Councilors want evicted tenants allowed back in
Councilors want evicted tenants allowed back in
JAKARTA (JP): City councilors are pressuring the city-owned
property developer, PD Sarana Jaya, to allow evicted residents of
a low-cost apartment building in Penjaringan, West Jakarta, to
resettle there while they process the necessary Jakarta identity
cards.
Twenty-five residents of the apartment complex in Penjaringan,
North Jakarta, were evicted from one of the buildings by the
manager last week on the grounds that they did not have Jakarta
citizenship cards.
"We strongly urge the company to give them a chance to return
to the building and to let them process their identity cards
because they had been living there for three years," Abdoelhamid
Notowidagdo, a member of the City Council's Commission A, which
is in charge of government, security and public order, told
reporters yesterday.
Notowidagdo explained that based on a gubernatorial decree,
the building manager does not have the authority to evict.
"The authority to evict is given only to the city housing
office, not to the manager," he said, adding that this decision
was intended to prevent manager's from evicting people in order
to be able to offer the apartments to new tenants.
Last week, the apartment house management sealed the doors of
three apartments while their occupants were out working. This has
forced the evicted people to camp out in the courtyard outside
the apartment building.
"Our clothes and stuff are still in the rooms, we cannot take
them out," Supardi, one of the evicted occupants, told the
councilors who visited the apartment complex yesterday.
They complained to the councilors that they had always paid
the rent on time and had a right to the apartments.
A daily rental system is used at the low cost apartment
complex in Penjaringan, through which the occupants can make
monthly payments toward the purchase of the units. The apartments
were initially occupied in 1986 by fire victims and area
residents whose land had been appropriated.
The apartments come in three sizes: 18, 36 and 54 square
meters. There are a total of 1,300 apartments in the complex. The
cost varies according to floor the apartments are located on.
Occupants of an 18 square-meter unit on the first floor pay Rp
51,000 per month, while those living in a 36 square-meter
apartment on the second floor pay Rp 140,000.
Recently occupants of the complex went to the City Council to
complain about evictions and unwritten rules used to pressure
them to pay bribes in order to keep their apartments.
Inconsistency
After visiting the apartment complex, councilor Djeny Suharso
said that the problem had arisen because of inconsistency on the
part of the management in renting and selling the apartments.
He explained that according to the gubernatorial decree, only
people holding Jakarta identity cards have the right to rent or
own the apartments. In reality, many occupants who have only
seasonal, or temporary, identity cards are allowed to rent the
facilities as long as they can afford it.
"This situation is creating another social problem which is
feared to have the possibility of undermining the nation's
unity," Suharso said.
Suharso pointed out an old man, who said that his neighbor was
evicted because he does not have Jakarta identity card. The man
had explained that the unit was later occupied by new occupants
of Chinese descent, who do not have the necessary Jakarta
citizenship cards either.
He said that such inconsistency could discourage Jakartans
from wanting to live in apartments in the midst of a citywide
drive to familiarize residents with apartment living.
He said that available data show that 29 percent of the
occupants in Penjaringan apartments have only seasonal identity
cards. (yns)