Mayors empowered to handle developers

JAKARTA (JP): The city's five mayors now have greater authority in insisting that real estate developers honor their obligation to build social and public facilities as required by law, an official said.

Deputy governor for administrative affairs Idroes told reporters yesterday that the extra authority was given by Governor Surjadi Soedirdja.

Therefore, the mayors are no longer in charge only of urging developers to abide by the existing regulations, but of receiving the facilities from the developers and managing them as well.

Decree

Based on gubernatorial decree No. 540/1990, private developers are obliged to build social and public facilities, including school buildings, places of worship and parks. The facilities have to be handed over to the municipal administration as city property.

"The transfer of responsibility from the governor to the mayors is intended mainly to give the mayors the freedom to force developers to fulfill their obligations," Idroes said.

He explained that previously the facilities built by the developers were handed over to the governor, while the mayors were in charge of encouraging the developers to speed up completion of the facilities.

The governor, Idroes said, has also instructed the mayors to take firm action against any developers acting contrary to the law. The action would include administrative sanctions, such as temporarily refusing to process their applications for building permits.

Idroes said that currently there are 175 registered real estate developers in Central, East, West and North Jakarta, but up until now only 81 of them have fulfilled their obligations. Most of them prefer to build more houses rather than set aside the land for public facilities.

Out of the 85 developers in Central Jakarta, only 39 have met their obligations, in East Jakarta 33 of the 44 developers have done so, while in West Jakarta 12 of 45 developers have carried out their duty.

"In North Jakarta PT Summarecon Agung, the largest developer in the mayoralty, has been given a deadline of Aug. 17 to finish the construction of the social and public facilities in a number of its housing projects," Idroes said. (yns)