City Neon's building to be forcibly demolished soon
City Neon's building to be forcibly demolished soon
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration has announced that it
will forcibly demolish an exhibition building owned by private
firm PT City Neon Prima Mandiri in the Bung Karno sports complex
for violating its building permit.
The city's Development Monitoring Agency head Djumhana Tj.
said the administration gave a deadline of Tuesday as the company
was still staging a furniture fair which would end on Monday.
"We will forcibly demolish the building if the firm refuses to
demolish the building itself," Djumhana told reporters over the
weekend.
Asked about the company's plan to seek a delay the building
was to have been used to stage an exhibition on regional autonomy
in October, he said the exhibition should be moved to another
venue.
He insisted that the city would no longer tolerate the
existence of the building, saying the demolition should actually
have been conducted last week.
"We will not set a new deadline for the demolition. The
building should be demolished next week," he remarked over the
weekend.
He said that he had ordered the Central Jakarta Mayoralty's
development monitoring office to conduct the demolition.
There are two exhibition buildings which the city
administration considers illegal in the eastern parking lot of
the sports complex. The other one is owned by PT Anggara Ind.
The administration has started the demolition of PT Anggara's
building.
Some councillors on the council's Commission B for economic
affairs had earlier criticized the administration for only
demolishing Anggara's building.
They regretted the demolition since the buildings were
actually used by small and medium-size companies to promote their
products at lower cost.
They were of the view that the administration was reluctant to
demolish PT City Neon's building because it was owned by a large
company.
PT Anggara reportedly suffered a loss of Rp 5 billion
(US$555,555) because of the demolition.
When the demolition of Anggara's building started, some
officials of the Central Jakarta mayoralty were seen having lunch
with executives of City Neon in the nearby Pondok Laguna sea food
restaurant.
The Central Jakarta development monitoring office head M.
Gunarwan said the lunch has nothing to do with the demolition.
"Why did you report that my staff were having lunch with the
company officials. Do you want to fight with us," Djumhana said
emotionally.
However, city officials regretted that certain councillors
were trying to protect PT Anggara even though its building
violated a city bylaw.
"They just using the name of the small traders for their own
benefit," an officials said.
City bylaw No. 6/1999 on zoning stipulates that the sports
stadium area in Senayan, Central Jakarta, should only be used for
sporting activities. (jun)