Mayor gets tough on developers

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

In a bid to help improve public facilities in Tangerang municipality, Mayor Wahidin Halim has issued a ruling reinforcing the requirement for every housing developer to both allocate land for and construct public facilities within their developments.

"We plan to build high schools in each of the 13 districts in the municipality next year as a part of our education development program," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

He added that the administration would not only build schools, but also sports facilities and other public facilities on the sites provided by the developers.

According to the director of the Tangerang municipality settlement and infrastructure agency, Roestiwie, only eight out of 95 developers, who had constructed a total of 115 housing complexes in the area, had adhered to the administration's requirements.

Law No. 5/1992 on housing and Decree No. 1/1987 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs stipulate that each housing developer must allocate 40 percent of the area of its development for public facilities.

"Of the 95 developers, only 37 are still operating. The others had gone out of business before they had fulfilled the requirements," Roestiwie said.

Of the 37 existing developers, she added, only 18 had built public facilities within their housing complexes and were prepared to hand these over to the administration. The other 19 developers, she said, had yet to do so.

The agency's public facilities division head, Ivan Yudianto, said that a housing developer must provide public facilities after completing the construction of the houses.

"Each developer must build roads, a sewage system, drainage system, and gas, telephone and electricity networks. It must also provide places of worship, health centers, shopping facilities, parks, recreation facilities, sports facilities and a public cemetery," he said.

According to Ivan, the municipality had allocated some 3,745 hectares of land for housing to the 95 developers. To date, they had only built houses on around 1,470 hectares of land.

He blamed the 1997 monetary crisis as the main reason for the delay in developing the allocated lands.

Distribution of housing complexes in Tangerang municipality:

District Housing complexes

Ciledug 30

Cipondoh 26

Tangerang 24

Jatiuwung 22

Batu Ceper 8

Benda 5

Source: Tangerang Settlement and Infrastructure Agency