T

he East Java administration has pledged to meet the provincial need for healthy simple houses (RSH) and subsidized flats.

Last week, the local government established a special team tasked with accelerating the development of RSH and urban subsidized flats in the province.

Established in conjunction with a regional meeting of the association of the Indonesian real estates (REI) East Java branch on Wednesday, the team is chaired by deputy governor Syaifullah Yusuf.

"We have a backlog of 535,000 healthy simple houses and subsidized flats as of the first semester of this year," Syaifullah said at the meeting.

This figure has sharply increased from that of three months ago, when the REI's East Java branch announced a backlog of 300,000 simple houses. An increase in the number of prospective customers has reportedly accounted for the rise.

Syaifullah said the provincial administration had acknowledged the problems that developers were facing in developing both RSH and subsidized flats including problems related to land procurement, infrastructure and administrative affairs.

To minimize the problems, therefore, he called on related officials in the provincial and regency administrations to help developers seek permits to develop RSH and subsidized flats.

"Providing easy access for the permits also means helping middle and low-income earners get houses faster and easier," he said.

Syaifullah also said the fee for getting permits to develop either a RSH or a subsidized flat needed to be lowered, while better zoning plans were required to ease infrastructure development.

"Such facilities are necessary to speed up RSH developments and curb the increase in the backlog of housing needs," he said.

He added the newly established team that he chaired would give rewards to regency and municipal administrations in the province that succeeded in building 5,000 new simple houses a year in their respective regions.