More preparation essential for apartment living

More preparation essential for apartment living

JAKARTA (JP): A noted sociologist says the city's plans to move slum residents to apartment buildings must start with programs to help the residents make the transition.

Sardjono Jatiman of the University of Indonesia said that the residents often are not given enough time to prepare.

"Often the time between when the plan is announced and when the residents are expected to move is less than a year," Sardjono said yesterday.

It's as if the officials make the announcements "only when they remember," he said.

"People are virtually told to live in apartments without giving consideration to whether they can manage to maintain their livings as before," he said.

If the city has plans to move slum residents in a certain area into low-cost apartments in five years, locals should know of the plans as soon as possible, Sardjono told The Jakarta Post.

Programs to prepare future apartment dwellers could begin with a group of people assigned to discuss problems and fears with residents, he said.

Meanwhile, Yan Mogi, the city branch secretary of the Indonesian Association of Real Estate Developers, said that even though the government provides special credits to low cost housing developers, only one company has taken up the offer.

"In Jakarta, the offer of Rp 200 million (US$85,579.80) is enough to buy a plot of less than three hectares," Yan told the Post.

He said the government's offer will be one of the subjects discussed at a seminar today in Padang, West Sumatra, which is being held in conjunction with the association's 24th anniversary.

Given the soaring prices of land and lack of space, Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has repeatedly said Jakartans must be willing to live in apartments.

Slum residents are also being told to live in apartments to meet better health standards.

However, in several cases, residents have sold their apartment units, fearing that they would not be able to continue earning their livings as before.

"It is not fitting to be selling leaves and live high up in the sky," a Pejompongan resident said earlier.

He said his neighbor, a vegetable vendor, was among the slum residents whose homes were razed by a fire in the area in 1994. The vendor and several other victims were told to move into an apartment building in the same area, only to sell their apartments later, the source said.

"A vendor worries that his whole 'network' will be ruined if he moves into an apartment, isolating him from the daily traffic of people," Sardjono said.

Sardjono agreed with Surjadi that apartments are the only solution if low-income people still want to live in the city.

But it cannot be assumed that residents will be able to afford the government-subsidized installments for the apartment units if they are not prepared, Sardjono said.

Sardjono cited a pilot "community empowerment" program set up between the university and the municipality.

Professors and students working through the university's sociological research institution called "Labsosio" have been working for three years with residents in five neighborhoods in Palmerah, Central Jakarta, he said.

The program, he said, is slowly beginning to change people's attitudes, from a feeling of dependency on outsiders to one of more self-confidence. (anr)