Quick fixes make for lingering problems in Puncak
Quick fixes make for lingering problems in Puncak
By Johannes Simbolon
PUNCAK, West Java (JP): Oer is one of few Puncak natives who
has not been tricked by the land-selling spree that has seduced
his community.
"I'll wait until the price goes up to Rp 1 million (US$444.44)
per square meter," he said, smiling.
In Cibodas village, where he lives, current land prices are
between Rp 100,000 and 150,000 a square meter. Oer's land is
therefore not for sale for the time being.
Oer believes his four hectares of land, strategically located
on both sides of the main Cibodas road, can still feed his family
of four.
The green paddy and green mustard clearly illustrate the
fertility of his land.
"I can harvest seven tons of rice each year. It's enough for
my family" he said.
Most of Oer's fellow villagers sold their land to afford the
haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
"I'll go to Mecca someday after earning enough money from the
harvest," he said.
Besides, Oer also earns an extra Rp 500,000 a month from
selling flowers by the roadside. Selling flowers became a
lucrative business for locals once real estate complexes started
sprouting in the area two years ago.
The building boom in this lovely mountain resort followed the
invasion by wealthy Jakartans several decades ago. As a result,
Puncak, located in the Bogor regency, continually changes as
nature's beauty and abundance are replaced with villas and
housing estates.
Puncak, stretching from Ciawi to the Puncak Pass, looks
different from the neighboring Pacet, Sukaresmi and Cugenang
districts because it is dominated by villas. The other three
districts are dominated by newly developed housing complexes.
Both the houses and the villas are only visited by the owners on
weekends.
On the five-kilometer stretch linking the Puncak main road to
Oer's village there are 10 real estate complexes, many sprawled
handsomely around paddy fields.
With prices ranging from Rp 100 million to Rp 1.5 billion,
only wealthy Jakartans can afford the houses.
The urbanites' hunt for land and houses in Puncak, like their
yearning for Puncak's soothing breeze, will never be satiated.
Views of clean water flowing from the mountains to the valley,
the pleasing sensation of morning and afternoon dews, and the
green, misty hills will continue to lure Jakartans.
"Most of the land occupied by housing complexes used to be
farmland," Oer said.
Indonesian law forbids agricultural land in Puncak to be used
for housing estates. But the villagers collude with corrupt
officials to find loopholes.
Soleh, a land broker living in Palasari village explained the
trick. He first stops irrigating the land and leaves it fallow
for about a year, or until it is overgrown with weeds. Weed
ridden, the land is no longer categorized as agricultural and can
therefore have villas built on it.
"The officials at the Pacet Public Works Office taught us the
trick," Soleh said with a convincing chuckle.
Some villagers have sold only their paddy fields. They have
kept their houses and bought motorbikes for their children to run
as ojek (motorcycles for rent). The adults make a living as villa
watchmen and earn about Rp 150,000 a month.
Pain
Some villagers, those who find it too painful to guard houses
built on their former land, prefer roadside jobs.
"I don't like being a herder (German shepherd) to the
wealthy," said Enoh, a barbecued-corn seller in Puncak Pass who
lives in Cimacan.
Many others have sold everything, including their houses, to
pay for their haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
With the leftover money they buy cheap land in villages like
Cikalong and Pondok Koneng, near Tasikmalaya. The land is fertile
and is priced at around Rp 5,000 a square meter. They therefore
garner a big profit from selling their homes.
Cikalong and Pondok Koneng aren't cool or beautiful, but the
farmers don't seem to care.
"Such things as cold weather and a beautiful views are the
need of Jakartans, not Puncak people, who have seen and felt it
throughout their lives. They don't care about losing it,"
reasoned Suhendi, a law and order official in the Sukaresmi
district.
Mahmudin, the secretary of the Pacet district, said the number
of people who have sold their plots and moved to other areas has
increased alarmingly over the past two years.
Worried that the practice will lead the villagers to poverty,
some officials have tried to stem the flow by refusing to sign
land transaction papers if it leaves the farmers without a plot.
Their effort is usually futile.
"They insist on selling their land. We have no right by law to
stop them," said Mahmudin.
Many purchases are conducted without the knowledge of the
government officials.
Land speculators some times buy the land but allow the farmers
to continue cultivating the land and collecting the harvest
without having to pay for the lease. The farmers pay the
government land tax. The land speculators wait for the price of
land to rise before reselling it to new buyers.
"Seeing large paddy fields here, you might think that the
local farmers still possess a lot of land. That's not true. Most
of the land has changed hands and belongs to Jakartans, and the
farmers only cultivate the land as tillers," said Oer.
State land is sold differently.
Puncak has a large chunk of land which legally belongs to the
state but is now occupied and cultivated by area residents.
The land was once leased to several private tea entrepreneurs,
including the Sari Bumi Pakuan, Cibulan and Mega Mendung
plantation companies. Yet, because the companies neglected the
plantations, the farmers eventually occupied and cultivated the
land, and even sold it without the government's knowledge.
After buying the land, the new owners -- usually land
speculators -- hire local people to guard it for around Rp
150,000 a month.
The owners must pay the locals to watch the plots to stop them
from reselling the state land to other buyers.
"Many of my friends do that, but I don't. I am still afraid of
being punished by God after I die," said Somad, a neighborhood
chief in Tugu Utara.
Land is what Puncak is all about. And because God made it so
beautiful, many people want a piece of it.