Minister blames poor laws for derelict land

Minister blames poor laws for derelict land

JAKARTA (JP): Inadequate laws limiting land ownership is a
major reason for the escalating amount of derelict land in
Greater Jakarta, according to State Minister of Agrarian Affairs
Soni Harsono.

The 1970 decree on land ownership limitations was no longer
effective, mainly because it did not specify how much land could
be owned by companies, Soni told a seminar on coast reclamation
and its environmental impact here yesterday.

The minister said that the 1970 decree issued by the minister
of home affairs only restricted people to owning five plots based
on the number of land titles issued.

In reality, he said, many people and companies in Jakarta
owned more than five plots.

"After buying the land, the owners do nothing on the plots and
leave them as they are without intending to develop them," Soni
said.

The decree also cannot prevent the activities of land
speculators and control the quickening rise of land prices.

This means the growing amount of neglected land has become one
of the main reasons why there has been a rapid reduction of
available land in the city.

"Neglected land contributes nothing to people's welfare
because it has no social function at all," Soni said.

Every inch of land, no matter who owned it, should have a
social function, such as in the form of public facilities, he
said.

"There should be tighter controls over giving land acquisition
permits and monitoring the system to prevent people from
neglecting land and causing public uproar," Soni said.

Analysis

According to property analyst Panangian Simanungkalit, the
growing amount of derelict land in the city, which totals about
33,000 hectares, is due to the government's poor law enforcement.

Speaking with The Jakarta Post yesterday, the chairman of the
Center for Indonesian Property Study said the land was abandoned
because many, mostly large-scale, developers had greedily bought
more plots than they could develop.

Developers in Jakarta, he said, had a capacity to build about
60,000 houses a year which means they would require 15,000
hectares of land.

"But, they cleared about 48,000 hectares, or 33,000 hectares
more than was needed," Panangian said.

He said that developers had already secured land acquisition
permits for about 121,000 hectares in Greater Jakarta.

"The amount of cleared land would increase even further if the
government granted more land acquisition permits," Panangian
said.

If the amount of abandoned land continued to grow, prices of
both houses and land in the city would rise accordingly, he said.
(ste)