Apartments too costly for Benhil residents
JAKARTA (JP): Most of the 373 residents of Benhil, Central Jakarta, whose shanties burned last year, have sold their rights to city administration allocated apartments to other people.
Several residents, who asked that their names be withheld, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that they had to sell their rights to the apartments because they could not afford the down payment and monthly installments.
The city administration has set apartment prices at between Rp 10 million and Rp 15 million. "The market price for each apartment is Rp 23 million. The fire victims get a subsidy from the administration," Yamin Abdullah, the Bendungan Hilir subdistrict head, said.
He confirmed that so far only 10 residents have applied for the apartments, which measure 4 x 5 square meters each.
Down payments range from Rp 2 million to Rp 7 million. Monthly installments, payable over a five to 20 year period range from Rp 90,000 to Rp 200,000.
The fire victims said they could sell their rights to people wanting the apartments for Rp 23 million.
"Come back here two months after the inauguration and you will find people with neck-ties and cars here, not a single Benhil resident," another resident Told The Jakarta Post.
Unlike other low-cost apartments, such as the ones at Tanah Abang, Benhil I and Tanah Tinggi, the Benhil II apartment building is beautifully designed and equipped with elevators.
The residents, mostly poorly paid laborers, said they could not afford to pay the electricity and gas bills on top of their monthly installments.
They complained that the total amount of money they would have to pay every month would reach more than Rp 200,000.
"Don't expect us to think about paying the fees, what we think about every day is how to manage our incomes to buy food and not starve," another resident, said. He added that the most an individual resident could make a day is Rp 10,000 a day.
The residents' shanties, standing on state property, burned down last year. The municipal administration gave them Rp 235,000 for each square meter of land they occupied before the fire.
In Penjaringan subdistrict, North Jakarta, residents are rebuilding their houses after a recent blaze despite blockage by local authorities.
Some 800 houses were reduced to ashes on April 14 leaving 2,600 mostly impoverished people homeless.
The city administration plans to construct an apartment building on the 4.5 hectare fire site.
"Regardless of whether or not a fire gutted this area, a new apartment building is going to be built," North Jakarta Mayor Suprawito was quoted as saying.
The administration has offered priority to units to the fire victims, who have slapped up plywood walls on the remnants of the brick framework of their former homes, and are now living in the make-shift structures.
The reek of charred debris, the annoyance of flies and the discomfort of ankle-high flood water caused by rain did not stop residents from continuing to mix cement and sand for the construction of more permanent shelters.
The residents, who said there was not much chance of their finding another place to live, persisted in rebuilding their houses despite the admonition to do otherwise.
"They'll have to give us fair compensation," Paijo, a long- time resident of the area, told the Post. "We don't anything about the plan to build an apartment building here. We'll just wait and see if the administration has the heart to demolish our houses," Paijo said.
"I have no idea what the government's plans are but we will all find out sooner or later if we are to be trod upon," Tarjo, a resident, said.
Tarjo, who makes from Rp 8,000 to Rp 15,000 a day by conveying passengers to their destinations on his motorcycle, said that he definitely would not be living in those apartments for several reasons.
The financial burden of having to pay a Rp 1.5 million down payment for an apartment is the prime stumbling block for this father of four children.
"We barely have enough to live on each day, how are we to spare such an amount?" Tarjo said. (03/14)