Councilors question building permit decision

Councilors question building permit decision

JAKARTA (JP): A commission of the City Council in charge of
development affairs questioned yesterday the legality of North
Jakarta mayoralty's decision to stop issuing new building
development permits (IMB) to a giant housing developer.

"The mayor has no legal authority to refuse requests from
developers seeking building permits because they are issued by
the city development and supervision office (P2K)," Bandjar
Marpaung, chairman of the Council's Commission D, said yesterday.

Structurally, P2K comes under the direct supervision of City
Hall and not the mayoralty, and therefore it takes its orders
from the governor instead of the mayor, Bandjar said.

North Jakarta Mayor Suprawito said on Wednesday he had ordered
the supervision office to stop, for the time being, issuing
building permits to PT Summarecon Agung, a housing developer that
builds and manages the huge Kelapa Gading luxury housing complex.

The action was taken after the developer consistently ignored
requests by the North Jakarta mayoralty to meet its obligations
to build social and public facilities worth over Rp 1 trillion.

Suprawito also threatened to rescind the land procurement
permits already issued to Summarecon and to file a lawsuit
against the developer.

Bandjar underlined the fact that the P2K is expected to raise
some Rp 40 billion from building permit fees for the city's
coffers. "The office has its own target and I doubt that it will
follow the instruction."

He said that Governor Surjadi Soedirdja had reportedly
endorsed the mayor's action.

If that is the case, the governor should issue a decree that
empowers the mayor to enforce the measure, he said. "A (verbal)
approval is not enough," Bandjar said, adding that he personally
backed the move to punish developers who broke the rules.

Bandjar yesterday lead a delegation of Commission D on a visit
to the Concord 2000 luxury housing complex in East Jakarta, which
has also been named as violating the regulation on the provision
of public facilities.

The complex is managed by PT Quartalintas Sembada, which has
built about 200 houses on 23 hectares of land belonging to the
state housing developer, Perumnas. According to the terms of the
building permits, a developer must built facilities worth Rp 20
billion.

Edi Santoso, general manager of the company, told reporters
that the problem had developed because there was confusion about
whose responsibility it was to build the facilities: Perumnas,
which holds the land title, or the developer?

"We're still arranging things and we hope to be able to hand
over the facilities by the end of this month," Edi said.

Concord appears to be next on Suprawito's hit list.

Another councilor, Saut Rahman, said he agreed with the move
to deny developers administrative services until they met their
obligations. (yns)