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.