced a
building permit issued by the administration.

"Verbal authorization, from whoever it was, cannot be accepted
as legal," he said.--JP