Municipality asked to punish PT Inti Utama Dharma over land

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor has urged the city administration to take firm action against PT Inti Utama Dharma Real Estate, developer of the Cipinang Indah housing complex in East Jakarta, because it has failed to build social facility, as required by the municipality.

Member of the Council's Commission D, which oversees development affairs, Saud Rachman said yesterday that the developer has misused a 3,000 square-meter plot of land, which was initially earmarked for a primary school.

"The city administration should investigate the East Jakarta city planning office and the developer. The development should be suspended and the city administration should impose a heavy penalty," Saud told reporters yesterday after meeting with the developer.

In short, he added, the developer should be held responsible for its failure to honor its social obligations.

Saud explained that every change of land use should get a permit from the governor. He said that he suspected there was collusion between the developer and the East Jakarta office of the city planning office, who issued the permit.

He said that Irsan Sutandinata, director of the company, confirmed it had built 11 luxurious houses on the site, with only one of those having a permit.

"This is strange and I suspect there was collusion between the developer and the office," he said.

The city administration has granted the developer a permit to appropriate about 116,466 square-meters of land in the Cipinang Muara subdistrict of East Jakarta.

The city administration requires the developer to build various social and public facilities, such as parks, schools (kindergarten and primary schools) and gutters.

In 1993, the developer signed an agreement with Mas Sunaryono, the then East Jakarta mayor, to build all the facilities on 47,839 square-meters of land, worth Rp 16.37 billion.

However, Saud said, the developer has only built facilities which are important for the complex, such as roads, gutters and water ducts, but failed to build other social facilities, such as the school.

"The 1993 agreement stated that a square meter of land is worth Rp 300,000. This means that the company owes Rp 900 million to the city administration for the school building alone," Saud said, adding there are other facilities which should be built by the developer.

Commenting on Irsan's reaction, who said that this is the usual action because many developers are implementing it, Saud said that in changing the use of the land, Irsan is wrong because this can only be done with the governor's approval.

Saud also said that by building luxurious houses, the company has also violated the appropriation permit because, originally, the permit was given to the company so that it could build modest houses. (yns)