Housing project looks set to fail

TANGERANG: An official with the Tangerang municipality cast doubts on the possibility of success for a low-cost housing project for civil servants in the city, saying there was no affordable land available.

Tangerang Settlement Agency director Roetiwi said that the local administration could not afford to purchase land for the housing project due to the rapidly increasing price of land in the municipality.

"There is a lot of vacant land here, but the price is too high, far above the ceiling price set by the central government," she was quoted by Antara as saying on Saturday.

Thus far, the administration had yet to find any reasonably priced sites.

"We even asked district and subdistrict heads to help us find sites, but they came up with none that were well located," the official said.

The Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure plans to provide around one million homes for the country's civil servants at affordable prices. A 21-square-meter house on a 90- square-meter site will be on offer for Rp 36 million (US$4,235). -- JP