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)