Would-be home owners complain to rights body
Would-be home owners complain to rights body
JAKARTA (JP): A delegation representing 700 disgruntled
housing consumers from the East Java capital of Surabaya brought
their dispute with an unlisted developer to the National
Commission on Human Rights here yesterday.
Delegation spokesman Agus Widodo told commission member
Clementino Dos Reis Amaral they have been denied their right to
land and housing ownership by the Sidoarjo Puskoveri housing
development unit.
Puskoveri is the Indonesian acronym for the cooperative run by
retired military officers.
"We have paid installments, which should have given us the
right to own the land and the housing units the developer had
promised us," Agus said.
The disputed housing complex is located across four villages,
Kemiri, Gebang, Wedoro Klurak and Kali Pecabean in Sidoarjo, East
Java. It covers a total of 70 hectares, Agus said.
In November 1993 about 2,100 people signed purchasing
agreements with the Sidoarjo Puskoveri, said Agus.
Two years later there were still no houses despite the fact
that many of them have paid installments, he said.
"The manager in charge of Sidoarjo Puskoveri's housing
development unit, Soekardjo Tjitro Handojo, had disappeared,"
Agus told the rights body.
Matters worsened when a Jakarta developer proposed a new
housing development scheme with terms unfavorable to the
customers, he said.
"Higher prices were asked for smaller plots, and even weaker
ownership status. There were also changes to the housing
locations," he said.
The new developer treated the consumers' installments, paid
since 1993, as a deposit and a down payment on the houses it was
planning to build, Agus said.
The sum of money paid in installments by the 700 consumers
totals Rp 2.5 billion (US$1.1 million), he said.
"The developer claimed it had used the money to buy the land
in the four villages. What right does the developer have to act
that way?" he asked.
Agus said Puskoveri will soon begin developing 88 simple
houses on disputed land in Kali Pecabean village in Candi
district. (26)