Life in the highrise apartments

Life in the highrise apartments

JAKARTA (JP): One day recently in Tanah Abang, Central
Jakarta, apartment occupants were alarmed at the commotion coming
from the top of one of the blocks.

They looked up and saw a man working on his unit -- he was
building an additional story to his 36-square-meter home.

The residents protested to representatives of their occupant's
organization, who managed to stop the enterprise.

Now everyone understands that even if you live on the upper
floor, living in apartments means you cannot add space for the
beloved family, even if you have the financial resources to do
so.

But 15 years after the low-cost apartments were built, this
understanding is limited to the upper floors.

It may take at least one more generation of apartment
occupants to lose the feeling that the space outside the front
door is private property.

On the ground floors of the Tanah Abang apartments, fences,
walls and locked gates abound around the units, duplicating the
typical sight around Jakarta homes.

"Didn't anyone protest?" asks an astonished expatriate from
Madras, India, Shanti Venkateswaran. "The first step out the door
of an apartment unit is undivided share, a space which cannot be
divided!"

Residents say they did protest back in the early 1980s.

But after the transfer of ownership from the state-owned
Perumnas housing company which built the units, representatives
of the new occupants' organization felt they had no authority to
intrude in people's privacy.

"We were informed by the city housing agency that we should
report violations to them, but we have had no response," said
Djunaedi Hamin, the organization's chairman.

Meanwhile, residents say, violations continue, like the
addition of tiles and even bath tubs in the upper floor units
which were not designed to carry the weight of ceramic tiles.

"It's their money, they can do what they like, I guess,"
Endang, a resident said.

Further south in the city, an occupant of a new condominium
voiced a similar belief.

"I'm not an occupant," says a lawyer. "I work with my
colleague who is using his unit as an office."

"It's his money, his unit, and no law says what he has to do
with it once it is bought," the lawyer said.

Although apartments are for residential space, he said his
colleague managed to use his unit as an office as he enjoys good
relations with the developer.

"Besides, who would dare approach occupants bringing home
different girls?" he said. Nobody is disturbed by office
activities, he added, as visitors come while other occupants are
out at work.

But occupants of higher cost apartments mostly comply with
basic rules like refraining from making a lot of noise and other
disturbing activities.

Some deviation is tolerated, like the furry occupants of the
Mampang Arcadia apartments.

As long as the cats are really housebroken, this is allowed,
an American occupant said.

Making sure everyone plays by the rules for mutual comfort
raises the need for an occupants' organization.

A 1988 government rule on apartments makes this compulsory for
units under individual ownership. But occupants of leased units
have also found a need to get organized.

In one of their frequent cocktail parties for occupants, a
manager of the Senopati Luxury Apartments in Kebayoran Baru,
Adwien Dhanu, said one small problem raised was the need to
inform housemaids to hang their employers' laundry a bit more
discreetly.

One other problem that occupant organizations and managers
might expect to take up is noise.

Venkateswaran, who lives in the Wisma Fairbanks apartments in
Senayan, points to the 24-hour activities of the expansion of
Plaza Senayan's office buildings outside her kitchen.

"I understand they have their deadlines," she said with
caution, "But at least give us a break on Sundays." (anr)