Mayor makes good on warning, revokes permit

Mayor makes good on warning, revokes permit

JAKARTA (JP): East Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono said he would stop
issuing new building permits and certificates for land
appropriation to PT Quartalintas Sembada, the developer of the
Concord 2000 luxury housing complex.

The measure was taken because the company has failed to
fulfill its promise to build social and public facilities,
including parks, schools, sports facilities and an office
building for the mayor in the complex, Sudarsono told The Jakarta
Post yesterday.

He said he has previously reminded the company of its
responsibility to build the public facilities. "True, the
developer has provided a 20,000 meter square plot of land for the
facilities, but it has yet to build anything on the land."

Instead of building such facilities, the developer built its
marketing office in the complex. The mayor said the developer
would be given three months' to demolish the marketing office and
build sports facilities instead.

The mayor refused to go into details as to what action would
be taken against the developer if it continued to neglect its
obligations.

This is the second time that city authorities have taken
action against an errant housing developer for neglecting
obligations to build social and public facilities.

Saud Rachman, a city councilor from Commission D, in charge of
development affairs, urged the mayor to immediately stop the
activities of the developer, until it begins to build the
facilities, as required by the mayoralty.

"It seems to me that the company only thinks of the profit it
will gain by building the exclusive housing complex," Saud said,
after he and several other city councilors from the same
commission inspected the complex.

He said the East Jakarta mayor should follow in the footsteps
of North Jakarta Mayor Suprawito, who revoked building permits of
PT Summarecon, a major housing developer, for its failure to
comply with the bylaw on building social and public facilities.

Suprawito said on Thursday that his office was even
considering revoking land appropriation permits now held by PT
Summarecon and possibly even filing a law suit against the
company for continuing to neglect its obligations.

"I really mean it, because Governor Suryadi Soedirdja has also
called on city officials to be firm against errant developers,"
he emphasized.

The mayor disclosed that there are many "delinquent" housing
developers based in his mayoralty.

"PT Summarecon is one of them," Suprawito said as quoted by
Antara.

He said that actually he has repeatedly called on developers
to comply with the regulation requiring them to build public
facilities in each of the housing complexes they are building."It
appears that my warnings always fall on deaf ears, on the part of
the companies."

PT Summarecon Agung is a publicly listed company on the
Jakarta Stock Exchange. It holds nine land appropriation permits
for North Jakarta, enabling it to appropriate 307.6 hectares of
land.

Mayor Suprawito said that as of next week all building permits
issued to all developers, which have yet to comply with the
regulation, would be withdrawn.

"Let's wait and see," he said, adding that he would not
hesitate to take even harsher action against errant developers.

He pointed out that his office would take three steps to cope
with the problem.

"We will revoke their land appropriation permits, stop giving
administrative services to them and bring them to court," he
stressed.

Suprawito said Governor Suryadi has fully supported his
decision. (bas/31)