Developers want to build fewer low-cost homes

Developers want to build fewer low-cost homes

JAKARTA (JP): Private developers urged the municipality
yesterday to reduce the percentage of land they must set aside
for low-cost apartments from 20 percent to five percent,
councilors said yesterday.

Saud Rachman and Lukman F. Mokoginta, members of the council's
Commission D for development affairs, said the developers, who
were members the Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Real Estate
Association, made the request in a meeting with the commission
yesterday.

"The developers said that they could not afford to build the
cheap apartments as stipulated in gubernatorial decree No.
540/1990," Saud, of the United Development Party, faction said.

The decree was issued to provide adequate housing for the poor
and to help eliminate slum areas.

Saud said that in the meeting the developers asked the
councilors to forward their request to administration officials.

"The developers' request to reduce their obligation to only
five percent doesn't make any sense," Saud said.

He said that of the 114 developers in the city, many failed to
meet the obligation.

"This request shows that the developers are not supporting the
administration's program to provide decent housing for street
dwellers. All they can think of is how to gain profit," Saud
said.

If the administration approved the request, he feared that the
administration's target to build around 280,000 apartments in the
next 10 years could not be reached.

In the last two years the municipality has built only 3,150
low-cost apartments a year because of a lack of money. This is
far below the demand for cheap apartments, which exceeds 10,500
homes a year.

Lukman said the developers promised to submit a written
proposal regarding the reduction.

"We can't just accept the developers' proposal and present it
to the municipality's officials before analyzing it ourselves,"
he said.

"They (developers) said that their calculations were
realistic. But, that's their opinion. We should analyze it first
before making any decision," Lukman said.

The councilors, he said, supported the gubernatorial decree,
which urged developers to build low-cost apartments.

"We even consider that the decree should be made into a
provincial regulation," Lukman said.

Data from the city housing agency shows that annual demand for
housing in Jakarta exceeds 70,000 homes.

Due to a land shortage, housing officials say 30 percent -- or
about 23,000 homes -- should be in the form of vertical housing.

Several low-cost apartments have already been built in Tebet,
South Jakarta, Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta and Penjaringan
in West Jakarta.

So far, 50 percent of vertical housing is provided by private
developers, but most of this is for middle and upper-income
groups.

The city has so far built 12,356 units of low-cost apartments
for slum area residents. (ste)