Guidelines on living in flats planned

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is formulating guidelines on how to live in vertical housing to promote high- rise living and attract Jakartans to live in apartments.

The guidelines are necessary to support the city's program to eliminate slum areas and relocate the residents to apartments, an official said yesterday.

"People are still reluctant to live in apartments and we are promoting it through guidelines," head of the City Housing Office, Ongky Sukasah, told reporters at City Hall.

Commenting on criticism on apartment sizes and a request that the administration build larger apartments than the 18- square-meter apartments it is offering, Ongky said that there are constraints against such demands.

"There are the problems of limited lands and funds while there are too many people to be accommodated in the apartments," Ongky said, adding that the only way to solve the problems is to build smaller units.

Ongky said compared to most of the houses slum dwellers are now living in, the 18-square-meter apartments are better. Many of the slum houses only measure 12 square meters.

"Actually the housing office has made improvements by building larger apartments in Tebet and Bendungan Hilir, where we build 21-square-meter apartments," Ongky said.

He said in the 1995/1996 fiscal year the city administration will build low-cost apartments in the Tanah Abang, Kemayoran and Tanah Tinggi districts. "All are expansions of existing complexes."

When asked to disclose other locations for low-cost apartments, Ongky said that was difficult to do because to build an apartment block the office needs to cooperate with other offices.

"We have to cooperate with the City Planning Office and each mayoralty, so we cannot decide just for ourselves," he explained.

Ongky gave an assurance that the housing office will implement a new policy which requires the land for its apartment projects be appropriated two years before projects begin.

"The office will try to implement the policy next year," he said. (yns)