East Pademangan residents sue city in land dispute

JAKARTA (JP): Twenty-seven families living in East Pademangan subdistrict, North Jakarta, have filed a lawsuit with the State Administrative Court over a land dispute.

They have sworn not to move until a court verdict is achieved.

"We also filed a lawsuit with the North Jakarta District Court on Sept. 17. We absolutely refuse to accept the amount of compensation money offered by the city administration because it was set without a proper agreement," Matheus Migu, one of them, said.

The people who filed the lawsuit are now living in Community Unit (RW) 10, in the northern part of the subdistrict.

On Thursday, they came close to a physical clash with the officials assigned by the North Jakarta mayoralty, who arrived at the site with bulldozers ready to raze their homes.

"According to the mayor's decree, they must voluntarily demolish their own premises, starting from Sept. 12," chief of the mayoral security and order office, Imron, said.

Area resident Lian Ferry said that the city administration is planning to use the site for the construction of a harbor road, a toll road connecting Tanjung Priok seaport, North Jakarta, and the Pluit, West Jakarta, and for a new building for the Agency for the Management of Strategic Industries.

Matheus said that the city also plans to use part of the total eight-hectare area of Community Unit 10 for the extension of the Jakarta Fair Kemayoran complex.

He added that the people have no objection to all of the city's plans for the area, they just want the municipal authorities to pay them a proper rate of compensation.

Kompas daily quoted Governor Surjadi Soedirdja as saying on Friday they are occupying the government's land unlawfully. He expressed appreciation to the people who have already accepted the amount of compensation money allocated.

Faisal Rachmat, a resident who has been living there since 1977, said that he first heard that the city planned to develop the area in 1990, but the officials never mentioned the amount of compensation.

Last month the people were invited by district chief Argi Butar-Butar to attend the mayoralty's public presentation on the city's plans, saying that they had to pick up the compensation money on Sept. 23.

"I was shocked upon learning that the city had already set the compensation rates at from Rp 75,000 to Rp 112,500 per square meter," he said.

Faisal asked the city to base the amount of land compensation on the existing market price for property in the area, which ranges from Rp 800,000 to Rp 1.5 million per square meter.

Based on 1993 Gubernatorial Decree No. 987/073.3, dated April 1, 1993, the amount of land compensation for the East Pademangan people was set at a range of Rp 75,000 to Rp 112,500 per square meter, while the compensation for buildings ranged from Rp 42,600 to Rp 170,000 per square meter. (03)