Official denies Palm Estate running illegally

Official denies Palm Estate running illegally

JAKARTA (JP): Head of the City Development and Supervision
Office Suharto Prodjowijono denied yesterday reports that luxury
houses at the Palm Estate complex in East Jakarta were built
illegally.

"It is not true that the developer has not completed all the
requirements in building the houses in the estate," Suharto told
the reporters at City Hall.

He explained that his office issued the building permit under
the name of PD Sarana Jaya, a city-owned housing company, which
applied for the permits for the development of houses on its land
in Pondok Kelapa subdistrict in East Jakarta.

Suharto said that his office has issued the permit for all
houses in the complex. "All of the houses have the development
permits," he added.

Suharto made the remarks in response to a threat made by East
Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono to refuse to process documents for the
development of the Palm Estate housing project if its developer
failed to show his office a building permit for the estate.

"If the developer cannot show the building permit to me this
week, I will stop all the developer's services. It means that the
developer will have to stop construction without delay," he said
on Thursday.

"I have asked about the permit many times, but they cannot
show it to me," said Sudarsono.

Suharto said, however, that the East Jakarta mayor should have
asked his office for information whether or not the developer has
the building permit before making the remarks.

Many houses in Palm Estate have reportedly been built by PT
Indofica Housing in cooperation with PD Sarana Jaya without a
permit.

The housing complex is being developed on a site belonging to
PD Pembangunan Sarana Jaya, a city-owned housing company, that
plans to build 207 luxury houses there. Of the 207 houses, half
have already been constructed.

The developer has been warned repeatedly by the East Jakarta
mayor to stop the construction of the housing complex.

Last week the East Jakarta mayor threaten to tear down the
houses under construction at the housing complex if PD Sarana
Jaya did not prove that the governor had approved its cooperation
agreement with PT Indofica Housing.

Any cooperation or transfer of activity in relation to the
permit must be approved by the governor in line with existing
rulings, Sudarsono said.

It was reported that at first the mayoralty intended to just
fine PT Indofica Housing because it failed to obtain a building
permit for the construction of 25 houses.

However, later it was discovered that PD Sarana Jaya owns the
7.5 hectares of land that the houses are built on.

East Jakarta mayor said that PD Sarana Jaya has so far failed
to produce any approval notice from the governor. (yns)

Editorial -- Page 4