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)