City fails to meet target on low-cost apartments

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration will very likely fail to meet the target for the development of low-cost housing for low income families, as it has only managed to build 340 apartments from the 2,150 planned for this year.

The head of planning affairs at the City Housing Agency, Suratman, said after a hearing with City Council Commission D for development affairs on Tuesday that land clearance was the main obstacle in building low-cost apartments, which were rented cheaply to poor people, particularly those evicted from slum areas and riverbanks.

"Land clearance is the main barrier to constructing low-cost housing," he told the hearing on Tuesday.

According to its report to Commission D, the City Housing Agency was allocated Rp 200 billion for the development of low- cost housing this year, but only about 13 percent of it has been used to build 340 apartments.

The report also says that the city has earmarked over Rp 101.4 billion for the clearing of 775,536 square meters of land for the development of low-cost housing in the city.

Suratman said that his agency had failed to clear five out of 10 planned locations for development, namely 10,000 square meters of land in Cawang, East Jakarta; 20,000 square meters in Tipar Cakung, East Jakarta; two plots respectively 33,000 square meters and 69,190 square meters in Pulo Gebang, East Jakarta; and 418,000 square meters in Marunda, North Jakarta.

Suratman said the agency had also encountered other problems, including the price of land, which was often valued at more than the taxable property prices.

The commission strongly criticized the agency's failure, saying it was not serious about doing its job.

"The performance of this agency is very disappointing, despite that fact that it was allocated a large amount of money for the development of low cost-housing," Commission D chairman Sayogo Hendrosubroto said at the hearing.

Sayogo, who is an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) legislator, said that if the agency could not reach the target this year, it should not be allocated funds next year.

Commission D deputy chairman Ali Imron Husein also criticized the agency, saying he was concerned that thousands of low-income families in the city were unable to obtain decent housing.

"I hope agency officials will take their jobs more seriously because we have allocated a huge amount of money in the hope that people evicted from their houses could be accommodated in low- cost apartments," he added.

Suratman also said that the central government's plan to construct 30,000 homes, including apartments, remained but a dream as the government did not have the money for it.

Previously, Minister of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure Soenarno said the government would build 30,000 homes for those who were evicted from their homes on riverbanks.

He said that the 30,000 homes would be constructed within 10 years.