Tebet fire victims may get apartment

JP/3/Fire

Tebet fire victims may get apartment

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor is throwing his weight behind the plan for the municipal administration to build low-cost apartment buildings for the Tebet fire victims at the fire site.

Informed sources at the governor's office said the municipal administration planned to build apartment buildings in the location, which is now still earmarked as a greenbelt area.

Ali Wongso Sinaga, a member of the City Council's commission in charge of housing affairs, told reporters yesterday that he had also learned of the plan.

"I think it is a good solution for the time being," he said.

He added that the fire victims should be given first priority to rent the planned apartment buildings.

However, Ali Wongso said that since the city spatial plan listed the fire site as a green belt area, a review on the city master plan was needed to anticipate the planned construction of the apartment building.

"Thus, the municipality needs to propose to the City Council a review of the master plan," said Ali Wongso. He added that he himself would have to approve such a review.

A total of 230 families made up of more than 1,000 people used to occupy the two hectare plot in West Tebet subdistrict, South Jakarta. They lost their dwellings following a three-hour fire Wednesday morning.

The fire, allegedly caused by an explosion of a gas stove at a furniture shop, razed all the houses and huts in the slum area and destroyed two makeshift marketplaces there as well.

Reportedly, the fire victims were still being housed in makeshift shelters built by the mayoralty administration not far from the fire site. The Indonesian Red Cross had also set up communal kitchen to prepare hot meals for them.

In the wake of the fire, the South Jakarta mayoralty ordered the local administration to bar the former residents from rebuilding the houses on the grounds, which are owned by the state. This was the lands was part of the planned green belt zone.

M. Yanis, South Jakarta mayoralty spokesman, said there were 22 hectares of land in the district allotted for green belt zone, including the fire site. The mayoralty had so far appropriated some 17 hectares of them.

However, former residents refuse to let themselves be labeled as 'squatters.'

They said they had moved to the area in 1964 under the late president Soekarno's administration, following the appropriation of their land in Senayan area, which was then turned into what is now Senayan stadium. (jsk)