Ministers support city's low-cost apartment projects

JAKARTA (JP): The ministers of housing, manpower, public works and national development planning agreed yesterday to help the city administration fast-track the development of its six low- cost apartment projects.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the acceleration of the projects was signed during a ceremony yesterday by Minister of Public Housing Akbar Tanjung, Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief and Governor Sutiyoso.

Minister of Public Works Radinal Moochtar and Minister of National Development Planning Ginanjar Kartasasmita were represented by assistants.

The Rp 41.64 billion low-cost apartment in Pluit, North Jakarta, will be the first pilot project ever jointly constructed by the city administration and the four ministers.

The other five projects will be built in Cawang in East Jakarta, Petamburan in Central Jakarta, Meruya Selatan in West Jakarta, Pengadegan in South Jakarta and Sindang in North Jakarta.

There will be a total of 9,376 low-cost units built in the six locations.

"We have set aside Rp 200 billion to Rp 300 billion for this low-cost apartment scheme. The Ministry of Manpower is interested in joining the project because it is related to the welfare of city workers," Latief said after the ceremony.

"Many workers live in slum areas. As part of the city housing rejuvenation program, there is already some Rp 1 trillion set aside from the Jamsostek fund in the state-owned Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) to provide sufficient housing credit services for the workers."

He urged the municipality to proceed with the projects as soon as possible.

"The sooner the projects are completed, the better chance low- income workers will have to acquire an apartment. It will certainly be far more decent than living in slums."

Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs Tb.M. Rais said construction on the Pluit apartment was scheduled to start in April.

"The Pluit apartment is part of an integrated plan to be developed in North Jakarta, including the rejuvenation of slum areas along riverbanks.

"North Jakarta is the estuary of the city's 13 rivers. So it is important to free the riverbanks of slum areas and create better homes for the residents living there."

In Jakarta, he said, there are three categories of slum areas, namely high-, middle- and low-density areas.

The high-density slums have about 219,000 residents living on 465 hectares of land. A middle-density slum, spread over 1,874 hectares, is home to 572,000 people while the low-density category consists of 500 hectares with a population of 99,000.

Rais said the municipality had no choice but to proceed with the kampong rehabilitation program for middle- and low-density slum areas and modernize high-density slum areas by developing low-cost apartments.

"From 1992 to 1997 the municipality has managed to built 17,000 low-cost apartment units."

Sutiyoso said the signing of the MOU demonstrated the political good will between the municipality and the central government to help low-income people survive this turbulent economic period.

"As instructed by President Soeharto, I want to improve the city's performance. Therefore, I praise all the ministers for joining this program. We could not have started this project without their support," Sutiyoso said.

Akbar Tanjung said the participation of developers was badly needed but many shirked their responsibility to help construct low-cost apartments.

He acknowledged that the previous program, in which private companies were invited to build cheap houses on state land without evicting local residents, as stated in Presidential Instruction No.5/1990, did not run as well as expected mainly due to a lack of commitment from the city administration.

"Under this cooperation agreement, the project will hopefully come together quickly."

Tanjung said the city administration could take action against 153 developers who failed to abide by their obligation to build low-cost apartments.

"The administration can extend their business permits or just revoke those belonging to the developers who have not complied.

"Don't use the monetary crisis as a reason to avoid your responsibility (to build the apartments)."

Based on Gubernatorial Decree No.540/1990, developers, who hold permits to clear at least 5,000 square meters of land or more, are obliged to set aside 20 percent of their projects for the construction of low-cost apartments. (edt/ind)