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)

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