More dwellings being used for commercial activities

More dwellings being used for commercial activities

JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta Building Supervision Office
has listed at least 179 houses in the area as having violated
building permits by being used for commercial activities, its
head said on Thursday.

Head of the office, Irmawati, said businesses being run in the
properties ranged from medical clinics, beauty parlors and cafes
to law firms.

"Most of them are located in the elite area of Kebayoran Baru,
such as on Jl. Wijaya, Jl. Barito and Jl. Hang Tuah," she said.

Irmawati added that her office had sent first warning letters
to the owners of all the 179 houses to give them an opportunity
to close their businesses.

"Property owners are only allowed to run businesses in their
homes in residential areas if they are small-scale, with, say
only five employees, and occupy no more than 35 percent of the
total space of the building," she said, referring to City Bylaw
No.7/1991 on building usage.

Irma said her office has been keeping records of defiant
residents in South Jakarta since 1994.

"So far, we have only been able to seal 14 places, including
the Tee Box Cafe and Millenia Boutique which were closed on
Wednesday," she explained.

Officials from the South Jakarta mayoralty office, accompanied
by local police, sealed off Tee Box Cafe on Jl. Wijaya II in
Melawai subdistrict and the Millenia boutique on Jl. Gunawarman
in Rawa Barat subdistrict on Wednesday morning for the same
reason.

Both the cafe and the boutique occupied the whole of the
buildings.

The City Tourism Agency issued a license for a beauty salon
and a small cafeteria with five employees to the owner of the Tee
Box Cafe, but the owner expanded the business into a cafe
employing 135 workers, Irmawati said.

As for Millenia Boutique, no city agency has issued a license
to its owners, she added.

The cafe owner, Irmawati said, has asked the city
administration to reopen the cafe and proposed a review of the
city's spatial planning rules, saying the cafe was located just
in front of the Grand Wijaya office complex.

"Rules are rules. The building is a residential house in a
housing area, where commercial activities are strictly
prohibited," she said.

Irmawati, however, admitted that it would not be easy to
immediately close the remaining 179 businesses as they were
already well-established. Some of them employ more than 100
people, she said.

"It's the City Tourism Agency's fault for issuing business
licenses to them without directly examining the exact location of
their proposed businesses and without coordinating with other
related offices and agencies first," Irmawati said.

But, she added, an exception had been made for the residential
area of Kemang since the cafes and other establishments there had
turned out to become tourist attractions. The governor has
decided to promote the area as tourist destination, called
Kampung Modern, she said.

Several years ago, many house owners in Kemang modified their
buildings into commercial properties, such as cafes, restaurants,
and art shops, which resulted in closure orders. (09)