City hopes to speed up IMB permits

JAKARTA (JP): All houses built on 200 square meters of land at the maximum will have their construction permits by January of next year at the latest as part of a planned gradual improvement in the issuing process, a city official said on Tuesday.

Chief of the City Planning Agency, Ahmaddin Ahmad, hoped that the plan could be realized since, again according to the plan, all of the local administration offices in all of the city's 42 districts already have the authority to issue the permits, locally called IMBs.

Currently, residents applying for permits for their new and renovated houses, including those built on 200-square-meter sites, have to go to the city planning office in their respective mayoralties only to spend days and sometimes months waiting, and more often than not, having to bribe officials.

Under the new scheme, all district administration offices will be capable of issuing the permits upon, for example, the showing of floor plans of the structure, measuring the land and providing blue prints, Ahmaddin said.

"The main reason for the poor public service in the case of these permits was the limited human resources and equipment. But starting this month, we will be able to gradually improve it as we have now completed city planning in the districts," he added.

So far this month, 11 districts have started providing the services with 10 more due to start next month.

By November, Ahmaddin's office hopes that the number of districts involved will have grown to 32. The remaining 10 districts are expected to follow suit the month after.

"To determine which districts went first, we chose the most populous districts in the capital with the best human resources," he explained.

The policy is one of the commitments Governor Sutiyoso made to the City Council while delivering his revised accountability speech last month in which he vowed to significantly improve his performance.

The principal objective of the scheme is to help Jakartans, particularly those in the middle and lower economic brackets, to obtain building permits.

The new policy also offers speedy processing. Applicants with all of the required documents are expected to receive their IMBs within nine days, instead of the current long-drawn-out wait of 24 days.

"The applicant should submit the application form along with copies of his identification card, land ownership certificate and property tax receipts," Ahmaddin said.

Based on Gubernatorial Decree No. 63/2000 on IMB charges, the fee that should be paid by applicants is set at Rp 400 per square meter for houses of less than 100 square meters in size, Rp 3,000 for houses less than 200 square meters, and Rp 5,000 for bigger buildings, he explained.

"Anyone who runs into problems with the fee or waiting time should file a complaint with the local district head, who will then forward the complaint to us," Ahmaddin added.

The permits are needed to ensure houses are built according to the guidelines set out in the city plan. Frequently, the stipulated minimum distance from the front wall of a house to the street is not complied with.

After being in effect for three weeks this month, some still consider that the scheme is still hampered by a lack of preparation both on the part of officials and that of residents.

"However, there have been some improvements because out of the 135 applicants, 93 of them had their IMBs issued within nine days. While the rest of them are still in process," Ahmaddin said.

For houses built on larger sites, the construction permit will still be issued by the city planning agency at the mayoralty level. (dja)