Apartments too costly for Benhil residents

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)